This article was written in March 2013 for the CLAWS (Centre for Land Warfare Studies) Journal and is published in its latest edition for Summer 2013, released this week.
HIGHER DEFENCE MANAGEMENT IN INDIA: NEED FOR URGENT REAPPRAISAL
Nations which fail to develop a balanced
pattern of civil-military relations squander their resources and run
uncalculated risks.
Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, October 1998
In his two part treatise entitled The Soldier and the State and India’s Civilisational flaw: Isolation of
the military, then Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat had tried to
trace the origins of the working of the Ministry of Defence in independent
India and the evolution of civil-military
relations since 1947.
In light of his subsequent dismissal less
than two months after he released the two essays, many have wondered if the
Admiral, known for high professional competence, had inkling about his
impending ouster and was therefore putting it on record what he felt was wrong
with India’s higher defence management!
Much has been written and debated about the
Admiral Bhagwat saga; his run in with the then defence minister George
Fernandes; the machinations of the civilian bureaucracy in plotting the Navy
Chief’s abrupt ouster and its fallout on the already fraught civil-military
relations. A stickler for rules, Admiral Bhagwat rubbed many powerful people
the wrong way and paid the ultimate price.[i]
Nearly a decade and a half later, South
Block, the colonial era building that houses the Indian Prime Minister’s Office
as well as the Defence Ministry, was rocked by another face off between a
military chief and the politico-bureaucratic combine. The mishandling of the
Gen VK Singh ‘birth date’ issue[ii]
again starkly brought forth the fissures within the top hierarchy of the Indian
Army as well between service headquarters and the civil bureaucracy in the
Ministry of Defence.
The controversy over the Gen VK Singh issue
in early 2012 degenerated into a very public spat between the Ministry of
Defence and the then Army Chief, once again forcing analysts to ask the
question: Has civilian control of the military in India become synonymous with
bureaucratic control?
The answer from military leaders is an
unequivocal Yes.
Bureaucrats, officers of the elite Indian
Administrative Service (IAS), never agree to this contention. They continue to
maintain that all that the IAS does is to carry out orders of the political
executive.
This, at best, is half truth.
The political executive, barring a handful
few, neither has the knowledge nor any interest in matters military and
therefore depends completely on inputs from the bureaucrats who continue to
mould the political leadership’s thought process according to their own
perceptions on governance and administration.
Admiral Arun Prakash, former Chief of Naval
Staff and a prolific commentator on national security affairs has this to say
about the equation between the Ministry of Defence and Service Headquarters:
“Two major factors have contributed to the systemic dysfunctionality that we
see in the management of national security affairs. First is politician’s
detachment and indifference towards matters relating to national security,
because this is not an issue that can win or lose votes.
Since politicians have not considered it
worthwhile establishing a close and cordial relations with the leadership of
the armed forces, it is not surprising that when faced with a crisis or problem
politicians finds themselves at a complete loss. A related factor is the total
reliance that the politician places, for advice, decision-making and problem
resolution, on transient, generalist MoD civil servants, drawn from diverse
backgrounds. This, despite the Chiefs and the highly specialized Service HQ
(SHQ) staffs being at his disposal for tendering advice in the management of
national security.”[iii]
The
military leadership has always railed at this ‘imbalance’ in the decision
making structure at the highest levels but has been unable to change the system
so far.
Civil-military relationship in the country
post-1947 is replete with episodes that suggest constant state of tension
between the ‘generalist’ bureaucracy and the ‘specialists’ military leaders,
with the political executive watching and sometimes encouraging the bureaucracy
to keep the military under control.
The political executive, starting with
India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, has generally excluded the
military leadership from the decision making process at the highest levels. Adm.
Vishnu Bhagwat, himself a victim of politico-bureaucratic machinations, wrote
in his treatise The Soldier and the State:
“By selective usage, omission and interpretation of language, it (civil
services) has continuously imposed a variety of constraints, checks and curbs
on the very functioning of the armed forces in general, and the business of
service headquarters in particular. This has virtually isolated and
marginalised the defence forces from all processes which go into formulation of
national policies and agendas, even in the cardinal sphere of national security.”[iv]
The effort to cut defence services down to
size had begun immediately after Independence. The Indian Army, which was a prime instrument of the British
hard power across the entire empire, was often called out to suppress protests
during India’s freedom struggle. Many leaders and political stalwarts who were
at the receiving end of the crackdown had naturally developed an aversion and
suspicion against the Indian military, mainly the Indian Army troops. But Adm Arun Prakash effectively busts the
myth that the Indian military pre-1947 was unpatriotic.
He writes: “In early
1946, politically-conscious, sailors of the Royal Indian Navy mutinied, and the
insurrection spread right across the country, with units of the RIAF, Army Signal
Corps and Electrical and Mechanical Engineers joining their naval comrades in
revolt. These events not only inspired and galvanized the freedom movement in
India, but also struck fear into British hearts. General Wavell, the C-in-C
admitted in a secret report: “It is no
use shutting one’s eye to the fact that any Indian soldier worth his salt is a
Nationalist…” Disciplined Services never dwell on mutinies, regardless of
the cause, and that is why these events rarely find mention in our armed
forces, but the powerful impact on the British Sarkar of these acts of great
moral courage, must not be disparaged, belittled or forgotten. The phase
immediately post-Independence too, was extremely difficult for our fledgling
republic. To forget the sterling role played by the armed forces during the
violence and turbulence of partition, and in integrating the recalcitrant
princely states would be an act of rank ingratitude.”[v]
Despite this, the
ill-informed and suspicious political class thus found it only too convenient
to keep the military at bay.
Before
Independence the status of the Commander in Chief (C-in-C) in India was second
only to that of the Viceroy. As a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council he
was also the de facto Defence Minister. He was served by his uniformed
Principal Staff Officers (PSOs) and the Defence Secretary who, incidentally,
was below the PSOs in the order of precedence. The role of the Defence
Department was not to examine proposals, or to sit in judgement over the Army
Headquarters, but was restricted to issuing orders in the name of the
Government of India.
In the
interim government of the transitional period a Defence Member was included in the
Viceroy's Executive Council. Soon after independence the War Department and the
Department of Defence were merged to form the Ministry of Defence (MOD). It was
then enlarged suitably to take on such other higher functions of defence
management—threat assessment, force levels, budgeting, defence production and
so on—which till then were attended to by the Service Headquarters in the
United Kingdom.
Independence also necessitated creation of structures to
establish parliamentary control over the military. In 1947 a committee of three
senior Indian Civil Service (ICS) officers had suggested structuring of the MOD
on the lines of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and, in the process, had
also aimed at lowering the standing of the military officers much in the same
way as that of the police officers in relation to the ICS. It was Lord
Mountbatten who ensured that the Service Chiefs retained their status higher
than the Defence Secretary. Mountbatten’s Chief of Staff Lord Ismay, not
wanting to rock the boat in those turbulent times suggested the formation of a
high-level committee to look after service matters instead ordering a radical
restructuring.
In essence
the decision-making process was to have the benefit of independent inputs from
the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), the Defence Minister's Committee (Service
Chiefs were members of this Committee) and the Defence Committee of the
Cabinet. These in turn signified representation of the Services, mechanism for
the bureaucratic processing, and of course political control. The Service
Chiefs interacted directly with the Cabinet through the Defence Cabinet
Committee.
Sixty-six years after Independence, it is no secret that the
political-military interface is all but absent in India’s institutional set up.
The armed forces are completely under the day-to-day as well as policy control
of the MoD. The desirable politico-military interface is now reduced to weekly,
sometimes fortnightly meetings chaired by the Defence Minister. According to
several former chiefs this author has spoken to, these meetings are informal,
without any agendas or note taking and have no official status although in theory,
the Defence Minister is deemed to have given policy directions in these
meetings!
Former Army
Chief Gen. Padmanabhan, who was leading the Army in the crucial period when
India mobilised its entire Army under Operation Parakram in 2002, has rarely
written or spoken about matters of national security since his retirement 2003.
However in
his book, published in 2005, Padmanabhan had this to say about meeting of
Service Chiefs with the Defence Minister: “Even at the level of the defence
minister and Service Chiefs, exchanges on major matters of defence policy were
few and far between, the Defence Minister’s weekly meetings with the Service
Chiefs being used to update the minister and equip him to negotiate questions
in Parliament. Often, these meetings were deferred, as ‘more important’
activities claimed the time of the minister…The result was…the greater role and
authority assumed by the Defence bureaucracy. The Defence Secretary, with his
nearness to the Defence Minister, often began to exercise power on the
minister’s behalf and was, quite often, regarded as de facto defence minister.
The ‘supremacy of the civil over the military’ was thus effectively changed
from supremacy of the political authority to that of the civilian bureaucracy.”[vi]
The downhill
journey began very early after Independence. It accelerated particularly during
the Nehru-Krishna Menon period. Menon, a man with strong likes and dislikes, as
Defence Minister, rode roughshod over the military and disregarded professional
advice from military leadership. In 1959 Gen KS Thimayya, regarded as one of
India’s finest soldiers, who had a run in with Menon over a professional
matter, resigned in protest but a crafty Pandit Nehru manoeuvred the entire
episode in such a way that it ended humiliating the highly respected general.
Inder
Malhotra, veteran journalist describes the event thus: “S. Gopal (Nehru’s biographer) perceived
the Thimayya-Menon episode as "a comic-opera putsch". According to
him, Nehru dealt with it in Parliament "in such a way as to strengthen
Menon's position and shrink Thimayya's reputation. He stressed the importance
of the government's control of the armed forces and hinted that Thimayya had
acted irresponsibly."[vii] Nehru
and Menon may have won a temporary victory over the military but in less than
four years the nation paid the price of undue political meddling in
professional military affairs in the form of a military debacle in the month
long border clash with China in 1962!
Over the next decade, the
military emerged out of the setback much stronger and delivered a most emphatic
victory over Pakistan in 1971. The events leading to that famous victory and
the creation of Bangladesh are too well known to recount here but suffice it to
say that the Indian military displayed absolute competence and professionalism
in less than a decade after a massive defeat against China. That India as a
nation failed to build on the 1971 triumph is one of the tragedies of modern
times.
Through the Seventies, Eighties
and the Nineties, the bureaucracy continued to acquire disproportionate powers
vis-Ã -vis the Service Chiefs and now it’s a given that the Defence Secretary
and NOT the Service Chiefs, is the single-point adviser to the Cabinet on
matters military. For he and the Cabinet Secretary have a consistent interface
with the political leadership with the Service Chiefs attending the meetings of
the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) only if invited.
The bureaucracy conveniently
points to the “Government of India Transaction of Business Rules” (ToB Rules).
Framed in 1961 under the constitutional powers of the President of India these
documents continue to guide the conduct of business by the Government of India.
It is instructive to read the
document. Under these rules, the three service
headquarters were designated as “Attached Offices of the Department of
Defence”, and are therefore placed in a position subordinate to the DoD. The
Service Chiefs, as professional heads of the three armed forces and with an
experience garnered over a period of at least four decades, found no mention in
these rules.
The Secretary Department of
Defence on the other hand, according to these rules, is responsible for[viii] Defence of India
and every part thereof including preparation for defence and all such acts as
may be conducive in times of war to its prosecution and after its termination
to effective Demobilisation. The Armed Forces of
the Union, namely, Army, Navy and Air Force, Integrated
Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence comprising of Army Headquarters, Naval
Headquarters, Air Headquarters and Defence Staff Headquarters.
So the Defence Secretary, a
generalist IAS officer, and not the military brass, is responsible for national
defence as well as conduct of war! Under the current rules the Service Chiefs have
neither been accorded a status nor granted any powers in the government
edifice. In the
process it is the Service Chiefs who got marginalised from the decision-making
bodies.
In fact, it would be laughable
had it not been so serious to note that much like the Service Headquarters,
there are attached offices in every ministry under Government of India.[ix] Some of
them include:
·
Directorate of
Field Publicity (Ministry of Information & Broadcasting)
ATTEMPT TO REDRESS
THE BALANCE
Following the Kargil conflict of
1999, the government appointed the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) under renowned
strategic thinker and writer K Subrahmanyam. Its recommendations, among other
vital issues, focussed on reorganisation of higher defence management.
The KRC recommendations followed
formation of a Group of Ministers (GoM). It set up four task forces on intelligence
reforms, internal security, border management, and higher defence management to
undertake in-depth analysis of various facets of the management of national
security. After year-long deliberations the GOM, among other comments observed:
“There is a marked difference in the perception and crisis of confidence among
civil and military officials within the MOD and Services HQs regarding their
respective roles and functions.
“There was also lack of
synchronisation among and between the three departments in the MOD, including
the relevant elements of Defence Finance. The concept of ‘attached offices’ as
applicable to Service HQs; problems of inter-se relativities; multiple,
duplicated, and complex procedures governing the exercise of administrative and
financial powers, and the concept of ‘advice’ to the Minister; all these had
contributed to these problems.”[x]
Having identified the problem,
the GoM, led by then Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani made many far-reaching
recommendations. Some key points were:
·
Creation of
the post of chief of Defence Staff (CDS), whose tasks was to include inter-services
prioritization of defence plans and improvement in synergy among the three
services
·
Creation of Headquarters
Integrated Defence Staff (IDS)
·
Formation of
a tri-service Andaman and Nicobar Command and a Strategic
·
Establishment
of tri-service Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)
·
Creation of The
National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) for gathering electronic and
other technical intelligence.
More than a decade after these
recommendations, many of the decisions with the exception of the most crucial
one—that of the appointment of a CDS—have been implemented. While there will be
different opinions on the efficacy of many of the organisations such as HQ IDS,
NTRO, DIA and the effectiveness of the Andaman Nicobar Command, the fact is the
distrust between the military leadership and the civilian bureaucracy continues
to be a major impediment in implementing this set of defence reforms. The CDS
envisaged as a single-point military adviser continues to remain elusive mainly
because there is no political or military consensus and the bureaucracy is
happy to play along.
Meanwhile civil-military
relations remain fraught.
A major showdown between the
three service chiefs and the bureaucratic-politico combine over the
recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission in 2008 is a case in
point. After
the 6th Pay panel submitted its report, a committee of secretaries was set up
to look into various anomalies that were brought to the notice of the
government. The service headquarters had reasoned with the ministry that since
the armed forces make up for 30 per cent of the government employees, they
should have a representative on the committee. But their request was not
heeded. Instead, the service chiefs were told their concerns would be addressed
without prejudice and with sympathy.
This assurance was taken at face value but when no
communication was received from the committee of secretaries, Chief of Naval
Staff, Adm. Sureesh Mehta, in his capacity as chairman of the chiefs of staff
committee, asked for the details of the decisions taken in the committee. He
wanted to see that the armed forces' concerns were adequately taken care of.
But the Committee of Secretaries did not deem it fit to respond to the
admiral's plea. So when the cabinet approved the amended sixth pay panel
report, it was assumed all the pending issues were taken care of.
But to the great consternation of the service headquarters,
not only were their major grievances not addressed, three more anomalies,
indeed, glaring discrepancies, were introduced by the committee of secretaries
in the final cabinet notification.
For the armed forces, this was the last straw. This was worse than the
aftermath of the 5th pay commission a decade ago when 48 anomalies were pointed
out by the armed forces but only eight were resolved over a 10 year period till
the 6th Pay Commission was notified!
It took some time for the reality to sink in but when the
anomalies were noticed, all the three chiefs decided to take up their case with
defence minister AK Antony. After the meeting, Antony was convinced of the
logic presented by the three chiefs. So he apparently asked his ministry
officials to prepare a detailed note in support of the services' demand to
resolve the core issues and send that communication to the Finance Ministry and
the Prime Minister's Office for necessary action.
The core issues, the three service chiefs felt, would affect
command and control functions in the field especially between the Army and
para-military forces and the navy and the coast guard, to cite just two
examples. Having taken their case to the defence minister, the three chiefs
felt they would at last get justice. Shockingly however, the finance ministry
and the PMO were presented a completely diluted case. Left with no other
alternative, the chiefs then took up their case with the Prime Minister himself
who too agreed that their concerns were genuine and should be resolved
favourably. The only catch was: the MoD had not sent the requisite supporting
documents!!
In the meantime, neither the Prime Minister nor the Defence
minister could meet because of their pre-scheduled foreign visit. That's when
the three service chiefs decided that they would delay the implementation of
the flawed 6th Pay Commission report. Simultaneously, they decided to
communicate this decision to their men down the chain of command. The internal
communication by all three chiefs in fact spoke about the need for not falling
prey to rumours and speculation. [xi]
This act by the three chiefs in unison led to some trenchant
criticism from prominent media commentators like Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta. He wrote: “For the first time, these incumbents
(Service Chiefs) have stood in defiance of civil authority as no military
chiefs have ever done in India's history. And howsoever genuine their grievances
over the pay commission — as they seem to be — they have set a precedent that
future generations of Indians, and even their own successors in years to come,
will come to regret. Their decision to not notify the cabinet order on the pay
commission was unprecedented and shocking. True, they were cheered along by the
increasingly vocal community of ex-servicemen, many of whom harbour
long-standing, deep and justified suspicion of the bureaucracy, and who were in
turn egged on by one campaigning TV channel, Times Now. They saw this pay commission as one more
too-clever-by-half effort by the babus to push the military a peg or two lower
in terms of both money and protocol. They weren't entirely wrong. But was this
— the three chiefs turning themselves into a group of defiant trade union heads
— the only way to handle it?”[xii]
Many military veterans raised objections to Shekhar Gupta’s
comments. Even I had an occasion to write: “If the above signal, as the
communication is called in military parlance, is defiance then no military
chief will ever be able to give assurances to and take his men in confidence.
Anyone who has dealt with the armed forces will tell you that there is not an
iota of truth in the canard that is being spread about the three chiefs
"defying" the civil authorities. Yes, they questioned the
bureaucracy's attempts to wittingly or unwittingly introduce pay and status
disparities between the armed forces and their civilian counterparts. Yes, they
took the matter to the Prime Minister but in no way did they defy the
government.”
The fact is this act of the three chiefs forced the Prime
Minister to appoint a ministerial panel to redress the grievances. A couple of
main points were immediately settled but it speaks volumes of India’s apathy
towards its armed forces that five years after that episode, many of the
anomalies in the 6th Pay Commission award for the military remain
stuck in bureaucratic red tape!
While very few have been able to explain
the real reason behind the antipathy against the military displayed by the
civil bureaucracy and the political executive, my experience suggests that
non-military personnel perhaps resent the armed forces because of their
evidently orderly and efficient ethos, the tightly bound camaraderie and
distinct standing in the society. And this is not unique to India. Renowned
sociologist Morris Janowitz had famously said: “The intimate social solidarity
of the military profession is both envied and resented by civilians.”
So is there a way out of this logjam? Can the status quo
ever be broken?
The government, worried over the increasing criticism over a
lack of National Security Policy and half-hearted implementation of the 2001
GoM recommendations, appointed another high level committee under former
Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra in 2011. Within a year, the high powered
committee submitted its detailed
report to the Prime Minister in mid-2012 but so far there is no indication that
the report will be made public soon. We do not even know if within the
government deliberations have begun on the recommendations given by the Task
Force.
All that is available in public
domain so far is a glimpse of some key recommendations made by the task force
that too through media reports obviously based on conversations with some
members of the task force. For instance, the task force has apparently
recommended:
·
Appointment
of a Permanent Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC)
·
Integration
of Service HQ and Ministry of Defence by allowing more cross-postings
·
Shifting
focus of India's national security strategy from Pakistan to China
·
Better
Intelligence Coordination between all agencies
·
Creation of
dedicated financial Institution for access to energy, rare earths and raw
materials from across the world
From some of the occasional
interaction that this author has had with a few members of the Task Force,
before and after the submission of the report, one aspect is very clear: There
was no consensus on the creation of the post of the Chief of Defence Staff
(CDS), leading to, what one believes, a half-hearted recommendation to appoint
another four-star officer as permanent chairman of the Chiefs of Staff
Committee (CoSC).
According to the Task Force, this
officer will be in charge of the two existing tri-services commands-the
Strategic Command Force (SFC) and the Andaman Nicobar Command (ANC)--while the
three service Chiefs will continue command and lead their respective services,
the Task Force said.
The Permanent Chairman CoSC,
according to the recommendation of the Naresh Chandra Task Force, will have a
fixed tenure of two years and will be rotated among the three services. This
officer will be assisted by the existing Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), headed
by a three star officer from any of the three services.
Over the past decade, the IDS has
evolved in a barely workable tri-services structure with over 300 officers
drawn from the three services trying to function as a cohesive unit tasked with
evolving "jointness." On ground however, jointness or
inter-operability has remained at best patchy.
The new recommendation seeks to
overcome these differences. The Naresh Chandra Task Force has also recommended
the creation of a separate Special Operations Command on the lines of the US
structure since asymmetric threats are seen as the main challenge to India's
national security in coming decades.
However, critics of the new
system say the recommendation to appoint Chairman CoSC is nothing but old wine
in new bottle. It is a 'no go' because the Chairman will remain ever dependent
on each of the services Army, Navy & IAF for its personnel requirements.
Personnel of each service will be 'lobbyists' of respective Chiefs.
From what is known publicly, I
would say yet another opportunity to reform has been lost. National Security
System does not have to depend on seeking Least Common Multiple
(LCM)-solutions. It does not have to seek to appease lobbies and turfs.
The solution, I believe lies in
divesting the three Chiefs of operational command of forces. Let them be Chiefs
of respective Staff - 'resource providers to joint operational/ strategic
commands' - content with recruiting, training of personnel; holding and
maintaining equipment; and executing related administrative functions.
In absence of a common meeting
ground on deciding to appoint a CDS, the Naresh Chandra Task Force
recommendation can however be utilised in the interim in creating more cohesion
among the services. For instance, the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee, who
will have a fixed two year tenure can be made in charge of making net
assessment about the strengths and weaknesses of India’s adversaries—China and
Pakistan—in a holistic manner, taking into consideration inputs from all the
three services and cross-referencing those inputs with other agencies like the
Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and RAW. Currently, the three services send
their individual assessments just to complete formalities to the IDS where it
remains buried in files that never see the light of the day.
Moreover, if the Chairman Chiefs
of Staff Committee is going to lead the proposed Special Operations Command why
not create two more tri-services commands and give him some more work?
Given the frequency of
cyber-attacks on India's IT infrastructure, creation of a cyber-command is only
a matter of time. An aerospace command is inevitable sooner than later. Along
with the creation of the proposed Special Operations Command, why not create
these two additional tri-service commands? And let the Army, Air Force and Navy
be the lead service for a particular command? And let the Army, Air Force and
Navy be the lead service for a particular command?
The proposed Chairman Chiefs of
Staff Committee can remain the head of these three commands with each of them
being led by an Army Commander level officer. Given the experience and
expertise available with the Army, it can take charge of the Special Operations
Command, the IAF, with its domain knowledge, can take over the aerospace
command and the Navy can lead the cyber command. The heads of these commands
can have their second rung manned by two-star officers from each of the
services so that they continue to have the benefit of expert advice from across
the services but the overall responsibility must remain with the designated
service.
Given that the existing
tri-services commands go through painful changes each time their
Commanders-in-Chief get rotated, making each of the service responsible for the
proposed new commands will make their the working smoother and more efficient.
Over a decade after a CDS was
recommended by the Group of Ministers (GoM) in the wake of the Kargil conflict,
there is no unanimity on that issue yet. Given the strong differences within
the services as well as in the political class, could this be the best
arrangement for now? Or is it too impractical?
Historically, it is to the credit of the Indian armed forces
that they have fulfilled their assigned role as an organ of the state…they have
functioned effectively in every type of role, in spite of the general lack of a
supportive government environment by way of adequate finances, resources,
equipment, personnel policies, or higher political direction.
The government is however duty
bound to take urgent steps to reform the higher defence management in the
interest of the nation. As a first step, the government owes it to the people
of India to make the Naresh Chandra Task Force report public and let a healthy
debate ensue if India has to overcome systemic weaknesses and structural
shortcomings in its national security decision making apparatus.
[iv]
Admi. Vishnu Bhagwat, The Soldier and The
State, Chapter III (Semantic Control and Misinterpretation), page 6,
released by him in October 1998 as Chief of Naval Staff.
[vi]
Gen S. Padmanabhan, A General Speaks, 2005 Manas publications, pp 109
[vii]
Inder Malhotra, Khaki versus Khadi, Indian Express, 17 October 2008 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/khaki-vs-khadi/374433/4
[ix] http://goidirectory.gov.in/union_index.php
[xi] Signal by CNS, Adm Sureesh Mehta, 24
Sept 2008. "In
recent times there have been several speculative media reports and
disinformation on the final outcome of the sixth pay commission
recommendations. The service headquarters have maintained continuous
interaction with all authorities concerned and our concerns have been
highlighted at the highest levels time and again.
Whilst some
of our concerns have been addressed we have been constrained to delay payment
of arrears and new pay scales to officers and men in view of some serious
disparities that have been introduced which disturb the extant parities between
defence officers and those from other central services as also adversely affect
pensionary benefits of PBOR.
“We are in
the process of resolving all pending issues and this may take a little longer
than we had earlier expected.
“Let me
assure each one of you that I will spare no effort to bring our genuine
concerns to the notice of our country's leadership with the final aim of giving
our personnel their rightful due. In the meanwhile I am certain that one and all
will display maturity and patience and not be swayed by hearsay or speculative
reports from any quarter.
Shano Varuna
and Jai Hind."
[xii]
Shekhar Gupta, Chain of
command, demand
More than 5000 Army men fanned out across the districts of Chamoli, Rudraprayag, Uttarkashi and Pithoragarh districts in Uttarakhand and Saharanpur, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar and Pilibhit districts of Uttar Pradesh in order to rescue and provide relief to stranded civil population affected by unprecedented floods. Army assistance Centres at Harsil, Rudraprayag, Joshimath, Mana, Gagriya, Govindghat and Dharchula have been providing shelter, food, first aid and fresh water to hundreds of pilgrims stranded at various locations due to torrential rain and swollen rivers. Eight quick reaction medical teams established medical aid posts at a number of locations and four ambulance vehicles have been deployed to evacuate injured people.
In Uttarakhand, Army is undertaking rescue and relief operations in four sectors Harsil, Kedarnath, Joshimath and Dharchula. Army column evacuated 600 people across a rivulet by laying a temporary bridge of wooden logs. All the people have now been brought to safety. Two officers and 24 soldiers have been inducted by helicopter this morning into Sirsi near Gauri Kund, 17 km short of Kedarnath. Evacuation of pilgrims by foot is presently under way. In Joshimath sector, NH-58 has been washed away at Govindghat. More than 2000 have been evacuated on foot and are now housed in Joshimath. 1100 are in Army shelters. Efforts are underway to lay cable bridge across Alaknanda to evacuate stranded Hemkund Sahib pilgrims. More than 450 were evacuated yesterday. Hundreds of people have been evacuated from low lying areas of Dharchula and adjoining areas flooded by swollen Kali River. 
Two Army columns and border roads personnel have now cleared the road upto 30 kms South of Dharasu on Rishikesh – Uttarkashi road. 200 people of Tharali village 5 kms North of Harsil have been evacuated and brought to safety this morning.
