The Conversation Begins

Ghazala Wahab’s column First Person in the October issue of FORCE triggered a discussion among military veterans. While some criticized her point of view as a harsh broad stroke, many thought that it deserved a conversation. As a consequence of that some people wrote to FORCE with their perspective. One such response is published below

The Easy Way? Think again

An editorial piece in FORCE magazine started doing rounds in the veteran community on October 8. It was titled ‘The Easy Way.’

The article went to great lengths to criticise the veteran community for indulging in topics of geopolitics and other international affairs and not using its vast pool of experience to deal with subjects closer home, which would benefit the armed forces of India. The article’s tagline read: ‘If the veterans only talk of geopolitics, who will talk about the military.’ The author also elaborates on the reason for indulging in vague and inconsequential geopolitical issues—‘inferiority complex’ and ‘intellectual laziness’ because it is easier to ‘rehash’ material already published in international media and put together an article than to do individual research and come out with a worthwhile original piece on a contemporary matter. And all these are supposedly done to earn accolades as a ‘scholar warrior’ or a ‘thinking general’.

This is a very harsh assessment of a community. Let us examine if the allegations are entirely true. Does the veteran community only deal in geopolitical mumbo jumbo or do they express their opinion on matters affecting the Indian military. There were a few recent issues to which the veteran community had reacted vehemently. Let us take a few of them one by one.

First, the Agniveer issue.

The fifth-largest economy in the world and the world’s largest procurer of arms introduced a scheme called Agnipath in June 2022 because it could not afford the growing pension bill of veterans. The serving personnel were not in a position to criticize the policies of the government, so the veteran community spoke up. The impact of the scheme on the fighting potential of the services, the impact of the rather short training period on technical services like the navy and the air force, the low retention rate that would affect combat strength, etc., were commented upon by many veterans up to and including former service chiefs. This predicament of the Indian military did not feature in the foreign press, so it was clearly not a case of ‘rehashing’.

Next was the creation of Theatre Commands.

When the concept of Theatre Commands was introduced in the Indian context, the three services had different reactions. The stakes were different for the three services and accordingly, veterans of all three services expressed their respective feelings—exhilaration by the army, absolute indifference by the navy, and the stout opposition by the IAF. The rushed implementation of the scheme, the uncertain returns from the structural changes to the forces, the inevitable fight over scant resources between the theatres, the suboptimal utilisation of hugely expensive multi-role jet fighters of IAF, etc were all highlighted in numerous articles in almost all of Indian media. The US, Russia or China, which are quoted as examples by the government for the creation of integrated theatre commands, could not give a rat’s posterior how India divides its not-so-large geographic entity and fritters away its military resources. So, this was entirely a matter of the Indian military, and the veteran community did react.

Lessons learned from current conflicts.

For the students of military science, thankfully, enough conflicts are going on in the world to learn lessons from. Certainly, all the war colleges in the country and the think tanks are cataloguing them for posterity. Regular features appear in different media outlets listing lessons for India. They range from strategic implications of geopolitical shifts to regional security and alliances, technological advancements like AI-driven weapon systems, real-time data analytics for making informed decisions on the battlefield, the use of cost-effective UAVs, etc.

Similarly, there were numerous reactions from the veteran community and elsewhere on the attempted politicisation of the Indian armed forces. Superseding officers for the post of chiefs and the CDS, creation of selfie points in cantonments and military institutions, etc., have harmful effects on a hitherto apolitical force and the veteran community is quite vocal about it.

Surprisingly, the author has missed all the above instances of veteran involvement in India-specific military matters. The veteran community indulges in writing on military matters not to prove their intellectual capabilities but to voice their approval or disapproval of decisions by the ruling dispensation, if any.

Last year I attended the 75-year celebration of the National Defence Academy. There, the CDS had an interaction session with the veterans attending the function. After an exchange of some polite questions by the veterans and equally evasive answers by the CDS, it was put across by the CDS that running the armed forces is best left to the serving personnel and the veterans best fade away in golf courses, wherever they are. It was missed by the officer that the veteran community could speak what he dared not. Whether it will have any effect, or not, is beyond the control of both.

Talking about the think tanks in the country, if their output is found to be unsatisfactory, the problem lies more with the government and the service headquarters. If there are conceptual issues to which a service seeks solutions, these think tanks can be specifically tasked, somewhat like the Project Air Force at RAND. Otherwise, they will meander about in geopolitics and the vast domain of military science, from subsurface to outer space, and produce papers and hold seminars that will be good optics but will help none.

‘Soldier scholars’ or whatever they may be called, I am sure they are read by powers that be, in uniform or elsewhere, and the intellectually superior variety does get an idea of what feelings their decisions have generated among the larger community. Taking cognition of these feelings is of course their call.

Air Cmde TK Chatterjee(retd)

Additionally, founder-editor of Mission Victory India, C