The editorial goes on “The argument of the top brass in uniform that it is more a matter of honour rather than that of money underscores their sense of being discriminated against.” In elaboration it suggests that while as the norm in our country is for the armed forces to report to civil authority, a norm meticulously followed by the services all these years, civil authority cannot be substituted by civil service authority, which the armed forces see as humiliating. It is this confrontationist situation that needs the intervention of the political leadership.
Political leadership in our country is vote-bank-oriented and civil-service-dependent. It has had little awareness of space for the armed forces views and feeling, a cultural baggage to a fault. Armed forces are no vote bank. A large number of them in any case do note vote, they are busy getting on with their job wherever they are, disposed all over the country for from their constituencies, with little time and patience for postal ballot and electoral issues. And what help and service the servicemen can provide to nurture the kinds of politicians and policies our diversity and governance have spawned? The present confrontationist situation has come about because the intake in leadership echelon has gone into an alarming decline, premature retirements on an alarming ascent, and the top brass repeatedly showing hours from the south block in the ears of the government. The government offered a few sops through the deafeningly silent civil services-sixth pay commission, committee of secretaries and now group of ministers. What the GOM does is yet to be seen, as at the time writing. If increase in pay was one sop (it cannot be called an incentive yet), increase in the number of ranks (colonel to general officers) was another. These were lopped off by devaluing and reducing rank status vis-à-vis civil services personal, that touched the raw serve of the serviceman’s sense of honor and recognition as well. It also carried the certain conflict in role-play.
One needs to quote Samuel Huntington (The Soldier And The State) if only because no Indian intellectual or researcher has thought it fit to dwell on soldier-state-society relationship in our country with its own peculiar politico-socio-economic milieu. He writes “The motivations of the officer are a technical love for his skill and the sense of social obligation to utilize this skill for the benefit of society. Society on the other hand, can only assure this motivation if it offers its officers continuing and sufficient pay while on active duty and when retired.” In this situation if the society-the government - does not ensure this pay aspect then who is to do it? And if nobody is doing it in a sufficient manner why blame the services leadership for projecting and insisting on it? Our Constitution denies the services the right to form or join unions, indulge in dharna , strikes, public demonstrations, communicate to the press, write books or articles without services clearance etc. In the present instance it is the armed forces top leadership which has (projected the demand directly to the government it is serving and has access to - the one legitimate quarter and the only access-.) Its fault seen in many eyes is its determined insistence on converting sops into equitable incentives with rightful status, honour and recognition the servicemen deserve, the types of responsibilities they carry and effectively operate in the command and control structure the government puts in the sphere of national security, both external and internal.
The whole gamut of pay, status and honour have come to the fore for attracting intake in the armed forces (leave aside high class intake) and retain it for the maximum period of usefulness. Traditional attitude towards the soldier is that he is a second-rate, mentally and intellectually inferior. Physical strength has always counted for more than intelligence and intellectual strength, despite the iconic example of David against Goliath.) In Morris Janowitze’s words: “A liberal ideology –holds that since war is essentially destructive, the best minds are attracted to more positive endeavors. The impression exists among educators that the intellectual level of those entering the military profession via the service academies reflected the adequate effective and adequate minimum standards rather than any extensive concentration of students at the upper end of the intelligence continuum.” (”The professional Soldier”), further in the same book he refers to a study of US Army lieutenants “which suggests that the brighter ones resign as soon as they complete their obligatory service , while those less well equipped remain ,thus military against finding the brighter people in the upper echelons of the military hierarchy.”
In this eminent psychological study of military leader (”Psychology of Military Incompetence”) Norman Dixon says that intellectual ability has not always counted for very much in training for generalship; that academic requirements of the (military academics) are not wholly relevant to those actually required for competent generalship; and that denigration of progressive thinkers and powering score on men who challenged existing practices must surely have tended to stiffle any exercise of the intellect who wanted to get on, and deterred the gifted from ever seeking a military career. He goes on to add “Of the psychological problems which beset military officers few exceed in severity those associated with leadership. In this respect they are required to fulfill incompatible roles. They are expected to show initiative, yet remain hemmed in by regulation. They must be aggressive, yet never insubordinate. They must be assiduous in cating for their men, yet maintain on enormous social distance. They must know everything about everything yet never appear intellectual. The fact remains that a deliberate cult of anti-intellectualism has characterized the armed services.”
This and others like increasing consumerist attitude, big and quick money, and the huge pay packets and perks offered by the corporate, MNCs etc. are some of the main reasons for the declining intake, no doubt. McNamara rightly says; “Brains are like hearts, they go where they are appropriated.” In such a situation how are the services and the society going to change the thinking? What should they be doing towards: -
- Identifying intellectual and intelligence contents required in military leadership?
- Fostering, nurturing, encouraging and improving them in the military leadership?
- Retaining and optimally utilizing talent, intellect and expertise obtaining in military leaders?
That leads to the need of reviewing selection content and methods. The present selection system has been clinically analyzed by Maj Gen Suman in an earlier IDR issue. Such a review is also necessary for the content and methods of training officers progressively all through their service. Intelligence has to be fertile and sharp, while it is intellect, which puts it to good use, necessitating the presence of one and potential and scope for the other. Candidates from varying backgrounds and thinking, ideas and motives appear for selection and initial training. Employment considerations, family traditions, starry ideas of patriotism, serving the nation and suchlike, financial inducements, glamour and many others play their part in attracting or forcing candidates, who do not always have a clear enough understanding of what exactly in retail is required in their persona in order to get selected. Many low and slow starters turn into high fliers later, and vice-versa. Selection content and methods need to reduce the hit-and-miss chances in selection, by fine-tuning it through well thought out identification of requirements, attitudes, psychological make-up and mental horizon. Today’s combat scenario needs not only fighters but also administrators, managers, teachers, thinkers and technical experts, all conversant with combat demands and dangers, uncertainties and fatigue, and all having their mixes of intelligence and intellect, brain and brown, aggression and self-control.
Soon after entry the first agenda would be naturally to bring the background influences, attitudes, motives, thinking etc. on to the common denominator, namely, the aspect of soldiering, its content, nature, ethos, demands and characteristics, so as to subordinate individual predilections to the main theme. Excessive emphasis on drill, bull, obsessive orderliness, blind obedience and confirmity beyond rationality destroy individuality. Pontification on tradition, discipline, immunization to fear by group and mechanical, automatic actions, though necessary to an extent, drive towards attempt to homogenize individuality and destroy the thinking faculty, so essential in developing courage and innovativeness. In our training repertoire there is little emphasis on instruction regarding what professionalism is, what characterizes military profession, what it entails, what parts drill and tradition, discipline and obedience physical toughness and intellectual strength aggressiveness and self-control play and to what extent. Penchant for drill, strict obedience, unthinking conformity and strangle hold of tradition are all authoritarian ingredients that tie down leaders and help perhaps survival. But survival is not the goal of soldierly action; it is to win- a positive, active, aggressive action, and therefore needing sufficient room for ideas, innovative approach, out-of-box thinking and individuality. Our present system, an authoritarian, rigid, conventional, stifling one needs to create scope for individuality thinking, initiative, ideas and intellectual content, difficult though it is to loosen its authoritarian grip (of minimum basic survival demand and survival instinct). It is this authoritarianism-high on drill-bull and low on intellectual and initiative-that deters and put off those who have and want to use their brain.
The army itself also is a culprit. It seems to be deeply and senselessly embedded in routine, drill, waiting inordinately for something to happen or attending to small thing with fastidious meticulousness, wasting enormous energy and time, obsessed with no-mistake syndrome and keeping everybody on the hook all the time, be it in peace or wartime. No-mistake syndrome spawns over supervision, which, in turn, starts the disease of the senior doing his juniors job. The syndrome itself is fecundated by the desire to please his superior and create good impression.
Armed Forces are identified with dealing with violence, killing, destroying etc., for which they have to be ready to sacrifice, imbibe strict discipline, develop unquestioning loyalty and obedience and so on with less than necessary analysis of why these traits are required. Nevertheless these become the bottom line, with stress on the “minimum” and the “hazardous”. One wonders at this exclusive emphasis on the minimalist approach. Aren’t there other larger, maximal, aspirational lines above it? if so why don’t they find urention and emphasis? They don’t because they do not seem have been identified, developed and practiced as military service ethos, management imperative and military culture in the rush of meeting the bottom line. Military recruitment advertisements flaunt “can you do it” placards. Do what? Join and stick on to military service? In what expectation? To achieve what, satisfy what? With what avenues available? The above challenge is titilltive of human manliness, a matter becoming less relevant as women too have been entering the profession. Even “challenge” needs replacement by promises of “opportunity, awareness and scope” for the candidate to inspire, motivate and attract him to the profession to realize and enjoy his potential and pursuit. It needs necessary scope for intelligence, excellence and intellectual content, apart from financial recompense for attracting entry into the profession and falling in live with the conditions and restriction imposed by it.
Now what about motivation to continue in service? Financial incentives serve the purpose up to an extent and no further. Thereafter it is job satisfaction, sense of honour, status and pursuit of personal excellence. That is what the service chiefs have highlighted too. Job satisfaction is possible only if ideas, innovative sprit, constructive criticism, frank opinion and exercise of expertise and chosen skills are allowed necessary space, tolerance and understanding; if these are encouraged and sustained and permitted to develop and be practised. More than a thousand officers are wanting to leave the army, nearly ten thousand officer vacancies exist, with hundreds of entry vacancies in the academy going undersubscribed. The existing environment, works ethics and restriction under the garirs of discipline, obedience, tradition and so on deny job satisfaction because of senseless waste of time in adhering to form rather than substance; because of depriving officers of private time and scope for personal pursuits; because of organizational and its higher leadership failure to help subordinates widen their mental, intellectual horizons and pursue their personal inclinations in these spheres. In its holy mantra of “career profile” the system appears to prepare pegs to fit into all kind of geometrical holes. For example engineer officers gathering MES expertise are transferred in their contributive years into general staff. So is it for Border Roads. Those attuned to long years of command experience are thrust into senior staff appointments and vise-versa, an invitation to disaster. Preparing officers at their contributive stage in career as jacks of all trades generates a lot of job disillusionment.
Job satisfaction entails providing opportunity and scope to the officer to develop skill and expertise, and then to put them to practice in his service, particularly when he reaches professional adulthood and contributive period of his career. It has a close relationship with intellectual bent as well as desire for pursuit of personal excellence. Intellectual pursuit does not mean gathering doctorates in science, arts and literature, (though they help to an extent). It means providing berth for a vision, a look- beyond and relating his professional undertaking with other human activities-scientific, social, economic, administrative and many others-. It is in this development that throws up a vision that the armed forces are pretty thin. There is no “vision paper” for officers career, contribution and conduct. Large number of officers want private time, personal study, break from long periods of office routine and escape from over supervision. They want to pursue their interest, hobbies, inclinations, and also contribute to the profession. They listen to what Bertrand Russel says “The performance of public duty is not the whole of what makes a good life, there is also the pursuit of private excellence.” It will be of interest to study the part played by vision (more an exception in the leadership than professionally fostered) in The crossing of the Meghna, and lack of it (a general condition of leadership) in the 1962 NEFA debade. Srilanka episode of 1987-90 was probably an example of intellectual weakness and misplaced vision, which resulted in that “march of folly” (Barbara tuchman’s monumental work).
For the first time in sixty years the matter of serviceman’s view has come to a head. The government and the society have to tackle the financial aspect of soldiers incentive, as is rather firmly being insisted upon by the service chiefs. How far the government and the society tolerate the service chief’s pressure in accommodating their demands, and how for the service chiefs stretch their persistence need to be watched. That is likely to lay the first foundation stone of a healthy convention between civil-military relations, if only the politician throws out his apprehension of a military coup. This foundation will also have to include the unique content of the serviceman’s demand for due status, honour and recognition. Secondly, both the government and the services, the latter in particular, need to make room for the serviceman’s job satisfaction and intellectual development. There is a need to review the identification of requirements in the entry candidates, method of breaking him in for professional imperatives, followed by educating him on intellectual plane, and employing him in an optimal manner that gives him job satisfaction and a sense of contribution, in order to retain him in service and add qualitatively to the military leadership content.
By and large the soldier and the ex-soldier have been progressively devalued and given low priority in the public eye, the government and, much more regrettably, the civil administrative machinery at the state and district levels. In some northen states the soldier continues to remain in their eye, but in the rest of the country he is neglected. Particularly so in matters of revenue, litigation, property and legal cases, where he has to remain away for long periods. Soldier Boards in most states are helpless, powerless, inadequately staffed. Civil officials-DCs, secretaries and ministers have little interest in their functioning, with little or no communication between them for years together, leave aside interaction. This state of affairs has to change. Soldier needs to be at par with other concerns of civil administration, with a couple of concessions, namely those of being heard quickly and disposed off quickly and reducing the legal wrangles he has to go through while he is immersed in the exigencies of service, while paying a heavy price on his return to the ex-serviceman’s status.
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