The row over
General V.K. Singh's age has created fissures between the Army and the Ministry
of Defence. The main victim is the modernisation of the Army.
Irrespective
of the outcome of the Mexican stand-off between General V.K. Singh and the
Ministry of Defence (MoD) over his disputed date of birth, both the Army and
the Defence Ministry are eventually bound to be the losers in equal measure.
Sadly,
Gen. Singh's tenure, whenever he retires will be known principally for his age
dispute, attendant subterfuges by his predecessors to allegedly ensure their
favoured candidates' succession to the Army's top job and the MoD's
disingenuous role in what was seemingly an avoidable hullabaloo.
The
battle over “reconciling” the commander-in-chief's birth date will also go
down, without prejudice to either of the two disputants, as possibly the most
bizarre challenge ever faced by any modern military, leave alone the world's
third largest army.
But
closure in the matter, in a largely graceless and unforgiving system, will
almost certainly engender grief and bitterness in varying measure for the
feuding parties where such eventual outcomes are rarely, if at all, handled
with either goodwill or magnanimity.
Consider
the Hobbesian options:
If Gen.
Singh's honour is vindicated by the Supreme Court, backroom negotiations or
both, the Army despite avowals to the contrary, would consider it a long
overdue slap to the overbearing MoD.
Conceding 1951 to be Gen Singh's birth year would also
unquestioningly reinforce the chief's right to serve an additional 10 months in
office till March 2013 in order to complete the legitimate tenure to which the
solider, much lauded in recent weeks by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
administration, was appointed in March 2010. This would also make him eligible
for all “attendant benefits” including pay and emoluments as Gen. Singh has
demanded in his Supreme Court petition.
However, retiring Gen. Singh in May 2010 following a
“deal” or a “compromise” on vindicating his honour though well within the
government's purview, would effectively make Service rules infractuous,
rendering even critical military tenures negotiable entities by vested
political interests.
This recalls the equally significant, but highly
questionable appointment of Sanjeev Tripathi as the Research and Analysis Wing
(RAW) chief on December 30, 2010 — the day he was superannuating having
attained the age of 60 — after the incumbent K.C. Verma “voluntarily” advanced
his retirement date by one month, enabling his junior to succeed him and secure
an additional two years in office.
Mr. Verma
was reportedly “advised” by the UPA that “offering” to step down as RAW chief
30 days earlier, thereby facilitating Mr. Tripathi's ascension, would make him
eligible to head the signals intelligence gathering agency, the National
Technical Research Organisation. Thirteen months later, Mr. Verma is still
awaiting that appointment.
Conversely,
if the MoD prevails over the Army chief, its bureaucrats will chalk it up as
yet another, albeit belaboured, victory in their endless rounds of put-me-downs
of the uniforms which, in the larger sense really epitomises the Singh-MoD
controversy.
Has led to split
The
dispute has also created avoidable fault lines within the Services, with many
officers supporting the Chief and others believing him to be driven by personal
ambition.
Either
way, the losing side — whether that's the Army or the MoD, irrespective of the
ongoing frenetic negotiations seeking an equitable resolution — will sulk and
opportunity presenting, is sure to strike back. In short, widening fissures
between Army headquarters and the MoD, simmering for decades and now having
reached boiling point, will take long to be salved irrespective of the
placatory noises from both sides.
Issue of modernisation
Consequently, Gen. Singh's successor will, doubtless, be
more preoccupied with mending these ruptures rather than getting on with the
urgent brief of modernising the Army's matériel that desperately needs
rejuvenating to enable it operate in a turbulent, militarily sophisticated and
increasingly nuclearised neighbourhood.
The age
controversy, which has been rumbling ever since Gen. Singh took over and
reached a critical stage in May 2011, has already stymied the Army's
long-delayed modernisation with little or nothing having being achieved in this
field over the past two years, compared with the frantic activity in the two
other Services.
A mid-2011 report by the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and global financial consultants KPMG,
for instance revealed that since 2007, India had confirmed over $25 billion
worth of military purchases of which the Indian Air Force's share was $17.46
billion, the Indian Navy's $6.16 billion, the Indian Coast Guard's $616 million
and the Indian Army's a mere $420 million.
It remains an open
secret that the equipment profile of the army's combat arms — infantry and
armour — remains woefully inadequate whilst that of support arms like
artillery, air defence and the Army Aviation Corps (AAC) to name a few, is
equally deficient and obsolete.
By the Army's own
admittance, a large proportion of its Main Battle Tank T72M1 “Ajeya” fleet is
night blind as is the AAC, both of which constitute a crucial ingredient of the
controversial “cold start” doctrine of launching a pre-emptive offensive against
Pakistan in a limited war scenario to achieve negotiable military gains in a
nuclear weapons environment.
The
scandalous artillery deficiency is plagued by an endless cycle of tenders
issued, withdrawn and re-issued and several rounds of inconclusive trials
conducted, all further complicated by the MoD totally or conditionally
blacklisting several top howitzer vendors without providing clarity on their
respective status.
More worryingly, some
359 infantry battalions trained ironically for nuclear warfare await the import
of a basic weapon system: the 5.56mm assault rifle (AR) to replace the
inefficient, locally designed but costly, Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) AR
which the army has tentatively employed since the mid-1990's and now abandoned
after massive investments.
A tender for 66,000 ARs
was issued to 43 overseas vendors last November. Given the Army's and the MoD's
cumbersome field trials, evaluation and price negotiation procedures, a winner
is not likely to emerge for at least two years if not longer.
Alongside,
the army's Fast Track Procurement route to acquire equipment for operational
readiness with a 12-14 month timeline rarely ever meets that target, taking
twice if not three times as long to execute.
And while
Gen. Singh could not have even partially made good these deferred matériel
shortcomings during his tenure, the institutional antagonism his birth date has
generated is undeniably a reason that the Army's overdue modernisation drive
has had to be postponed, something that will eventually have an impact on the
country's defence posture. Is setting the record straight on his age the price
worth paying?
(Rahul
Bedi is India correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly and is based in New
Delhi.)
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