Awards: The final nail in the military’s ‘apolitical’ coffin?

https://m.thewire.in/article/politics/by-a-largesse-of-military-awards-the-regime-is-using-the-armed-forces-to-bolster-modis-image

The army chief rightly observed that the perception of victory amongst common folk in Pakistan in its counterpart of Operation Sindoor, Op Bunyan al Marsoos, has been fostered by the elevation of its army chief to five-star rank.

The observation holds good for the Indian side too. With seven Sarvottam Yudh Seva Medals (SYSM) dished out at Independence Day, a perception of a splendid victory is sought to be manufactured.

To the credit of some recipients of the largesse, they sheepishly acknowledge their role as confined to the operations rooms, disavowing from the hyperinflation in awards.

In other words, it is not a citations ‘push’ but a ‘pull’ from top that resulted in the surfeit.

Not acknowledging the downing of Indian aircraft, including a Rafale, dented the regime’s image. The belated claim by the air chief that India went one up by accounting for six Pakistani aircraft in the 4-Day War, has not quite made up for that deficit. Doling out largesse is its answer.

Admittedly, going beyond the call of duty is laudable. But going beyond the call of the duty of obedience most certainly is not.

As a subordinate institution to its political overlord, the military eventually must comply – as indeed it has in this instance.

In this case, the regime is using the military yet again to bolster its image as strong-on-defence, and that of its leader, Narendra Modi, as a Warlord. It’s not for the military to facilitate this.

Though Mr. Modi has surpassed Indira Gandhi’s record of number of days in office as also the number of speeches delivered at Red Fort, he does not have a 1971 War-like splendid victory to his credit.

A 1971 War redux is impossible in the nuclear age – recall the field marshal (FM) next door reminding everyone that he would take half the world down with him in case provoked down that route.

An equivalent victory must therefore be contrived. Since, per the army chief, there is only information war to war these days, winning the war of narratives is all that is needed.

Op Sindoor was to serve the purpose of image building. Mythmaking around it needs more doing. Awards inflation is one such measure.

If General Chauhan is to be believed, the important thing is how resilient a Service is. By their cornering of the top awards, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has done well by this yardstick.

Obviously, its leadership bounced back from the ambush by a certain Aurangzeb the first night. Aurangzeb was waiting for his date with military history, sleeping on a mattress in the air operations room since terror struck Baisaran. In the event, the IAF on the last night made up for the first.

But does that merit the numbers of higher war-time distinguished service awards toted up?

It another matter whether Op Sindoor was ‘war’ to begin with. It’s normalized by now for higher leadership in command of operationally active formations to take home the second of that series.

Interestingly, the IAF middle order collected most Vir Chakras, awarded for war-time gallantry in face of threat, risk and the enemy.

This was indeed the case on the first night when these pilots persisted with their tasks, even in face of some of their colleagues falling out about them - if reports of Indian planes downed are to be believed.

The tactical changes made and the air defence suppression done on the last night might have mitigated the threat and risk. The weaponry in all cases was stand-off and technology-heavy. Also, the lesson from the Varthman episode well learnt, in no instance did any plane of either side cross the border or Line of Control (LC).

So, air defence targeting apart, Vir Chakras for trashing Pakistani airfields from well within own territory might not easily fit the bill. Technical skill in releasing ordnance is recognized with the Vayu Sena Medal (VM), of which there were many won, a list that should have been longer.

In contrast, only five of the 12 pilots of aircraft that went across the LC during Operation Bandar received the VM.

Is the defence ministry going the home affairs way in devaluing awards?

Recall Advani perversely handed out the Ashok Chakra to each of seven police men who unfortunately perished while manning the parliament gate during the terror strike that December, along with disbursing a crore rupees to each.

Questionable also is the handing out of higher war-time distinguished service awards for those who were ‘left out of battle’ as it were.

The operationally-ready posturing of the other two Services would have weighed on FM Munir’s decision to throw in the towel. Evidence for this is the Pakistani side at the military operations’ chiefs talks during the draw down asking for the withdrawal of one operationally threatening army formation.

Thus, there was both a demonstration of force and a display of more to come. The latter goes by the term escalation dominance. Pakistan seemingly got the message.

However, Munir may have had other inducements, including President Trump’s supposed intervention. That he has been handsomely compensated, with no less than a luncheon at the White House, and a twice-over trip to the United States - that has since had some Indian strategists green with envy.

Unfortunately, quite like with deterrence, it can never be definitively known if the posturing did the trick. Clearly, Munir’s considerations were less operational than strategic.

Therefore, seven Sarvottams dished out is an overkill, particularly when contrasted with only three awarded prior – to, namely, the commander of the Indian Peacekeeping Force and the air and land operational commanders of the Kargil War.

Even Hari Kumar, the architect of the Balakot strike, did not figure in the medals, though as history knows, Modi went on to a ‘splendid victory’ of a different sort, one at the polls.

And, if this is the score in what is arguably not a ‘war’, what might the military wish-list include in war itself? If awards are so liberally distributed, then wouldn’t these lose their sheen.

India does not need to look any further than its neighbour to know where it should not venture. The friendly neighbourhood FM took home a medal. But then, let’s remind ourselves, he is only catching up with us.

An army chief here had atypically helped himself with a distinguished service award. The Leetul Gogoi controversy he dived headfirst into shows up the underside of messing with the straight and narrow on awards.

Since the situation in Kashmir – notwithstanding the vacation of Article 370 - triggered it all, worth noting is all three brass-hats heading formations in Kashmir received awards for their showing.

The army commander is an SYSM recipient. Though new in the chair, taking over the week following the terror attack, that he was the army’s Strategy head at New Delhi prior, implies his award could do with closer scrutiny: Why, in face of a war onset, there was no effort at protecting civilians along the LC, resulting in casualties? Was this deliberate: to raise war temperatures? What was his advice on the conciliatory opportunity emerging with Kashmiris on the streets protesting the terror attack on their touristic lifeline? Did he advise against the dragnet in which some 3000 were picked up?

The Chinar Corps commander certainly did not merit the list. In the chair since last year, how is it that he concurred with the removal of the central police post from Baisaran? Why did he lend army engineers for the Israel-like demolition of houses of purported militants? Did he respond to allegations of torture of graziers on the Pir Panjals? How is it that the Pahalgam perpetrators were allowed to get away for this long? What was the content of the aborted press briefing that was to take place on the killing of the three, to whom Amit Shah attributes the Pahalgam massacre?

The two must know if and to what extent the official narrative on Pahalgam and the subsequent killing of the perpetrators misleads. What was the handing over brief of the former army commander? Did he take home any secrets that the nation must be apprised about?

Awards have a purpose beyond the obvious.

The run-away Modi-endorsed hit, The Kashmir Files, has a scene in which a character remarks that a Padma award has been handed out to the military man for keeping him quiet, for he knows too much and perhaps also knows the truth. The regime is no less crafty than that screen writer.

Into the second decade of serving its current political master, the military must have figured out Modi’s management repertoire.

Personalized loyalty, unleavened by institutional integrity and purpose, is the hallmark. The political Principal’s journey is littered with those who stood by their Constitutional roles falling by the way side; even while those who fell in line have been elevated beyond their competence levels.

Quite like other institutions of governance, the military has been recipient of like attention of the regime. The military appears now more subservient than subordinate.

The air chief’s carte blanche is evidence: “A key reason for success was the presence of political will. There were very clear directions given to us. No restrictions were put on us… If there were any constraints, they were self-made.”

The awards are rewards for falling in line; with the sanctity of awards unhinged alongside – another nail for good measure.

The military must expect more nails will be hammered into its ‘apolitical’ coffin. The regret is that the din will not alert the dead.

 https://m.thewire.in/article/books/general-anil-chauhan-spills-the-beans-in-his-new-book

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/in-his-new-book-general-chauhan-spills

In his new book, General Chauhan spills the beans

Discussing the ‘many lines of action through which one can enhance the capability of a state to defend itself,’ General Chauhan, in the subsection on ‘Civil-Military Fusion’ in his chapter ‘National Security: A Conceptual Framework’ says in his new book:

This (civil-military fusion) ensures the optimal utilization of civil and military resources to achieve national objectives. It fuses military professionalism with political ideologies (emphasis and parenthesis added) (p. 44).”

Given that military professionalism and political ideologies have historically and universally been taken as incompatible, the misbegotten insertion appears to have escaped the eye of avid copy editors.

Even so, since it explains a lot of what’s been going on in the military sphere over the past decade of the Modi regime’s tenure in power, it must be alternatively read. It should not be mistaken as a ‘slip of tongue’.

It is instead a bold assertion, meant to be read, absorbed and normalized; even if alongside it is – as here – scrutinized, critiqued and pilloried.

Since the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) himself puts it so bluntly, it does not require further explication. Even so, since it is so shocking it might require a helpful word or two to digest.

The good General lists civil-military fusion among the intangible factors, which together with military force application, help with ‘Defence of a Nation State.’ ‘National security remit being larger than the application of military force,’ its instruments include ‘civil-military fusion’.

To be fair, he elaborates on the sentence, arguing that the infusion of state-of-the-art technologies across multiple domains and advent of dual-use technologies and infrastructure lend credence to the concept of civil-military fusion for optimizing resources. Fusion is also ‘paramount’ for citizen-centric HADR (humanitarian and disaster management) operations.

The General appears to want to take the sting out of the sentence by sugar-coating it by highlighting the close interconnection between the civil-military spheres. However, it is not self-evident why the military needs to be imbued with ‘political ideologies’ for interconnectedness to be efficient and effective.

Whats clear is that the interconnection cannot be seamless, since the military is an institution of a democratic State that by definition sees alternation in power of political ideologies.

By no means must a military be at odds with the national spirit or the political master, but adoption of ‘political ideologies’ goes beyond the consensus thus far on military subordination of the political.

So, what could Chauhan possibly mean?

His view is perhaps unknowingly informed by a theory in civil-military relations (CMR) termed Concordance theory. The theory is important enough in CMR to have been reprised in the golden jubilee commemorative edition of Armed Forces and Society (AFS), an international inter-disciplinary journal on the subject.

Its academic proponent, Rebecca Schiff, claims that the theory, ‘sees a high level of integration between the military and other parts of society.’ She argues that ‘three partners - the military, the political elites, and the citizenry - should aim for a cooperative relationship that may or may not involve separation but does not require it.’

In her seminal essay in the frontier AFS - later expanded to book length - she had used India as an example of concordance, incidentally, alongside Israel in the other case study. Her book went on to include a case study on Pakistan, of discordance there resulting in military intervention.

Unpersuaded with the understanding on civil-military ‘separation’, attributable to the dominance of the Huntingtonian notion on CMR, she had sought out ‘integration’ as a more descriptive term on CMR in many, particularly, non-Western states, such as India.

The theory has it that concord between the three stakeholders – the political elite, the military and society – brings about domestic non-intervention by the military. This is probable when the three ‘partners’ agree on four factors: ‘the social composition of the officer corps, the political decision-making process, recruitment method, and military style.’

To her, ‘(c)ooperation and agreement on four specific indicators may result in a range or civil-military patterns, including separation, the removal of civil-military boundaries, and other variations.’

Such a consensus existed in India through the Congress raj with civilian preponderance and separation of the military. Schiff approaches her case-study in the tumultuous decade of the Nineties, when political consensus was showing cracks. She concludes that political dominance alone (recall the political disarray of the coalitions back then) cannot explain continuing Indian military reticence on domestic intervention. Institutional (the military’s non-political style) and cultural factors (continuing British legacy) need factoring in. Thus, ‘separation’ served India well.

Today, India faces a new reality: that of an ideological capture of the State. Requiring a quiescent military, an ideological state can have one, but only through cooption. Thus, separation is no longer necessary.

So, is India moving towards ‘removal of civil-military boundaries’ – one of Schiff’s models?

This could explain General Chauhan’s brief, and for now cryptic, advocacy.

With Hindutva now predominant in Indian political culture - opposition parties opting for ‘soft Hindutva’ – it’s the only political ideology in town. Is the CDS advocating the military bandwagon?

Given the change in political culture, a shift in strategic culture is but natural, with the verities of the former informing the latter. A preceding sub-section to the one on fusion discusses ‘Strategic Culture’.

He calls for creation of a strategic culture ‘in the nation to create an awareness among the people on the ‘whole of nation’ approach that is sine qua non with emerging challenges.’ This, to him, requires that ‘citizens and society in a nation must understand the importance of security in all its dimensions, be it external, internal, economic or social.’

In other words, a trickle-down must encompass society, strategic culture defined as a ‘set of beliefs, customs and traditions held by the strategic decision-makers about the political objectives of war and the most effective ways of achieving it.’

With the political elite and the military already politically concordant, the society must be brought in line through strategic cultural manipulation. Efforts as Project Udbhav must been seen in this context.

The author devotes a chapter to ‘Ancient Indian Wisdom and its relevance in modern strategy and statecraft.’ To his credit, he lists Moghuls alongside the Guptas in keeping up the Mauryan consolidation of the idea of India – Bharatvarsh’.

With Moghul history kicked out of pedagogy, strategic culture can only rummage in an ancient history attic. This shows the military has bought into the verities of the Hindutva project.

In short, the civil-military separation that facilitated Indian military professionalism is fast losing its sheen. Is professionalism itself next?

General Chauhan is appreciative of the civil-military integration that has taken place thus far (the creation of his appointment, the CDS), but is silent on the civil-military integration that the yet-pending theaterisation will wreak.

He states theaters will be ‘force employment’ mandated, while Service headquarters headed by the Chiefs will restrict themselves to ‘force generation’, with even the CDS continuing only in an advisory role.

This leaves unsaid where the command-and-control chain of theater commanders’ stops. It cannot be at the desk of a triple-hatted CDS, one hat of which is as a Secretary.

The recommendatory line - ‘the chain of command and the operational decision matrix will also need to be redefined’ - is hardly helpful.

His one-line mention - ‘There should be NO ambiguity in the command-and-control structures for the higher direction of war (emphasis in original, p 168)’ – suggests civil-military ‘integration’, with theater commanders answering to the defence minister, as is in the American system.

No harm in that, but a book from the CDS need not have avoided the subject, particularly if there is dissonance (what else explains the ‘NO’, in caps?).

Another subject missing is nuclear weapons. That these are significant is clear from the manner the regime went about limiting Op Sindoor. Clearly, ‘(A) Blueprint for the transformation of India’s Military’ – the book’s subtitle – cannot have elided this topic.

It is logical to expect the CDS as the military adviser to the Nuclear Command Authority on nuclear matters, to have touched on the matter. Besides, the General’s previous book, authored at a one-star level, was on nuclear war effects; indicating his being attuned to the dangers. Instead, nuclear weapons find a mention at three places only in generic terms.

This keeps this critical matter under wraps, particularly the command-and-control arrangements, given that the CDS does not have command authority over the Strategic Forces Command. This begs the question: Who does? If a civilian (the NSA?), then does it presage theater commanders answering to a civilian?

Finally, and importantly, here’s evidence of the populist dogma in the political sphere finding its way into the military’s innards. General Chauhan writes:

In terrorism, one finds the absence of a political goal. It is not a means to an end but an end in itself. In the Quranic concept of war, terror is not a means to impose a decision but a decision in itself. Such violence without any definite political end state is contributing to the changing nature of war (p. 57).’

This is of a piece with the longstanding misinterpretation of the book by a Pakistani brigadier titled ‘Quranic Concept of War’ written in Zia’s times. Some two decades back I had refuted the notion of a Quranic endorsement of terrorism in the Army War College journal, that had asynchronously carried its review, writing in the following edition,

Terror in the author’s (Brigadier Malik) perspective is taken as akin to ‘Shock and Awe’, rather than ‘Terror’ as is currently, fashionably defined, more for propaganda purposes than accuracy. Terror can be taken as the imposition of a decision paralysis on an enemy commander, a numbing fear in his army and popular disaffection in the cause of the war. To the author (Brig. Malik) it is not the spectacular killing of innocents and non-combatants that is Terror in the post 9/11 Age (p. 198).

Now, with the CDS endorsing nonsense, Islamophobic dogma appears to have gone mainstream.

Lastly, the book’s title is interesting in its inclusion of the term, ‘Resurgent’. Are we to believe that the Indian military was in stupor so far, a Rip Van Winkle (Kumbhkaran in Hindi-speak) to be stirred awake by regime using likeminded acolytes in uniform?

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*General Anil Chauhan, Ready, Relevant and Resurgent: A Blueprint for the transformation of India’s Military, New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2025, pp. 200, Rs. 895.