The Making of Leaders

Col Yogander Singh (retd)

The year 1991 stands as a watershed in the trajectory of Indian military leadership. During 1947-1990, the Indian Army was headed by a succession of chiefs who had received their education in normal colleges and chose a career in the army as adult graduates. However, post-1990, the apex level army leadership mostly came via Sainik School–National Defence Academy (NDA) route. They were put on a pre-determined career path as young adolescents of around 10-12 years and have since then been leading a regimented life controlled by the uniformed class with all the consequent outcomes that included celebration of physical prowess over cerebral and unquestioning obedience preferred over a questioning mind. Has such a change provided better generals for the army?

My hypothesis is that it does not seem so.

The Indian military, during 1947-1990, played a critical role in protecting India’s fragile postcolonial democracy through the vicissitudes of India’s chaotic politics. Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa as the first Indian chief of the armed forces firmly distanced the army from active politics. This trend was reinforced by General K.S. Thimayya when he offered to resign when faced with an obdurate defence minister. He eventually took back the resignation to uphold the dignity of the office of the Prime Minister when prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru requested him to reconsider.

The instance of prime minister Indira Gandhi asking Field Marshal (then Army Chief) Sam Manekshaw whether he was planning a coup and his response unequivocally defining his role as army chief is well known. The Field Marshal reportedly said, pointing to his nose, “I don’t use it to poke into other’s affairs.” Later, when the prime minister declared Emergency in 1975, the opposition implored the army to dethrone Gandhi, while she asked the army to support the implementation of the emergency. The army did neither.

In a paper titled The Dog That Did Not Bark: The Army and the Emergency in India for Carnegie Endowment Aqil Shah wrote, “The Indian military’s actions were shaped by institutional standards of appropriate behaviour which made the notion of a constitutionally prescribed civilian supremacy inviolable and legitimate”. However, at the same time, General T.N. Raina refused to accede to the then defence minister Bansi Lal’s request for troops and army water carriers for a political rally. He also refused to assist in imposition of emergency. “You are not a part of the emergency and keep away from politics,” he is reported to have remarked. This finely balanced response to competing demands of the opposing political groups was rooted in the legitimate understanding that the army, in the words of General G.G. Bewoor, “Must protect itself against political influences that could shatter its professional cohesion and erode its capacity to defend the state against external aggression or internal conflict.”

But since 1990, the situation seems to have taken a turn for the worse. The most glaring example of the failure of the army leadership was its attempt to hide its quiet acceptance of a tactically suicidal embargo that the Atal Behari Vajpayee government placed on it during the 1999 Kargil crisis. The government instructed the army not to cross the Line of Control (LC), an injunction that led to unnecessary casualties among the assaulting troops. Apparently, the army chief General V.P. Malik told Prime Minister Vajpayee, “Sir, we will follow the mandate but please do not speak about it in public.” This was reported by PTI news agency and published in The Week on 14 July 2019.

Later, the much-touted hasty mobilisation followed by a quiet demobilisation in 2001 under General Sundararajan Padmanabhan is another example of non-calibrated response that was needlessly prolonged. Another low was reached when a section of media reported attempted coup by a chief who was engaged in a court battle to decrease his age by one year. Since 2014, fears of ‘politicization of the army’ are being regularly raised, and even serving senior officers are being accused of partisanship—a member of the main opposition party even called the army chief a street fighter for his controversial remarks. Nadir seems to have been reached with the army acceding to the implementation of the deeply-flawed ‘Agnipath’ scheme.

Even on operational matters, we seem to have come a long way from the time when General K. Sundarji mobilized nearly 5,00,000 troops for Exercise Brasstacks, giving wings to the idea of coercive diplomacy and successfully exercised deterrence by moving a brigade to encircle the intruding Chinese in Sumdorong Chu valley, forcing them to withdraw. When questioned by the political executive, he replied that he did what he as military commander felt was necessary and if the government did not agree, it had the option to look for his replacement. He also fathered futuristic concepts like Reorganised Plains Infantry Division, Air Assault formation and Army Aviation. Post June 1990, one can think of only General B.C. Joshi who may come somewhat close to Sundarji.

Achilles Heel

There will be many reasons for the perceptible decline in the quality of senior military leaders between 1947-90 and 1991-2024. However, the most striking difference between the two lies in their formative years, that is the period of adolescence and teens. Those who helmed the army till 1990 grew up in the midst of the larger Indian society, were educated in the mainstream educational institutions and joined the army as graduates.

On the other hand, those who have been rising to the top positions in the army since June 1990 are the ones who have spent their adolescent and teen years in highly stratified and isolated campuses of the Sainik Schools and NDA. The career decisions were taken for them very early by their parents and education imparted by a uniformed staff.

The ‘education’, if imparted, to t