Service think tanks must not be conduits for political ideology

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/service-think-tanks-must-not-be-conduits

In the fitness of things, a think tank under the circumstance of political dominance of particular party and ideology may require to lean a particular way. Practical people deem this reasonable: sway with the wind, rather than break for being unbending. There may be issues as release of funds that require a certain amount of virtue signalling to unlock; there may be pressures, tacit and upfront; and there may be a lilt to strategic culture to pay obeisance to.

However, such liberties cannot be taken in think tanks of the armed forces. This is a corollary to the popular adage: the military is apolitical. Think tanks affiliated to respective service and one jointly accredited, act as gatekeepers of institutional ethos. If they dilute their vigil on what gets on to their agenda - such as partisan positions or politically-polluted stances - then they end up as a conduit for propaganda. An assembly line of contaminated input can potentially change the military’s organizational culture, making it susceptible to politicisation.

A service-affiliated think tank has autonomy. Autonomy is to enable creativity and innovation, so that the service stands intellectually stimulated. The think tank is an institution in itself, but answerable to its clients; incidentally also paymasters. Presence of an ideological slant in a think tank’s products must raise eyebrows. Should a centre appear to be providing an opening to the military’s intellectual space for propaganda, it has to be examined for motives. If it is absentminded and lethargic, it must stand cautioned. If a wilful participant, it has to be outed. If complicit from being like-minded, a spring-cleaning is warranted.

It suits interested parties targeting the think tank and the military to undercut the apolitical character of the military as a preliminary step to politicization: setting up of the armed forces as yet another instrument of partisan political purpose. Therefore, instances of such deviance from the standards of political propriety and intellectual probity must be pointed out in good faith, lest service think tanks betray public trust and that of their clients, the armed forces.

Examples of departures

Here the army-affiliated think tank, the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), is taken up to see if the centre is manifestly cognizant of its role in respect of keeping the army apolitical. Two of its issue briefs and two programs it conducted are considered. The intent is that timely cautioning would strengthen editorial watchdogs and vetting procedures of organisations it collaborates with, making the think tank less of an ‘easy meat.’ It is important to do so when institutional strength is dissipating rapidly across the board.

In an issue brief, the author, a long-retired major general uses the Delhi terror blasts to launch into an ideology-tinged overview of Muslim separatism historically, which in his mind’s eye continues up to the current day. Academic concerns over complexity and historical accuracy do not hold up this whatsapp uncle. Wholly mindful that assuming Muslim professionals exhibit potential for terrorist acts, he deliberately seeks to undo the progressive and professional success of the Muslim middle class. He recommends a stringent internal security regime, including covert, deniable ‘unobtrusive’ actions on his menu. Though knowing the outcome of such a regime will only further marginalise Muslims and undercut democratic freedoms, he remains undeterred. The paper’s title ‘India’s real enemy’ points to India’s Muslims. He wishes for a ‘War ‘that has no rules of morality or concern for human rights’.’ Taken along with the din and exaggerations over individual criminal behavior marginalizing Muslims, such legitimizing tracts are mischievous and dangerous.

The second ‘issue brief’ is by a retired lieutenant general. The paper is on regional political parties in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), tracing their alleged ambivalence towards the Indian state from independence till after the bifurcation of the state. Targeting political parties, the author is in the footsteps of a former chief - who as candidate chief of defence staff - opined on a political party in the North East. The author, though once a commander in Badami Bagh, appears blind to the salience of identity in the makeup of human beings and communities. There, not only did he run multiple shows in an army auditorium for days on end of The Kashmir Files, but - tone deaf - also had Kashmiris over for a view. As a former head of the army’s publicity wing, he is surely well aware of limits and guardrails. Even if these are not fully applicable to him in his retired capacity, he must know that these apply to the CLAWS. That the paper was published with a CLAWS imprimatur shows the clout of such high-profile social media stars.

A potential tendency for leaning towards the right on CLAWS’ part is reinforced by its recent engagements. At one CLAWS-organized seminar, it had Member of Parliament Mr. Tejasvi Surya over as key speaker, presumably because the seminar was to interest youth into national security affairs. He took care to note, ‘we lost our temples and our libraries were burnt (27:19).’ He condescendingly concludes by subtly peddling caste (26:30): that India’s national building principle has civilisationally always been to entrust security to the ‘wise’ (read brahmins) and the ‘strong’ (read kshatriyas). There is no call for a service think tank to be raising the profile of politicians. It needs being mindful that the credibility of the uniform can be (ab)used for white-washing of political resumes short on commitment to constitutional currently upstanding principles of secularism and fraternity.

Another questionable seminar had CLAWS as co-host, where the veteran speakers it whistled up had an opportunity to rub shoulders with civilian speakers such as a general secretary of the ruling party, among other majoritarian ideology-endorsing notables and ruling party apparatchiks: ‘distinguished scholars and policy visionaries’ in a CLAWS endorsement.

Treading with due caution

For ‘nationalist’ politics to seek to influence the military is not a new phenomenon. In the last BJP dispensation at the turn of the century, there were a surfeit of such contributions by veterans in military publications. This author had taken up cudgels on several occasions with editors of professional journals. In a salutary instance, a self-correction on part of an institution led to the withholding of the second part of an article by a veteran (p. 3).

The second outbreak was in the Modi era, with one writer going overboard: “One of the best Facebook posts from abroad by a known staunch critique of Prime Minister Modi says, “Indians are lucky to have Narendra Modi as their Prime Minister in this time of need!!”. Innocuously timed with the Tablighi Jamaat episode during Covid days, an article on its website egregiously noted, “the terrorist with fidyan (sic) mind set on getting infected will try spreading it to the target groups by intermingling with them…. He however, may take care not to infect the group/community whose support or sympathy he continues to seek in achieving his larger aim.” My observations were met with the director pulling rank!

The facilitation of a majoritarian ideology into the military’s cognitive space by its think tank is problematic. A complicit think tank lending its services for ideological ends calls for overhaul. The exercise of self-regulation and self-correction is compounded if a director is appointed based on his political posturing. A service think tank was once headed by a bhakt, placed by a chief who went on join the ruling party just ahead of last elections. One think tank head went on to a leadership position in an amply-funded right wing think tank, associated at one remove with the regime’s chief security honcho, Ajit Doval.

A feigned slip of tongue is all it takes to identify a majoritarian streak. Substituting the term ‘anti-nationalists’ with ‘poly-nationalists’ (9:20-10:20), the head of CLAWS at a ‘nationalist collective’ of a rabid media group explicates the right wing stereotype of those with a liberal and leftist world view. They, to him, ‘break the fabric of our country and lead us to our detriment and also pose problems for us in the future and our lofty goals of viksit bharat 2047 and in the process our own development of people of India.’ The think tank head believes in ‘one nation, one people’ (9:13); negating the ‘unity in diversity’ principle that has held good for decades. The notion neglects the nature of the proposed oneness; which - to this think tank head - is decidedly nationalist: read majoritarian.

Normalizing of majoritarianism makes it institutional ‘common sense;’ thereby preventing picking up the cues of politicization. Ideological blinkers tend to blind. When in listing only J&K, North East and Left Wing Extremism as internal security challenges, CENJOWS was blind to Hindutva extremism as a significant threat. Indeed, subscription to an ideology misrepresents challenges to the ideology as national security threats when the distinction between a political formation and the nation is lost sight of, a phenomenon liable to occur in a majoritarian setting.

The political cultural shift towards majoritarianism is demanding of a makeover of strategic culture in a particular direction. A think tank’s legitimate domain is the latter. Change if any must be organic and not by arbitrary diktat or – worse - by stealth. A service think tank is not an instrument of information operations targeting the internal, domestic space either of the polity or the military. Its uniformed minders must find the moral courage – albeit in difficult times – to rein political propensities of those in safari suits running it. National security demands speaking truth to power, requiring that think tanks nurture the moral capital to do so, at the very least, in-house.

https://thewire.in/security/is-modi-regime-conditioning-armed-forces-dissent-subversion

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/the-armys-bombshell-into-the-domestic

The army’s bombshell into the domestic sphere

At a seminar at an intellectual hub of the Indian army, a general speculated that the Pahalgam attack may have been a ‘trap’ set by Pakistan to get India into striking back.

Discounting that the converse could be speculated on equally plausibly, what detains us here is what the general goes on to say.

This is especially so since it is not self-evident from what the military informs on his talk. It also seems to be a departure from what the seminar was about to begin with.

Reportedly, he said that, “countries inimical to New Delhi have been trying to replicate what happened in Bangladesh, in India. The yearlong farmers’ protest, the agitation against CAA and the situation in Manipur, (he said,) was part of a larger ploy to destabilise the country and to prevent it from being ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047.”

In short, in a seminar advertised as on ‘disruptive technologies and future warfare’, when - per the military - he is ‘exploring how technology synchronises strategic communication across services’, he instead indulges in what’s but plain and straight-forwardly political-speak.

The text has not yet been made available in the open domain, being perhaps in the compiling stage of the seminar proceedings, it is hard to grasp how the political line he plugs fits in with his topic ‘Weaponsing the Narrative’.

Apparently, slides showcasing anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests and Manipur were trotted out by the general to depict these instances ‘as part of information warfare,’ that accompanies so-called ‘colour revolutions’ instigated from without for regime change.

He brings into military’s seminar rooms a conspiracy theory – that an erstwhile global hegemon is out to sabotage the regime, using the instrument of democratic agitation by motivated stakeholders ranging, in his imagination, from farmers to the usual suspects, Muslims, and - not to forget - Kashmiris.

In effect, the general does ‘weaponise the narrative’, but against democratic dissent provoked by the regime’s missteps and ideological propensities.

This brings up the question if a serving general can indulge in blatant political-speak and if the military should be lending a forum for such purpose.

Reportage from the first edition of the Ransamwad has the usual coverage of the usual worthies. The only other talk that found mention in the media was of this general, indicating that even an otherwise compliant media picked up the sound of a potential bombshell.

It is not known if the military was similarly sensitive. Was it privy to the content of what the general was to say prior? Has it taken umbrage against the forum being abused?

The troubling thing is that the military may by now be inured against seeing the general’s obvious politicking as such.

This can be on two unedifying counts: one, that it is likeminded, and, two, that it is too wimp, under the ministrations of this regime for over a decade, to roll-back the well-regarded penetration of such thinking within the military.

The first would not surprise.

Afterall, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) earned his blue-eyed status by seconding his ethnic kin, the then army chief, on the anti-CAA agitations. The army chief in question went on to be his predecessor as the first CDS.

Since his chair (which incidentally per rumours is to fall vacant next month) is open to all three-stars, it is unlikely this politically garrulous two-star general is auditioning for it. From his current and previous appointments its evident he has been put to pasture, so may only be signalling for less.

Greener pastures lie ahead for such voluble generals, from joining regime-friendly retired brass-hats on their breezy speaking circuits. Recall when last heard, the general was busy using info-war techniques on Kashmiris disaffected by the hollowing out of Article 370. His then boss at Chinar Corps, a self-styled info-warrior, is doing fine by this yardstick out of uniform.

Of the second, the army’s genuflection to ‘apolitical’ has singularly failed to deter. No wonder, the video on an ‘apolitical’ army was withdrawn once. Generals shooting their mouths off is no longer unknown.

Whereas it can be argued that they are doing their info-war turn, it is excusable at a stretch if and only if no Indian community or legitimate stakeholder is disparaged in the bargain.

The army has no business lending its reputational weight to pejorative inuendoes such as wanton claims that anti-CAA protests were ‘part of information warfare’.

The subtext is that Muslim and liberal participants in the protests were stooges of a proverbial ‘foreign hand’, which, in this case, is shorthand for our friendly neighbour – to where protestors have ad infinitum been invited to migrate.

Since this was reportedly part of the slides of the presentation – and not off-the-cuff answer to a question as the other nonsensical mouthings of the general are – it has seeming imprimatur. In hindsight, his earliest appearance appears portentous.

His invite to the forum can easily be seen to be complacence on part of organisers, mistaking the general’s service in Pakistan, where was an attaché, and in Kashmir, where he was the info-war minder, as relevant background.

However, it cannot be ruled out that there is a politicised cabal out to polarise professional spaces, who may serve as conduits to forces outside. It stands to reason that where the majority is somnolent politically, it takes but a few political entrepreneurs in uniform to reset the organisation’s compass.

If so, spring cleaning is overdue.

The timing of the general’s presentation made at a location housing the army’s largest officer presence suggests that it is no coincidence, but could well be a considered opportunity by forces-that-be to implant a skewed perspective into the military’s mind.

Two ingredients of the scenarios posited by the general exist current day.

Exponentially strained relations with the a ‘strategic partner’ exist at a time when the regime facing its most significant convergence of challenges, from a potential backlash to voter disenfranchisement possibly aggravated by ‘tariff wars’.

Does it anticipate democratic direct action ahead, that it wishes to pre-emptively delegitimise? Is the regime conditioning the military into believing that democratic dissent amounts to subversion? Does it wish to inoculate the military with diversionary opiate prior?

There is no call for the military to view the events where people have taken to the streets such as in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and, indeed, in Pakistan, with any prejudice. When institutional checks and balances breakdown, people tend to democratically even the playfield.

There is no call for a military to have a position on any disturbances a government encounters. It has to stick to the rule-book, irrespective. Its role does not require an ideological overlay.

On the contrary, having such blinkers on will turn it into just a more muscular version of the Khakis in khaki-chaddis in Delhi and Manipur during respective crises.

Instead, as antidote to the good general’s potion, it may like to timely reprise lessons from its showing in Gujarat.

The theoretical problem with ‘weaponizing narratives’ the general surely elided in his talk is that some among the intended targets are domestic, including voters. ‘All is fair in love and war’ is not wholly applicable in such cases.

A practical problem is that Operation Sindoor continuing, and the next possibly five-year war promised as ‘soon’, the domestic space can only continue in the line of fire of the regime’s information war.

This, when it is steadily losing its mojo, can only escalate, catching not only the common citizen in its crosshairs, but its most vulnerable ones – the minority - at that.

Since influence operations are the flavour of the season, the military must in the current circumstance tread tenderly (p. 27). It needs reminding that its existence is over double that of a self-important entity currently celebrating its centenary.