Modi and the Military

by Ali Ahmed   |  October 25, 2014

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2014/10/25/modi-and-the-military/

Universally, militaries are conservative-realist entities. India’s is no different. Therefore, though an apolitical one, it is probably not unhappy with the election of a conservative government to power in Delhi. Whereas other governments have been constrained by their parliamentary strength and have used the military sparingly, this government does not need to look over its shoulder. In fact, it is already delivering on several of the military’s long standing demands. Mr. Modi’s Diwali foray to Siachen suggests there is more to the Modi-military relationship than mere photo opportunities. What might this be?

Commentators, citing the recent disruption of the decade long ceasefire on the Line of Control (LOC), have it that India has changed its policy from passivity to greater aggressiveness. It is also being prickly on the China front, so much so that analysts have advised greater caution. While the army has been given a ‘free hand’ in one report on the LOC owing in the defence minister’s words to India having greater ‘conventional strength’, on the China front, since India has a lot of catching up to do, India is probably more restrained, even if it  is projecting a tougher  stance.

Assuming Indian strategy is, in the words of its National Security Adviser, ‘effective deterrence’, then India would have strengthened its fences early and then settled down to concentrating on its economic development. As a grand strategy, this is unexceptionable, even if the initial phase could well have been different with Mr. Modi following up on the promise of the meeting with Mr. Sharif in Rashtrapati Bhawan forecourt.

Mr. Modi rightly reasoned that Mr. Sharif was not the best interlocutor in Pakistan and that he could not deliver on what the only other credible interlocutor in Pakistan, its army, can possibly settle for. This best explains India’s strategic line taken. It has essentially told Pakistan off, even if has not ‘shut up’ that army as Mr. Modi imagines. Mr. Modi’s going to Siachen only strengthens this message, that even the supposed low hanging fruit, a solution to Siachen, is out of reach. By aggression on the LOC, Mr. Modi and his hard-line security adviser, Mr. Dovel, are messaging that if Pakistan does not accept the new status quo, then India can and will inflict ‘pain’ for ‘adventurism’ in the words of its defence minister.

Messaging thus can only be based on prior strategic calculation that the Pakistan army would play along. So while Pakistan’s army may use its former maverick chief, Musharraf, to plug the hardline for its part and have its spokesperson mimic India’s warning with his own on Indian ‘misadventure’, as a calculating strategic player, it will see the strategic imbalance and lay off India. In any case, it is somewhat busy warding off its own Jihadis. India can aggravate its western front at will through its higher profile in Afghanistan and proximity with the new government in Kabul. Will the Pakistan army see things this way?

India is no doubt aware that Pakistan’s army has proven irrational before, be it in 1971, when it lost half the country; and more recently, at Kargil. Therefore, if India is going in for an aggressive strategy, it is aware that Pakistan army may not get the message of deterrence and there could well be conflict.

This can also be taken as a form of deterrence in that it is India that is playing irrational. It is seemingly in the game of ‘chicken’ in which it has got into the car and stepping on the accelerator, has thrown away the steering. This way Pakistan will have to veer away lest it be crushed by the Indian juggernaut. This is indeed deterrence strategy of sorts.

Even if it does not work, India has readied itself over the past decade with its switch over and its practice of the ‘cold start’ doctrine. India has therefore catered for the worst case. While most would cry ‘watch out for the nukes’, India is perhaps banking on these not coming into the equation in a brief, limited war, irrespective of the spent-force, General Musharraf’s vainglorious threats.

While to most war spells economic downslide, to India’s decision makers it may well stimulate the economy. As it is, India is privileging the defence sector. It has opened it up to foreign investment. It is set to stay at the top of the arms importers table for the remainder of the decade. The US has displaced Russia as its largest supplier. More widely, the government is itself fronting for big corporations interested in the defence sector. The ‘make in India’ slogan can be defence sector led.

Therefore, the only restraint on war, the notion that it would be bad for the economy, is not one that the government may find overly persuasive. In fact, the political gains from a short, sharp war in which Pakistan is taught a lesson or two may be worth the risk. Externally, it may displace Pakistani military from the decision apex in Pakistan, enabling finally the ascendance of the peace lobby there. Internally, a victory would prove as good for the BJP as it was for Indira Gandhi.

Therefore, the Indian strategy is a win-win one—for itself. In case Pakistan takes the hint, then India can proceed with its economic trajectory unmolested. In case Pakistan does not play ball, then India can use the economic stimulus of a brief bout of hostilities to continue, after a short pause, down its economic trajectory.

As with any strategy, there is an element of risk. However, are assumptions such as of Pakistani rationality; on the economic fallout of war; and unlikelihood of a war going nuclear, one too many? Can it be that the conservative-realists, new to power and itsexercise, in presenting themselves as different from their predecessors, are stretching tad too far? Or are there military-societal explanations for the military-Modi chemistry on display that strategic analysts cannot quite capture? Answers will emerge, and hopefully not through a mushroom cloud.

The maulvi protests too much

Wearing religion on their uniform sleeves
4 October 2014, New Delhi, Ali Ahmed

http://www.millenniumpost.in/NewsContent.aspx?NID=71129

The Indian Army cannot afford a controversy where its secular credentials get questioned in the open.

If a recent newspaper report is to be believed, a Maulvi in the army has been censured for using the salutation ‘Jai Hind’. Reading the rest of the news story reveals that he declined to use the regimental salutations, Jai Mata Di and Ram Ram, in vogue within his regiment, the Rajputana Rifles. He preferred using Jai Hind instead, citing religious reasons. Media reports have it that the Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) has alleged in his court submission that the army has denigrated Jai Hind as a greeting.

This is far from the truth since the salutation between officers in the army is Jai Hind. However, by not following the traditions in the battalion, the JCO is indirectly calling these into question. He not only thereby detracts from the entire edifice of regimental traditions but in his public challenge to this particular one brings a major issue to the fore, that of relationship of an orthodox version of religion with the military.

Regimentation is part of the course for members of fighting units which all frontline infantry units are, including 3 Raj Rif, the JCO’s current outfit. This is the difference between norms, ethics and the law. Norms go beyond the written word. Compliance is necessary since these units are not tasked for ‘normal’ activity. They are to go into battle, the daunting sounds and sights of which are familiar to all across the country post Kargil. This requires a bonding between members of the units and a horizontal cohesion in sub-units that will enable them to go the last hundred yards under fire.

While this can come about by shared dangers and privations of war as conscript armies have demonstrated in military history, our army has chosen the regimental system to keep the regimental spirit alive and well. This owes to undemarcated borders, unresolved disputes with neighbours and live insurgencies sometimes compelling sudden deployment in operations. In such situations, pre-existing bonds can sustain the fighting man. Such bonds are created in peace times through practices that go back three centuries such as eating the same food, speaking the same language, wearing the same uniform and sharing the same greeting.

His challenge to the salutation in his present place of posting has critical morale sapping connotations. A religious teacher (RT) is usually authorised where there is a company worth of troops from a particular religion. He has in his challenge adversely impacted the practices that the Muslim jawans are used to. In case they see their religious teacher not following traditions, they can begin to doubt these. This will bring about an avoidable divide between them and their Hindu comrades.

At one remove, Muslim soldiers who have gained immortality in fighting for the country, ranging from Brigadier Usman to Haneefuddin, are icons for their co-religionists. A commanding officer in Kargil swears by their role there. Such inspiring feats have wider repercussions, leading, for instance, to the politician Azam Khan in a display of patriotic fervour claiming the Kargil victory as a Muslim contribution to the nation! The prime minister was right in his observation that Muslims both live and die for the country. Such sacrifice is generated by the identification of soldiers with their comrades, sub-units and units, a sentiment that traditions help foster. The RT JCO in questioning traditions and practices is disrupting the harmony that gives rise to martial exploits. These are important not only in themselves but also serve as a building block for the the wider mosaic of Indian Muslim communities across India to identify with and be proud of their army and their country.

The RT JCO cites his religious convictions as standing in the way. Several Muslims, some of whom have been staunch believers and avid practitioners, have gone through service without having their religion come in way of their regimental duties. Aligarh Muslim University Vice Chancellor Zameeruddin Shah has acknowledged as much in a recent interview. At least one such Muslim with an unmatched reputation of never having missed a fast in the month of Ramzan, even when in exercises or operations, or his five-times prayer is Lt Gen Zaki, former vice chancellor of the Jamia Millia Islamia. He was from a regiment that continues to use Ram-Ram as its salutation.

Nevertheless, since India allows freedom to profess religion and followers of all faiths have the right to contribute to the country’s defence, the question is how can the RT JCO’s rights be preserved? He could well have been transferred out of his unit to another where the traditional greeting is Jai Hind. This would have preserved his religious convictions and prevented the cohesion from being threatened in his unit. Since he has chosen instead to go to the press, military justice must now take its own course.

However, the more significant point from this episode is of the relationship of extreme forms of religion with the military. In this case, it is possible that the RT JCO subscribes to an orthodox version of Islam that is seemingly less tolerant of the traditional face of subcontinental Islam. The eclipse of the greeting ‘Khuda-hafez’ by ‘Allah-hafez’ is symbolic and symptomatic of this version. He has perhaps been a victim of taking a particular trend in Islam as the correct and the only version of Islam. As a result his ultra-orthodox religious convictions have got better of his score years of military service and his sensitivity to the injunctions in Islam of service to the country.

The trend bears watching since in both majority’s religion, Hinduism, and Islam are each witnessing a tussle within, in which less tolerant forms are vying to be the dominant version of respective religion. The army cannot afford to serve as a site for such tryst. It cannot afford controversy in which its secular credentials are questioned. It is clear that the agenda of its Institute for National Integration in Pune that graduates religious teachers has suddenly got heavier.