https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/the-army-and-hindu-rashtra-through?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf

The army and Hindu Rashtra through a cultural lens

The Indian Army is in throes of radical change. The most significant changes are the office of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), theatrisation, the organizational rejig in favour of integrated battle groups (IBG) and the Agnipath scheme. Of the three, the last – Agnipath – is a new feature attributable to the Narendra Modi government. The others – CDS, the theatre concept for jointness and IBGs – date to over a decade.

The CDS – an office variously termed and mandated - has been in the pipeline for long, only to be shied away from by earlier governments on political grounds. From the successor to the first incumbent not being appointed as yet, it is apparent that the Modi government grabbed at the jointness agenda in order to differentiate itself from the previous governments. In the flush from a politically – but not quite operationally – successful surgical strike – and an aerial one at that – it wanted to capitalize on its strong-on-defence image. A more prosaic explanation is perhaps that it merely wished to provide a billet as CDS to a general otherwise to retire the day the appointment was announced, as reward for his political leanings.

The radical aspect of the appointment – integration of the Services in the Ministry of Defence - was hollowed out with the CDS also reduced to being head of a new department, the Department of Military Affairs (DMA). This entity had not been thought up in the preceding debate on defence reforms. An outhouse for the military - but within the compound wall - was not how integration of uniformed bureaucrats was ever envisaged. This should detract from the political dividend from the reform – that the Modi regime is so strong-on-defence that it even breached the citadel of bureaucrats in a ministry the  lead bureaucrat stands pompously styled as in-charge of ‘defence of India’.

News is that another assault is in the works. From the record, it can be expected to be launched as a surprise package: a new CDS delinked from DMA, itself redefined. ‘Better late than never’ and ‘better a tortoise than a hare’ will be the accompanying din, to obscure the anomaly in which the military (DMA) sits in judgment on its own case. That is by way of illustration of what to expect of the regime in relation to the military (‘army’ and ‘military’ used interchangeably) in New India.

New India has been announced, with the ‘Old’ transited out of in the observance of the Azadi ki Amrit Utsav. The distinguishing feature of New India is the triumph of Hindutva in its political dominance and dictation of political culture. Old India was a creation of the left-liberal, Khan Market/Lutyen’s gang that right wing political forces behind New India have been at pains to displace. New India is best exemplified with the fierceness in the freshly-minted Simha atop the under-construction parliament building. The head of the Executive unveiling the symbol on the grounds of the legislature in a Hindu religious ceremony, with other religion representatives being notably absent, add to the symbolic break with Old India. If the ground-breaking ceremony is indicator, the inauguration of the Ayodhya Temple on the site of the illegally demolished Babri Masjid, will mark the unmistakable passage of Old India.

A New India requires a matching military. The professional military of Old India would not do. The makeover of the military is intrinsic, symbolic of and critical to the success of the New India project. It is of a piece with major changes in States. The British Indian Army took some 150 years to stabilize after the Battle of Plassey, with the merger of the three presidency armies. Independent India also experimented with reordering the profile of the military, domesticating it from a colonial force furthering interests across three continents to one befitting a post-colonial, democratic state. It is only right that if the Second Republic in the offing has an army in its own image.

The structural aspects of this – modernization, jointness etc – are a product of doctrine keeping pace with strategic developments. Instead, of greater consequence for the incipient Hindu Republic (borrowing from the term ‘Islamic Republic’) is the accompanying cultural change. Whereas, from a cultural perspective, a shift to modernity in keeping the higher technological and educational indices of the army may appear the obvious route to go, that cannot be the trajectory taken, modernity being at odds with the reverse march of history in New India. A dharmic Republic requires an army suitably imbued with the wisdom of ancient philosophies, carted down through generations safe from marauding invaders out to extinguish Hindu civilization, by a hardy upper caste. A return to the Kshatriya ethic is necessary, its principle characteristic being its location in the caste hierarchy. It is no wonder the introduction to the nation of the newly sworn in president, the symbolic head of the armed forces, was through a photo showing her sweeping a temple floor.

This fits well with the turn to a majoritarian democracy, since the Kshatriya is subordinate to the intellectual class. Theory on a democratic military subordinates the military to the political level. While theory veers to the military professional standing outside – if not above - the political fray, in a relationship of ‘objective’ civilian control of the military by the political level, the cultural shift requires instead ‘subjective’ civilian control of the military, in which the military is – eventually - Hindutva-inspired. This explains the ‘deep selection’ model adopted by the Modi regime for military commanders, which in its latest iteration has the CDS being picked from a catchment including all serving and recently-retired three star officers; counter-intuitively, including those from the ‘staff’ stream. It also explains the delay in the selection of the second CDS. The first CDS has set the example, precedence and standards in opening up the military to Hindutva inroads. Deep selection involves looking out for such inclinations in candidates.

Teething troubles appear to have stalled the selection of a successor. There is perhaps a spillover of modernity-induced skepticism in the military to Hindutva overtures. The Old Republic is apparently not dead and the New Republic yet to be born. The prerequisite is to shift to subjective civilian control, easing the process of birthing the New Republic. It is not without reason that the process has a certain subterfuge attending it. The New Republic is presented as an evolution. It is almost as if a muscular version of the Old Republic is being manufactured, understandably, with a Hindu veneer. The talk of a Hindu Rashtra is not yet mainstream, confined to supportive formations that can be discounted as ‘fringe’ when convenient. Since plausible deniability of verbiage by the head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is not credible, the cat is out of the bag – as is indeed the game plan. Inject the Hindutva discourse through an intravenous drip into national consciousness.

The military has alongside to be dismantled as a credible, internally-cohesive and mandate-driven institution. Its strengths as an institution have to be dissipated. This is a horizontal lesson from other institutions that have been subverted from within, sister institutions in the security field leading the pack: intelligence, police and accountability bodies as one dealing with human rights. In the Army’s case, a dismantling and reassembling is doubly necessary. At some point in the India makeover, it might be necessary to use it against the un-persuaded. Advancing subjective civilian control is facilitative. Minimally, even if objective civilian control is to be retained for purposes as credibly managing an external security environment, then it has to be preserved from the backlash that a makeover prompts. Having a like-minded military helps.

The hold of an image as a modern, self-regarding professional military needs dilution. The contours of this are not fleshed out. To what extent the Islamisation of a neighbouring military, Pakistan, serves as a potential model is unknown. How Mujahid compares to Agniveer is uncertain. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence of intent along such lines. What is certain is a difference from the neighbour in terms of purging of any praetorian tendencies through the Kshatriya model of internalised subordination.

For now, dismantlement suffices. Take for instance the tinkering with the Beating Retreat. But beginnings of reassembly can also be discerned in surprising changes within the military, such as, in one case, incorporation of the aarti into a military parade. The military not being an island, this is the tip of the iceberg. Furor that departures from the traditional practices invoke will wane as exhaustion sets in. Part of the brouhaha includes trotting out of Hindutva-adhering brass-hats with their own public missive disparaging dissent. Opportunist commentators offer their services in a gratis tongue-lashing of traditionalists. Just as an opposition-mukt Bharat is aimed for, the discourse space is to be rid of disruptive echoes from dissidents. The army's gatekeepers are to be deep selectees to unlock its gates from the inside.  

What might an army of a Hindu Rashtra look like? It will certainly continue with professional preoccupations currently engaging it: jointness, IBGs et al. These are intended in part to keep its head down while the makeover progresses. It will also be kept out of trouble; securing India taken over by more Hindutva-friendly instruments as intelligence (Pakistan), home minister-answering security forces (Kashmir) and, increasingly, under Minister Jaishankar, foreign policy (China).

Modi has learnt his lessons from earlier prime ministerial ambushes: Emergency and Golden Temple in case of Indira and the military misadventures of Rajiv Gandhi. While posturing at Brasstacks and at Sumdorong Chu proved useful to project an assertive India, the latter recklessly went a step ahead with his Sri Lanka foray (as Jaishankar best knows). This partially explains the limited-aims ‘showing of eyes’ to Pakistan, including through the much-vaunted surgical strikes. Thus, despite Galwan, Indian military merely engages in talks, though deployed in strength along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) enabling other options too. From the 16 rounds of talks even this deployment has proven futile, showing ineptness even in demonstrating muscles to undergird one’s position on the table. War avoidance is dressed up as supreme strategic footwork, so much so that Jaishankar elbows Doval as India’s national security mastermind. The grand strategy is to gain time and space for consolidation of Hindutva rather than being sidetracked by traditionally-conceived national interest. To distract are volleys – including by use of the outgoing president’s shoulders for this - on the parochial impulses behind opposition’s caviling about selling of national security silver.

The inter-relationship between political, strategic and organizational culture is a useful prism to view all this. There are two ways to visualize: one is as concentric circles with political culture at its center; and second is as a triangle, with the three being vertices. The concentric circles model is hierarchical. Of the intercourse in the two directions – inside-out and outside-in – the former predominates. The second model is more reality-depicting. It shows a degree of autonomy in the three: each impacted in its own way by inter-dependent factors. Thus, not only does Hindutva impact the political level, it influences organizational culture as well; only differently.

While Hindutva minders in the national security establishment might like to bend reality, it is proving difficult and time consuming. Deep selection and the search for a pliable CDS are proving short as means. New India does not as yet approximate the reality depicted by the concentric circles model. Hindu Rashtra would. Getting to that will entail shoving the relatively autonomous vertex of strategic culture in the triangular model into being the non-entity outer circle in the concentric circle model.

Hindutva dominance of political culture leaves an imprint on organizational culture: politics playing out in a society the military comes from – the military not being an island. The tricky part is the imprint on strategic culture. While political cultural dominance profits from a projection of strategic felicity, mistaking assertiveness for aggression is to invite trouble. This explains the posturing in parliament by Amit Shah that had it that he was ready to spill blood (presumably including his own) for retaking Aksai Chin. Taking him seriously would have seen a different response to Galwan than ‘mirror deployment’. In the event, deft strategic communication compensated for strategic ineptitude. The upshot of staking out the LAC on a long-term basis is in its keeping the Indian army from looking inwards to any mandate on the preservation of the Constitution. For its part, Pakistan continues to serve as a useful foil, with Rajnath Singh happy to refer to the Maa Sharda Shakti in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir while refraining in such imagery from a mention of Mansarovar in Tibet in his depiction of Hindu-sthan’s civilisational frontiers. Hindu Rashtra as a proto Akhand Bharat is bogeyman only for Pakistan. The strategic challenge is to strut one’s stuff without having to prove it. The risk from hollowing out of the army through the Agniveer scheme can thus be run since the strategic environment will not require strategic exertion. The army’s organisational culture is to be messed around with to keep if from tripping up changes in political culture. 

The army of Hindu Rashtra will be informed equally by India’s military record as its mythological past. India’s armies have always kept out of politics, though actively used in medieval times by contenders for power. Other than in colonial interest, they have seldom ventured abroad: the exertions of Ranjit Singh being mostly in territory not seen as alien. They have been largely used in placating India internally. Both mythology and epics testify to this predominant role of the army: if of the Chakravartin, ending strife, or, if of the rebel, precipitating strife. The army’s preoccupation in the Moghul period was similar.

Since these days, India is largely placid internally – and there is an extensive internal security force under the home ministry – the army can step back from this role too. Its role in external strategic management is eased by a strategic doctrine of war avoidance. In this the hollowing out of the military is messaging to adversaries that New India poses little threat, diluting any security dilemma that can detract from getting to be Hindu Rashtra. Subjective civilian control will keep the army from addressing any dilemma over its role in preservation of the Constitution. Agniveers are key national security providers getting to Hindu Rashtra.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/competitive-terrorism-in-getting?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf

Competitive terrorism in getting to Hindu Rashtra?

Late evening Tuesday was rather tense. News broke of the killing in Udaipur of Kanhaiyalal Teli by two perpetrators, one who did the horrific deed and the other who filmed it. The clip was then uploaded by the two onto social media, following an earlier one by the killer in which he promised punishing those indulging in blasphemy. Their ire was prompted by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson going ballistic on prime time with invective against Prophet Mohammad at the sensitive time of the Gyanvapi mosque controversy late last month. Apparently, Kanhaiyalal had expressed his support of the spokesperson on social media, marking him out as a target for the two. In the event, the two were caught while escaping and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is seized of the case. Rightly, the Rajasthan government has deemed the incident as one of terror, since not only was the atrocity revolting in itself, but was also broadcast with intent to instill fear in the wider public and overawe the government.

Arguably - and Muslims would likely vouch for this - the feeling of terror that evening was incident not so much amongst Hindus – the wider target of the two terrorists – but amongst Muslims. Muslim fears that evening were on what backlash the deed could provoke against them by majoritarian extremists. This has as backdrop their eight years-long odyssey in Narendra Modi’s New India, in which they have been consistently pushed against the wall with some or other vile scheme pulled out of the hat (recall Sudhir Chaudhary’s litany of ‘jihads’) by majoritarian minders and implemented across India by their foot-soldiers. The latest in this incessant bludgeoning of Muslims have been calls for genocide in so-called dharm sansads, congregations of saffron-clad unholy worthies. These were revealed by a news portal, Alt News. It is no wonder then that Zubair – cofounder of Alt News – is now behind bars under trumped up charges of offending religious sentiments of the majority.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have remained silent all along on the micro-terror India’s Muslims have been subject to, there is fear in Muslims that majoritarian extremists enjoy impunity. Their apprehensions were heightened in wake of the crime in Udaipur. After all, only this week, the Supreme Court seemingly let off Modi for his dereliction of duty during the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. It instead ruled that the human rights defenders - who pursued the Zakia Jafri case exposing the crimes of omission and commission of the Gujarat government then run by Modi - were liable for perpetrating the impression that Modi had been permissive of - if not himself instigated - the crimes that resulted in over a 1000 Muslim deaths. Modi’s unforgettable evoking of Newton to paper over the pogrom as reaction to the deaths of Hindus in a train bogey allegedly set afire by Muslims while returning from a purportedly religious ceremony in Ayodhya, has kept Muslims on the edge.

The prevailing tension is over when it might be politically expedient for majoritarians to replay such pogroms. Minority pockets remain woefully vulnerable, as Hindu mobs unmistakably reminded in the last Ramnavmi when processions turned violent in Muslim localities. The one-sided violence in North East Delhi before the Covid outbreak another bid to intimidate Muslims then out on the streets anticipating their eventual disenfranchisement on the passage of the disarmingly innocuous Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The violence played out in the national capital in full sight of a departing State guest, then president of the world’s only hyper-power, the United States (US), Donald Trump. India, in its turn to a rentier state, by way of which it trades its geographical location at the periphery of China, to its geopolitical advantage, has neutered liberal opinion abroad that could have held it accountable for safeguarding the rights of its citizens. Perfunctory noises are fobbed off by the as-articulate-as- immaculate, Dr. S Jaishankar, a newly discovered ideologue of the BJP. Even as Modi was signing up as an invitee to the G7 meeting on their joint statement on resilience of democracy, his regime back home went about arresting Teesta Setalvad, redoubtable police officer, RB Sreekumar (police officer Sanjiv Bhatt already behind bars), and Mohammed Zubair. At the summit itself, US President Biden singled out Modi for attention, a visual much exchanged on social media. On his way back, Modi stopped over at the United Arab Emirates, underlining a fact well-known to India’s Muslims that opprobrium of the BJP spokesperson’s comments abroad restricted itself to her egregious assault on the Prophet, rather than extend to India’s treatment of its minority, the latter taken as an internal matter and in itself inconsequential to authoritarian governments.

Reinforced in the belief of impunity from international accountability for its assault on the world’s largest minority anywhere, the Modi government can only be expected to get bolder in the loose rope it offers majoritarian minions. The times are bleak economically. The unemployment situation was brought home rudely when skeptical youth took to train burning with the rollout of Modi’s ‘transformational’ recruiting initiative into the Indian military, Agnipath. While Muslim-bashing is no longer a political necessity for consolidating the Hindu vote – Muslims being electorally marginalized – they are needed for scapegoating as the Other. Even in its last breath, the Maharashtra government that went down this week to a rebel revolt brought on by competitive Hindutva, took to renaming two significant Muslim strongholds without consultation with inhabitants.

In any case, there is some distance to tread to get to the professed destination of Hindutva, the guiding ideology of the regime: Hindu Rashtra. Covid - and the complicating Chinese intrusion in Ladakh - displaced the timeline somewhat, but have not upturned the aim. Hindu Rashtra necessarily implies that in the run up, Muslims are sufficiently cowed as to not pose an impediment. This explains the assiduous implementation of the anti-minority agenda of the regime, that its flagship slogan, ‘sabka saath-sabka vikas-sabka vishwas’, cannot obscure. Though faced with relentless provocation all through the Modi tenure so far, Muslims have demonstrated forbearance, taking recourse at best to peacefully upholding the Constitution during their anti-CAA protests. Even their counterparts in Kashmir have held their peace, though their state was summarily dismantled and their privacy invaded by a trooper at every step and corner in anticipatory – and continuing - deployment against an explosion of their wrath. Patience has not yielded up any dividend as such for Muslims, since the State hurtles to a Hindu Rashtra.

Modi has overseen the dismantling of India’s democratic pillars, evidenced most recently by the judiciary with judges taking to withholding their signatures from controversial judgments such on Ayodhya and the Zakia Jafri case. Absent internal accountability, institutions have been disemboweled, beginning with the party, the BJP, itself that won majority in parliament twice-over, not on the basis of good-old conservatism, but riding on the coattails of Modi, himself spin-doctored into power. The ongoing six-month long search for a pliable Chief of Defence Staff to wreck the last institution standing, India’s military, is indicative. The opposition’s showing in its candidate selection for the next president of the Republic shows that it does not quite exist at the national level. The taking down this day of a coalition in India’s most economically vibrant state, Maharashtra, through blatantly underhand means – now virtually patented by the BJP through its use of money power – is example. Since the route towards Hindu Rashtra is now open, it’s no longer a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’. Narendra Modi having hinted at going for another term, the timeline to get past the post is by his next tenure. A prospective date that offers itself is the centenary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the mother-ship of the extremist right wing in power. Modi could use the 2024 election result as a referendum on his showing and intent to turn India into Hindu Rashtra. The inauguration - in the run up to elections - of the freshly-minted Ayodhya temple - where the journey to Hindu Rashtra symbolically began in the taking down of the Babri mosque - shall help clinch the elections. A minority that is already reduced to cipher, subject to a an ongoing cultural genocide and plausibly threatened with genocide, is apprehensive not only of the path yet to be traversed but what might befall it when Modi gets India – by then renamed Bharat - there.

Does the Udaipur terror incident herald a shift in the Muslim approach to India’s majoritarian trajectory? Cultural nationalism-inspired security analysts – who no longer need to inhabit a closet - will have it that copycat terrorism is on its way. Muslim would-be jihadis may take to terror, if only for its nuisance value, knowing well that the right wing grip over national security will only lead to terror proving counter-productive. The NIA investigation will doubtless prove an external link to the Udaipur terror incident, enabling another stick to beat the minority as a fifth column and keep its external sponsor, Pakistan, on the defensive since it recently wiggled out of the clutches of the anti-terror Financial Action Task Force – clutches that India had expended much foreign policy capital on. The period 2005-14 was averred to by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in his recent interview to stanch the Agnipath agitation as a period of minority-perpetrated terror. Analysts will point to a return to such a period in case a clamp-down on Muslims is not imposed through further surveillance of and restrictions in their ghettos. Such recommendations will serve the purposes of the regime: invisibilisation of Muslims easing rollout of Hindu Rashtra.

The very usefulness of the terror act for Hindutva purposes raises questions on its provenance. Hindutva’s ascent has been propelled in part by the stigmatizing of the minority as terror perpetrators, as Doval reminds of in the mentioned interview. Though the Sanatan Sanstha perpetrated terror has been investigated somewhat, that undertaken by Abhinav Bharat remains under wraps. It is inexplicable that the so-called Muslim perpetrated terror vanished with Modi’s coming to power in 2014. It cannot be that his appointing of intelligence czar, Doval, amounted to a sweep of the wand, and - ‘hey presto’ – there is no subsequent terror (other than at Pulwama). This calls into question provenance of terror through 2005-14. Were these black operations, designed to bring Hindutva-icon Narendra Modi to power by sabotaging the then government for being soft on terror? The digression here is to show how taking terror at face value is fraught by the obscuring of the possibility of it instead being black operations as was majorly in the case in that period. India’s deep state is no longer a state secret, a book having been written to out it. It has surely not lost its touch. This implies that the Udaipur terror act cannot be taken at face value, but the possibility of it being yet another black operation is well nigh plausible. 

As Doval points out, there has been no case of terror in mainland India lately. Indian Muslims have had learnt to lump, if not live with, Hindutva. A right winger going ballistic is not out of place at prime time or in social media anymore. So much so, there was no instant backlash by Indian Muslims, barring a protest in Kanpur. Only when Muslim states weighed in on the controversy did Muslims take to the street peaceably. Even this was not taken kindly to as evident from its characteristic, Israel-like use of dozers to bring down houses of agitators in Prayagraj and killings in Ranchi. Even in the Udaipur case, the police was able to patch up differences between Kanhaiyalal and his neighbours over his misplaced support of the BJP spokesperson. This shows that a terror act of the Udaipur magnitude was out of place with the trends.

The act itself appears to be rather well planned, including as it did the magnification of the act through social media – fitting classically into the definition of terror. The brandishing of the terror weapons – associated with the prominent Muslim trade butchery – is almost stereotypical, intended to draw parallels with the Islamic State. The reference to Modi as a prospective target is another give away, since the supposedly terror incidents in Gujarat in the period he was chief minister allegedly had him as target. Even the Bhima Koregaon case was built on the falsely-inserted emails in laptops of the incarcerated, then used against them as evidence in the far-fetched allegation that they were out to get Modi. The luxury with which the two terrorists uploaded their boastful clip and the ease of their apprehension cannot be overlooked as pointer of a staged act. The act itself was entirely against Muslim interests and stands universally condemned by them. There is nary a precedence of such action in India, but for a lone case in Kerala. Indian Muslims are firmly against Talibanisation and it is widely appreciated that international jihad has had no sway in Indian Muslims, the second largest Muslim population in any country in the world. Consequently, it would be unwise to go along uncritically with the default view that terror acts resuming, Indian Muslims be put in the dock.

Conspiracy theories are taken as infra dig. The Supreme Court had it that the Gujarat pogrom was an act of omission rather than one of commission. On the contrary the conspiracy theory it rejected has it that Modi had intervened to allow communal Hindus to vent their angst on the Godhra incident. The Court’s going overboard in suggesting that subscribing to the view that Modi orchestrated the pogrom is a conspiracy in itself, shows that conspiracy theories aren't quite passé. Conspiracy theories attend significant terror acts as the one on Parliament in December 2001. Even the inexplicable killing of the policeman trio gunning for Abhinav Bharat - so very conveniently for the right wing - in Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks - show that the deep state must not be allowed to get away too easily with black operations passing as terrorism. The regime is now poised to using the Udaipur terror incident to its purposes. That the NIA is on the job should ring bells, given what Rohini Salian had to say of its workings.

That said - till otherwise proven - going with the mainstream view on the terror act necessitates countering - in anticipation - recommendations likely to emerge from the strategic community on greater strictures. To the extent that the threat of terror exists, it bears adding to the discussion a point that is bound to be missed in the mainstream strategic discourse – such terror is reactive. Ending right wing provocations, such as by ending micro-terror in the form of lynching and its social media propagation, is a necessary pre-requisite. Not to expect Muslim extremists to get on the high horse to protect their community – when democratic institutions have failed them – is to misunderstand human nature. To expect root causes to be addressed when political culture is Hindutva-driven is to be wishful. Since the journey to Hindu Rashtra is inexorable in light of the weakness of counter weights, there is no reason for Muslims to be the fall guys derailing the enterprise. Adapting to the new political circumstance is best with the hope that the Ramrajya promised is predicated on equality of opportunity, justice and rule of law. The problem is that the means to getting there being as they are, it is unlikely that Ramrajya will be as the concept has it. Even so, competitive terror can be ruled out, though one-sided micro-terror will remain incident. Critical national security analysis – attempted here - must continue to attend developments on the road to Hindu Rashtra.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/coup-proofing-foregrounding-the-motivation?sd=pf

Coup proofing: Foregrounding the motivation behind Agnipath

This article is not about Agnipath. The issue has been flogged adequately in the media and has attracted sufficient commentary, both enlightened and apologist. At this juncture, while an opposition politician predicts withdrawal of the policy, as was the case with the farmer laws, the policy itself appears to be firming in with criticism tempered by recommendations on how to improve it taken onboard. A relieved military has given the policy a cloak of a work-in-progress pilot project. To its credit, the brass has watered down of the policy, leaving room enough to modify/retract it along the line. The usual botched rollout of policy – by now typical of the Narendra Modi regime – has distracted from the more dubious features of the policy: its dismantling of the Indian Army as-we-know-it.

The wide-ranging interview of National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval - the heavy artillery deployed by the regime as palliative to the protests by aspirant Agniveers - carries a clue on the motive of the regime behind the scheme. In his spirited showing in the non-obsequious interview, Doval makes a comparison between the Indian Army and the Indian National Army (INA), to the detriment of the former. To him, the INA stole a march on the Indian Army by being inspired by nationalism, whereas the Indian Army was a creation of the British as part of their policy of ‘divide and rule’.

To him, the regimental system was introduced by them - bedrock of the infantry that is the major component of the Army - to array India’s ethnic groups against each other, facilitating over-lordship of the British. The Indian Army that retained its institutional integrity on the transfer of power, therefore, has an overhaul long overdue. The Agnipath scheme’s shift to an All India All Class (AIAC) composition draws on the strengths of the Indian National Army (INA), based as it was on an ethnically amalgamated regimental model (Doval recounts the regiments, namely, Rani Jhansi and (sic) Mahatma Gandhi), shows that the shift would not impact combat effectiveness. To him, nationalism will substitute for ethnic affinities that hitherto provided battle-winning cohesion.

This bit of persuasion by Doval to allay fears over dilution in combat effectiveness of the Agnipath- inoculated Army need not detain us. Let’s leave it to military historians whether the casualties suffered by the INA owed to their warrior spirit, as attributed by Doval, or neglect by the Japanese. Instead, of consequence in his favourable reference to the INA while putting down the Army is the regime’s effort to discredit the continuity that makes for the institutional integrity of the Army in order that the Army is recreated along lines preferred by the regime.

It’s no secret that Hindutva informs the regime’s worldview. Hindutva ordains a Hindu Rashtra. There is already a New India in place awaiting conversion to Hindu Rashtra at some point in the middle term. The conditions for this conversion are already in place. Constitutional pillars and institutions have been so hollowed out that when the Constitution is given a final nudge towards Hindu Rashtra, there would be none still standing up for it.

The Parliament is an empty shell. The parliamentarians of the ruling party owe their membership of the house to the Modi wave, if not tsunami. The province-specific opposition is too narrowly-focused to count, while the opposition party with a national spread is internally beset. The Judiciary has been kneaded into plasticine, the Gogoi tenure testifying as much. To a chief justice prospect, its recent cognizance of the dozer raj amounts to acting on ‘priority’. The Executive has long had a deep state spirited away by the right wing into its innards. Doval’s reference in his interview to a spate of terror after and self-congratulations that this has not recurred since 2014 is yet another attempt at hiding provenance of the terror India was subject to then. Whereas the Sanatan Sanstha has been fore-grounded partially as perpetrators, it is only to obscure the others, at least one of which sits saffron-clad in parliament. The remainder of the executive has – to borrow an imperishable phrase in the context of Indian organizational culture - crawled when merely asked to bend. If the military, represented by General Rawat and his clique are to go by, how the civilian bureaucracy and police have been suborned can only be imagined. The few but notable exceptions proving the rule, the fourth estate – the Media – is rightly regarded as a disgrace.

Though the Army has been subject to conditioning since Rawat’s elevation to its helm over the heads of two of his seniors - who retrospectively can also easily be seen as being superior professionals than him - it has thus far not been entirely crippled as other institutions. It has managed to remain partially unscathed since the regime had utility for a modicum of its professionalism while it was settling in. The redoubtable Pakistan Army had to be overawed, which - to the regime - the two surgical strikes succeeded in doing. The untimely intrusions by the Chinese twice-over – at Doklam and Ladakh - also lent pause. Given its innate strengths and relative isolation, the military (here ‘military’ and ‘army’ are used interchangeably) also requires a longer duration to unsettle.

However, it cannot be indefinitely spared, since the Hindu Rashtra has to be rolled out in a finite timeline, dependent as it is crucially on longevity of the Modi spell over the electorate. Consequently, the Army has to be taken down prior to the final nails in the coffin of Old India, lest it - taking its unwritten constitutional obligations seriously - grandstand against New India going the Hindu Rashtra way.

The possibility of the Army ending up a road bump on the road to Hindu Rashtra is counter-intuitive. Its historically apolitical character, the progressive dilution of its professional ethic in the regime years, the magnitude of the Hindutva-inspired regime and the power gap between it and the opposition suggest that enforced subordination of the Army – grinding its nose into the dust as it were - is inessential to the Hindutva project. Even so, the endeavour of getting to Hindu Rashtra is too important to leave any stone unturned, lest it turn out a bridge too far. Taking 100 years to get to this point, the Hindutva enterprise cannot be allowed to be tripped up at the final hurdle.

As its deep state tentacles have no doubt kept it informed, the threat of the Army standing up against an abrupt change of character of the Constitution that it is sworn to protect - albeit miniscule and remote - cannot be wished away entirely. The eulogies that attended Rawat’s funeral flattered to please. His Padma award cannot paper over skepticism in the Army over his Republic Day award, the only serving chief to be pinned with one. That the Chief of Defence Staff appointment was meant to accommodate him in a higher chair stands confirmed by the post remaining unfilled six months into his untoward departure. The cynicism with which the moving of the goal posts on the CDS appointment eligibility has been received is another pointer that the infatuation with the regime - and its protagonist - is not universal. Consequently, the element of the doubt has to be addressed by Hindutva project minders within the regime and outside it in its support base in the mother-ship, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Also, the transition to New India cannot exclude military ‘reforms’. Notwithstanding the hype, Modi’s showing in the surgical strikes has only limited value for his self-image. In any case, the Chinese have put a pin into the balloon. Moreover, Russia’s Ukraine War has shown up war as capricious and is best avoided. Diwali jamborees are insufficient substitute for an Indira-as-Durga-like image. Allusions to nuclear weapons as diwali crackers are counter-productive. Consequently, the next best thing to embellish a 56” chest is ‘reforms’, the more ‘transformational’ the better. Tweaking the manual of defence procurement does not have a ring to it, besides having been done by Manmohan Singh’s defence minister, the Pope, AK Antony. The image of Modi as ‘The Great Disrupter’ needs a boost in a non-trivial area. Bending the Army to his will is of a different order of magnitude as a political feat than getting the police to heel, though the latter is low-hanging fruit for the likes of once khaki-clad Doval.

Domination of political culture by Hindutva empowers it to move faster and further on this score. An Army can be created in its own image, consonant with the change in society and polity it wishes to usher. Vedic texts, ancient history, social mores and political practices of the Aryans as they populated the Gangetic plains are arbitrarily taken as civilisational wellsprings. The Army, even if modern and professional, needs to be imbued with Hindutva, lest it stand out as a sore thumb. It therefore needs to be unfastened from its current verities and ethos and reset in a new, fresher mould. The reforms therefore serve two purposes: by redefining the Army, remove any threat that it might pose.  

The reforms are timed to keep the Army chasing its tail while Hindutva goes about its sweeping up the debris of the Indian State-as-we-know-it and beautifying what emerges with a Central Vista-like makeover. The response in Ladakh amounting to an LC-isation (Line of Control) of the Line of Actual Control keeps the military busy with professional matters. The situation in Kashmir, kept manageable by the peace on the LC, allows for the right wing political solution to unspool at a leisured pace, with the latest step being delimitation of constituencies for the Union Territory assembly elections due soon. The two operational commitments keep the Army tied down. Alongside is futuristic organizational restructuring in theaterisation, jointness and integrated battle groups. The former could have done with a CDS in place. His absence only proves the idea is to keep the Army bogged in facile reforms, while the wider India reset proceeds apace. This is the backdrop to view Agnipath.

Agnipath is designed to keep the military introspective. Even if the military does entertain thought of taking a stand, it would not have the vertical cohesion to do anything about it. Callow Agniveers don’t count, though they can have a surveillance value in case of infiltration by right wing-aligned recruits, as is apprehended in liberal and leftist circles where the refrain is that the Agnipath scheme is to covertly turn out militarized RSS cadre. The undercutting of regiment system and regimentation ensures there are no cohesive outfits readily at hand to spook New Delhi, as once allegedly deployed by then Chief, General VK Singh, using ethnic networks, in pursuit of his ‘date of birth’ obsession. The manner 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, is guarded with an armed trooper at every 25 yards, and reported construction of accommodation for some 3000 troopers for guarding the new accommodation of the prime minister in the Central Vista, show that unfounded fears exist. Such fears owe not to Mr. Modi’s past as much as what he intends for the history books.

As for the professional officer cadre, it is rent into bhakt and bhakt-skeptics camps. It is unknown if there are any anti-bhakts left. The cadre cannot have the confidence to mount a rear guard action to save the Republic-as-we-know-it. The officer class is involved in incorporating women into its mainstream. It might yet be subject to a similar Tour of Duty exercise, as reportedly was the original conception. Deep selection of its leadership has expanded the catchment to include recent retirees and all three-star equivalent rank holders, putting paid to the premium on command. Rumour has variously backed two brass-hats whose claim to fame was to discredit the precedence of surgical strikes lying in years preceding the Modi era. While one heads the Army think tank, the other is ensconced as military adviser under Doval. It is no coincidence that an Engineer officer heads the Army for the very first time. While welcome in itself, that he does not belong to the combat arms - traditionally the ‘core elite’ - is telling. That no one has resigned in dissent against Agnipath bespeaks of a well-conditioned military, liable to be receptive to the more nationally-damaging initiatives just ahead.

This setting-of-the-stage betrays the real reason behind the ‘reforms’. To beget a younger profile military, to be responsive to the changed character of war, to turn out Agniveers as nationally-oriented citizens etc. are but icing on the cake, a bonus that the extensive information war surrounding the Agnipath rollout more or less lets on. The traditionally-conservative bureaucracy keeping a safe distance is another indicator of a hot-potato of uncertain provenance. Amazingly the 254 meetings over 750 hours over a transformational initiative as this did not include stakeholder consultations that alone could have precluded surprise, protests and criticism. Intriguingly, both Doval and the general leading the chorus, the officiating Department of Military Affairs head, General Puri, have not reconciled how the AIAC entry squares with retention of ethnic regiments. Whereas being one with troops is fine with officers, only a test-bed result could tell if this is fine for soldiery too. To begin with it might stall criticism from Colonel Blimps valuing traditional regiments, but teething troubles will force more than a tooth ache. All this only shows there is more to it than meets the eye.

The regime might have over-stretched. It might take loss in war to halt Hindutva in its tracks. The Kargil War lesson was that cohesive primary groups allowed young, junior leaders to do their thing. Absent integration – vertical and horizontal – as the Agnipath scheme portends, a loss is not an implausible outcome. It may yet have the liberty to wash away its action with a few crocodile tears, as with demonetization, or of placatory rollback, as with the land acquisition and farm laws. Alternatively, if Indians vote out Modi, the scheme of short-term volunteers can be trashed, though retaining its strengths as the shift to AIAC. Such outcomes are hypothetical. The scheme – to reiterate - is to put the military into a spin, while Hindutva runs amok.

To wrap up on a theoretical note, Elizabeth Kier, in her book Imagining War: French and Military Doctrine between the Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), has it that ‘the intervention of civilian policymakers is rarely a carefully calculated response to the external environment. Instead, civilian choices between different military policies often reflect their concerns about the domestic balance of power.’ To her, ‘state actors seek to ensure that the military’s potential strength corresponds to the desired division of power in the state and society.’ This is especially so, ‘in states that have not reached a consensus about the role of armed services in the domestic arena (pp. 3-4).’

The extract is relevant to the Indian circumstance. The place of the military has been rudely shaken by the attempt by Hindutva of politicization of the military. The regime wishes a pliable, rather than merely a subordinate military. A regime out to reset the Constitution would logically deflate military’s power. Therefore, it is not external threat – including the so-called ‘two front’ threat that concerns the regime, as much as fixation with an internal power balance facilitative of move from New India, already wrought, to Hindu Rashtra, in the offing.