https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/the-regime-gets-its-dreyfus
The regime gets its Dreyfus
Military officers - whether devout monotheists or avowed atheists - have had to deliver on a traditional leadership responsibility – that of leading their outfit in prayer. Apparently, Samuel Kamalesan chose differently and is now out of service without pension or gratuity, a punishment upheld recently by the Supreme Court.
What the military lost in the bargain is an officer who appears to have had an independent mind and courage of conviction. One assumes these are military virtues that the military would look out for in its members and support. In the event, the military chose to be guided by an anachronistic interpretation of the concept of cohesion.
Cohesion is a necessity in any military body, enabling it to overcome friction in war and combat. It refers to the horizontal and vertical bonding respectively between members of military entities and its hierarchical levels. It is of particular interest at the primary group level, where the rubber meets the road. It is a leadership responsibility to foster and sustain cohesion to withstand the test of battle.
A lack in or absence of cohesion is prelude to defeat. When confronted by an implacable enemy or severely challenging circumstance, non-cohesive forces tend to disintegrate. The Vietnam War is seen as a classic example in which the defeat endured by the United States army owed to lack of cohesion. An additional leadership function is to also to articulate it in a positive direction, of mandate achievement.
Cognizant of the significance, the military has measures aplenty to instil it, such as the endless rounds of competitions and training cycles in peace-time. One such is the periodic gatherings in mandir parades. In operational areas, the upkeep of cohesion is easier, with the environment of risk and challenge serving to spur individuals and the military entity on to a coherent showing.
In Samuel’s case, the claim is that his reluctance to take part in the leadership function for fostering cohesion through the medium of participation in collective prayers led to his dismissal. However, by his account, Samuel was respectfully present at the collective prayers but desisted from leading the prayers. What he was not willing to do is to step up to the sanctum sanctorum for the more intimate honours, a privilege reserved for the leader. His reservation was based on his monotheistic belief. Though counselled by religious preachers in uniform from his own faith - that the act that did not detract from his faith - he stood by his own interpretation.
Assuming the military must wish for thinking officers and those with spine in its ranks, its privileging of a cohesion-instilling measure over this military imperative to preserve careers of the few endowed with moral courage is curious.
That Samuel landed in thick-soup within a couple of months of commission, tells its own tale. It is not necessarily only his reluctance but the Commandant’s (armour parlance for commanding officer (CO)) dogmatism that needs scrutiny. It is unknown if the Commandant received career-ending reports for his making a specimen of a vulnerable lieutenant. That the chain of command persisted in imposing on the junior, going the distance on the military judicial route, shows it up too.
Usually, the sarv dharm sthal is maintained at a unit level, with the religious teacher(s) authorized at its headquarters. In field areas where subunits are deployed in penny packets, there are prayer sites set aside in the posts and the junior leader either heads the outfit in prayer or a well-regarded soldier conducts the rudimentary ceremony. It is not essential for the senior present to do so. It is certainly a task that can be delegated, without prejudice to the camaraderie in the subunit.
Samuel was part of an armoured corps regiment located in a peace station. In such a setting it is unusual for a junior officer to represent the unit at the sanctum. A humour-laced whatsapp forward circulating in military groups, authored by a Malyali Christian, recounts how at the behest of the CO, he overnight rote-learnt the majority denominational prayer and led the obeisance the following day. However, that was in the context of a field exercise in a tented sarv dharm sthal and not in a cantonment setting.
Had the lieutenant, assigned to a squadron with Sikh troops, dithered at the squadron’s ad-hoc gurudwara, it could be plausibly argued that he fell short of his leadership obligation. Even in such a case, troops are far too large hearted to take a young officer’s hesitance amiss; especially, Sikh troops. Is it the Commandant’s case that Sikh troops would take umbrage? Has the Commandant over-learnt the lessons from the Great Indian Mutiny or from the 1984 mutinies? Or does he think Sikhs wear their religion on their sleeves? In any case, Sikh religious ritual does not place the junior leader in a quandary that faced Samuel. (See Note below.)
The incident in question per court records was at the mandir/sarv dharm sthal at the unit level. If Samuel’s claim that the unit did not have a sarv dharm sthal is to be taken as true, that there was no conventionally defined sarv dharm stha, it is a lapse that successive Colonels of the Regiment must account for. A stand-alone squadron level gurudwara is an anomaly in the age of sarv dharm sthal.
Even here, the lieutenant’s action of being present without partaking in the core ritual is not unique. At mandir parades many prostrate in front of the deity; some quietly bow with folded hands and join the congregation. There is latitude in the manner of according respect, though never lassitude. Samuel’s actions would have been unremarkable in such settings. While he has no defined role at this level, there are instances when the holy lamp is passed from hand to hand, with each leader present doing the ritual in turn. This would have required Samuel to also step up. If he demurred at such an occasion, he rightly incurred the wrath of his Commandant. If the army is right that he did not even attend such parades, then he is blameworthy. Even in such a case, dismissal is somewhat of an over-reaction to an absence from parade. However, if his word is taken – that he was present but unwilling to lead the ritual – for him to be dismissed is to exact a rather steep price.
The Commandant has much to answer for. Why did he make an issue out of a lieutenant’s position? Did he really think it would impact cohesion in the unit? Did he think the lieutenant’s example would have infected the unit? Was there an ill intent on the lieutenant’s part, that could be corroborated by his actions in other fields? If he thinks it insulting to Hindus, does he not expose an under-confidence in the well-known acceptance of diversity by adherents of this great faith?
Cohesion, the excuse to put down the youngster, was hardly at risk. Cohesion is not only forged in the barracks but is further honed in battle. How can it be inferred from the lieutenant’s reticence in the mandir that his outfit would crack at the first sound of shot and sight of smoke? Cohesion does not require self-effacement. It can live with angularities, only making these irrelevant. An officer who has the guts to stand up for his beliefs would likely die for them too, and such belief’s include patriotism, camaraderie and dharma. He can be expected to serve as pole for a positive articulation of cohesion. That Samuel was selected for a commission shows he had these traits that would have served cohesion well, if he’d been given a chance.
Patently, cohesion did stand endangered, but not from a young officer’s grand standing. It was so in the arbitrary exercise of power that couldn’t but have turned the internal environment of the unit toxic, for which the onus is on the Commandant, not the youngster.
The military did not ‘go after’ the young officer citing cohesion, but for disobedience of lawful orders. In essence the military’s case appears to be that when asked to perform religious rituals, the officer dissented; thus, contravening a lawful order. As to how such an order is lawful is not easily comprehensible, in light of cohesion not being at stake by the non-implementation of the order.
For such a signal moment to transpire, it takes more than a trivial clash of egos between a Commandant and a newly joined youngster. Higher and wider matters, otherwise resonant in wider society, could well be at play.
In light of the rightward turn wider society has taken, it is only to be expected the eddies would reach into the military. From the manner the military leadership is flaunting religious colours, it is now a tsunami. The words of wisdom from veterans are liable to be ignored. The military needs reminding that the wahabbi turn in the Islamisation of the Pakistan army in the Zia years was hardly in the interests of its professionalism. Such a situation can replicate in the Indian military if it is not conscious of the dynamism attending the field of religion and identity in India.
The lieutenant has served as the fall guy. There was no replay in the military’s court rooms of the scene from Hacksaw Ridge, in which the values of the peacenik protagonist are factored in and he is assigned a task that did not require him to kill. He ended up saving lives as a para-medic, earning a Medal of Honour in the process. Normally where the military falters, the ministry it answers to ought to step up. It would be too much to expect the regime’s defence ministry to emulate the Robert Gate’s approach, elaborated in his tome, Duty. He writes of an instance in which the military backed a Medal of Honour citation, which on investigation turned out to be hyping up of facts, showing up the courage depicted was not quite demonstrated. Though initially forwarded to the White House, Gates recalled the citation. That kind of due diligence or accountability does not obtain here. As for the courts, their interventions are capricious. While they rightly pushed the military on gender, they have much less to say on human rights. In this case, the higher court egregiously twisted the knife with its remarks.
Samuel is the regime’s Dreyfus. Albert Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army in late nineteenth century, was court martialed for spying for Germany. It was not the facts of the case than the prevailing antisemitism that led to his incarceration. Later, the accusation proven false, he was reinstated, going on to serve in the World War I. The only thing certain if Samuel is similarly rehabilitated is that it will only be after a very, very long time.
Note: The above has been pieced together from open sources. However, crazy as it may sound, grapevine has an interesting take, apportioning a role for the Colonel of the Regiment, who apparently happened to be Sikh, and locates the contretemps in the squadron gurudwara. Incidentally, the institution of Colonel is itself under threat of extinction by the thrust to decolonise. This incident does not help preserve it any.
