https://open.substack.com/pub/aliahd66/p/whats-really-colonising-the-military?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=i1fws

https://thewire.in/security/whats-really-colonising-the-military-mind

What's really colonising the military mind

The military’s implementing of Prime Minister Modi’s decolonization dictum was on display yet again, this time in the renaming of Fort William as Vijaydurg.

Possible hypothesis on the name change are:

· A benign view of the military’s alacrity is that India’s is an obedient military, subordinate to the civilian masters.

· The army has read the tea leaves and is selective of the battles it picks. It perhaps intends to ride out such punches, if not the regime itself; bowing to the wind better than being blown away.

· Its strategic in allowing the regime some leeway, for the regime’s attention for its organizational projects. The three services are in a competition to bend. When the navy has been rather supple, can the army be far behind? Though the Air Force came up with the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ tune for Beating Retreat, it is not quite neck-in-neck, since the Air Chief is against airing dirty linen.

· Maybe the army is periodically throwing the regime some bones.

· It’s also not impossible that its leadership comprises believers, over-eager as are nascent converts.

· Perhaps the commanding general in Kolkata is currying regime’s favour, quite like the current Chief of Defence Staff did once from the same perch, pronouncing on a student agitation.

Why fret?

Irrespective of which of these holds water, the army’s alacrity can be laid down to the army leadership being from the Great Indian Middle Class. It’s been brain washed for some thirty years, the duration the army incubated the current leadership.

It appears the regime may be close to having the military leadership it wished for and the budding Hindu Rashtra, a military it deserves.

Sensibly, the regime is proceeding post-haste to redo the military. It wishes the military to first shed its past skin, so that it can slip into the one it has in store.

The regime having time on its side, it is not possible to expect the military to take a stand.

It can be expected to continue down its ‘apolitical’ road, oblivious that under the circumstance of the Chanakyan – surreptitious, stealthy, subterranean, surely – assault on India’s verities, to be apolitical is political.

For now, the military is best advised to be go slow, shirk, disrobe leisurely.

What’s at play?

If ‘Vijaydurg’ is its substitute for ‘Fort William’, then it must engage more intimately with alternatives thought up for it.

The alternate chosen is out of sync with the people and the place, as pointed out by a former army chief, a local to boot.

Linked as Vijaydurg is the great warrior general, Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, it is of a piece with the army installing statues of the Maratha king at two other places, neither of which the legendary patriot had any connection with – Kupwara and Ladakh.

For its part, the navy’s statue of the Maratha king - later felled by strong winds - was at least mitigated by the navy’s roleplay as legatee to the king’s exploits at sea. (Never mind that an admiral, Kunjali, was Muslim, prompting the navy to change the name of a Colaba helipad that bears his name - and that too in the pre-Modi era!)

There is no such redeeming feature in the army’s action, with locals – less in Kupwara where they are understandably muted – querying it.

The then Maharashtra chief minister inaugurating of the one at Kupwara suggests where the funds come from, providing a clue to the intent.

It’s clear the military is being put to furthering an agenda. Its leadership – with bios invariably touting alma mater National Defence College - cannot be so naïve as to not know what that is.

The proliferation of Shivaji likeness in unlikely places owes to the appropriation of a secular, progressive, modernist and humanist historical figure by the Right Wing. (Never mind that they stand for precisely the obverse, or rather, the appropriation owes precisely to that variance.)

Shivaji’s resolute fight against Aurangzeb - Hindutva’s Darth Vader - forced the wily Emperor to spend the rest of his life campaigning austerely in the Deccan.

Shivaji’s challenge is interpreted - in the Right Wing’s worldview - as the first blow against India’s initial colonisers, its Muslims.

Thus, the name change in Kolkata is a double-blow: more obviously against British colonisers, but also, more subtly, against Muslims.

Further, in Kolkata, it helps the onslaught on a stronghold against Hindutva: Bengal, the other being the deep South.

Ideologues know best erasure is a preliminary and necessary step to rewriting history.

By erasing the part of history of Bengal and its people that gave Bengal a head-start into modernity over the rest of India, they hope to subdue it. The insertion of Hindutva icon is to recreate Partition’s divide.

On a wider note, the privileging of Shivaji is the regime’s way of ‘unifying’ India. It assumes diversity is a threat. Therefore, the emphasis on ‘One this, One that, and the ‘Other’’.

Unifying narratives, as one woven round Shivaji, are supplemented around historical figures as Mahabir Borphukan in Assam and Bhagwan Munda in Adivasi India.

The former is to build the ferment against ‘illegal immigrants’ which even Trump could envy; while the latter is against Christians, explicable when ‘British’ is collapsed with ‘Christian’.

It places a Christian ‘Other’ on par with the Muslim Other – in order to construct a Hindu identity and, in turn, unity (‘ek hai toh safe hai’).

This is increasingly necessary, troubled as the regime is by the imminent exposure, heralded by the Telangana caste census, of the Grand Indian 15:85 Faultline, wherein 15 per cent lord it over the 85 per cent majority.

A DIY kit

There are two possibilities, neither of which are edifying: one, either the army is acting in connivance; or, two, it is being dictated to.

Rajnath Singh has a former military general as principal adviser in his office, a post created for him.

The incumbent ordinarily ought to have alerted the Raksha Mantri, since he would know the military ethic, even if it evidently escapes Singh.

Its possible that the army furnishes the list of 75 prospective decolonization initiatives, while the replacement draws on back links with the Right Wing behemoth.

When confronted with criticism on his redecoration of his office annex, that witnessed the relegation of the iconic 1971 War victory painting and the plaque with the army’s leadership credo, the Army Chief apologetically accepted three ‘golden ages’: the British, the Moghul and the era before that.

However, the fort’s renaming soon thereafter suggests that while his heart is in the right place, demonstrating spine might be needed.

For that, the military must engage Ali-like in a ‘rope-a-dope’ trick, resorting to a theaterisation-like merry-go-round.

The military must vet the Replacement Dharma for any repositioning entailed in relation to the Constitution.

The regime’s innumerable protests to the contrary only aggravate suspicion that these serve as cover for its designs on the Constitution, a pre-requisite for formalizing Hindu Rashtra.

Simultaneous steps to politicise the army are a dead give-away, since these but ensure the army does not rally to a guardianship role.

Reduction of the salience of the army in the national security scheme and in national esteem is evidence.

Diminution is visible in the army being at butt of memes (‘not a game changer but a name changer’) and brasshats as bookend for politician photo ops.

Worse is in placing the military afoul of the national security interest, such as in renewed jollity with China without a reckoning over the three ‘buffer zones’ in Ladakh.

Such undercutting of the military contradicts Rajnath Singh’s homily: ‘A robust security system relies on a strong military. No nation can develop unless its military is powerful.’

The regime must be apprised to the three paradoxes its actions bestir, in order that, hopefully, it treads more gingerly:

· The more it hollows out the military, the more likely it will seek to preserve itself.

· The closer it gets to Constitutional tinkering the more the military’s guardian role comes into play.

· Disempowering the military internally, necessarily militates against empowering it externally.

Notwithstanding that, the military will do well to check on which of the hypothesis behind its name changing binge holds water, and shore up against keeling over.

http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=98358

An Army Day resolution for the new chief

On taking over as the chief of defence staff, General Bipin Rawat was asked about his often figuring controversially in headlines for some or other political intervention by him. His latest was his decrying of the counter citizenship amendment act protests. He had this to say in reply: “We stay far away from politics, very far. We have to work according to directions by the government in power.”

On the face of it, this is as uncontroversial a statement as can be. The military keeps a distance from politics and is obedient to the government, irrespective of the ruling party in power. The new army chief, General MM Naravane, in his interaction with the press on taking over, when asked about military politicization asserted as much, saying, “I totally disagree. We are totally apolitical. It is a misperception of a few people which is totally incorrect.”

However, in light of precedence of military’s parochialism prominently featuring Bipin Rawat all through his army chief days, interrogating whether the military retains its pristine apolitical status is necessary. The plethora of political interventions by General Rawat, and his counter-part air force chief, BS Dhanoa, does not need reiteration here. These cannot be summarily dismissed.

General Bipin Rawat’s statement has clues as to whether the suspicion that there is more to politicization of the military than mere difference of perception holds water. The statement can well be interpreted to mean that though the military maintains a distance from politics, any action that smacks of intervention in politics is in obedience to directions of the government in power.

Such an expansive interpretation of the military’s idea of duty of obedience to the civilian political leadership calls for interrogation. While it does have to answer to the civilian political leadership, it can reasonably be understood that the duty of obedience does not extend to illegal or illegitimate directions.

On this, General John Hyten, head of the United States’ nuclear weapons related Strategic Command, clearly set the gold standard in a modern, democratic civil-military relationship, stating in the context of President Trump’s inconsistent decision making:

I provide advice to the president, he will tell me what to do,”… “And if it’s illegal, guess what’s going to happen? I’m going to say, ‘Mr. President, that’s illegal.’ And guess what he’s going to do? He’s going to say, ‘What would be legal?’ And we’ll come up with options, of a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that’s the way it works. It’s not that complicated.

This means a military needs to have (and does have) an internalised yardstick against which it measures the legitimacy or otherwise of its marching orders. In case the departure from the constitutional letter and norm and past practice is inexplicable and unwarranted, the military instead has the obligation to revert to the civilian master with its reservations and the two together are to arrive at a via media, whereby the civilian will prevails and the military does not overstep any constitutional line.

In effect, the constitutional straight and narrow is the yardstick. The military brass has acquired its stature in the national scheme so far by its adherence to this. Even Bipin Rawat’s public gaffes through his tenure so far has not shifted the normative goal posts. On the contrary, he has been upbraided for transgressing the constraints on political speech and behavior by a senior of the veteran community, Admiral Ramdas.

The military is not obligated where directions fail the appropriateness test. Whereas the duty of obedience is primary, it is not sacrosanct or unconstrained. The military leader has to apply his mind to received instructions and act as per the mandate in relation to the Constitution and - normatively - in relation to the nation.

In other words, in case a military receives instructions to make political statements, it really ought to politely fob these off. With time, deterrence against illicit action and mutual respect would set the relationship on even keel. The military needs to stand up for its constitutional obligation and tradition of apolitical and secular ethic, reminding political masters when necessary not to ask of it anything it cannot deliver on.

This is predicted on a dialogue between the two tiers – civilian and military – wherein the political tier respects the military’s space and the military does not attempt transcend it and resists attempts to prevail over it to act otherwise. Needless to add, such a ‘pull and push’ would require to be done discreetly within the corridors of power, so that the relatively delicate democratic edifice is not buffeted unduly.

Admittedly, this is a tall order, since, as Anit Mukherjee suggests in his new, eponymous book – The Absent Dialogue – dialogue is absent within the ministry. His finding reinforces Bharat Karnad’s colourful portrayal of the prime minister’s disdain for the anglicized military leadership, of the brass unavailable for discussion after sunset since they are presumably at the bar.

The last resort is of course for a military commander to resign. Civil-military theory has it that the civilian has the ‘right to be wrong’ and, in the agent-principal linkage, the civilian leadership is answerable to the electorate. It is for the electorate to punish the civilian leadership for wrong decision making. All a military professional can do under the circumstance is to resign.

This responsibility is not unknown to the military brass. Both socialisation and a professional military education underscore the importance of democratic civilian control, with its limits also forming part of the military acculturation. Exposure to civil-military relations (CMR) theory is part of military curriculum for higher ranks. The military is also cognisant of the place of tradition in military culture. Learning from peer militaries is also constantly ongoing. There is a hiatus of a year at Delhi’s Tees January Marg where those destined for apex ranks are exposed at the defence ministry controlled National Defence College to India’s democratic mores and practices.

In his rumination on his responsibility of the US’ nuclear arsenal, John Hyten, went on to say, “I think some people think we’re stupid. We’re not stupid people. We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility, how do you not think about it?” Basically, he underlines the extensive training and military professional education that prepares the brass for their jobs. In India’s case, an officer while getting to general rank spends a minimum five years in class rooms. This enables political sensitivity and knowledge of civil-military relations red lines.

The good sense in a professional distance from politics is as brought out by a former vice chief, Vijay Oberoi: that in a system of democratic alternation in government, the military can seamlessly transfer its loyalty between dispensations irrespective of who is elected to power. If and since political parochialism is not within the remit of the military, any insistence by the temporal political masters on this must be determinedly sidestepped by the military.

There are bureaucratic ways to ‘shirk’ – a Peter Feaver phrase - dodgy tasking. General Panag in an advisory piece for the new army chief recommends resort to cryptic military phrasing when interacting with the media, so as not to stray into political turf. This indicates that situations can be tactfully handled. The brass has over three decades of human relations management experience before getting to flag rank.

The unfortunate tendency today is in personalisation of power, an example is in the manner Narendra Modi supervised the annual conclave of director generals of police with a regimen that included yoga with Modi in the lead. The effect on policing in the national capital and India’s largest state is self-evident in the handling of the counter citizenship amendment act protests there.

Reminding the military of this verity at this juncture is timely in that there is a change of guard at 5 Rajaji Marg, the residence of the army chief. It is heartening to note the spoken reputation of General MM Naravane, the new incumbent. Any indoctrination residue from his schooling at a prominent right wing run school in Pune cannot but have been washed off in his close to four decades of imbibing and practice of military mores.   

Going forward, the onus is on the military to stockade itself within its professional space. Adoption of a prickly posture – reminiscent of a porcupine – may send the message and deter the regime from abusing its authority over the military. Naravane has begun well by drawing attention at his first Army Day press conference to the preamble of the Constitution, which is echoing across the land today in student protests. It remains to be seen if he is prepared for a personal cost for better serving national security. 

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https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/the-agenda-for-the-new-chief

An agenda for the new chief

General Naravane takes over as army chief at the turn of the year. His agenda has already been set for him by his predecessor, whose tenure over the past three years witnessed a trend towards politicization of the army. Naravane needs to roll back the damage done by General Bipin Rawat, even if Bipin Rawat is lucky enough to be kicked upstairs as chief of defence staff by year end when he retires.

The likelihood of the latter is very much there since reports have it that all that remains to be done is for the prime minister to sign off on the CDS agenda. If this was not the case then it would not have taken the government so long to announce the name of the next chief, earlier done some two months in advance, though admittedly the Modi regime has been less than punctilious in observing this procedural nicety.

Since the CDS has been in the offing for long, delays have been attributed to the government making up its mind on the first incumbent and his mandate. In actuality, the government perhaps wants to heat up the race for the top job with senior three star brass lining up to signal their ideological propinquity.

The latest illustration of this trend is in the eastern army commander, General Anil Chauhan, under whose territorial jurisdiction the security fallout of the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) and the soon-to-follow National Register of Citizens bill will mostly to play out, stating that the controversial CAA was product of hard-nosed decision making of the government. It is well known that deep selection for the CDS post is being done with three star army command level officers in the run. The eastern army commander, having been the military operations head when the Pulwama-Balakot episode played out, assumes he stands a fair chance and is leaving no stone unturned to broadcast to the government his likemindedness with it and therefore his ‘ease of doing business with’ or pliability quotient.

Naravane would have to reverse this trend set by his predecessor in his repeated forays into political territory, most notably once in his likening of a political party in Assam to a front for illegal immigrants (short hand for Bengali Muslims). Others have followed, such as the northern army commander, General Ranbir Singh, who publicly disagreed with his predecessor that surgical strikes have been in the army’s armoury on the Line of Control for long. The northern army commander had independently in December taken up cudgels with his predecessor, now retired General Hooda. He later on the last day of elections this year unnecessarily supported the yet again unnecessary election time assertion of Anil Chauhan, then military operations head, that the there was no record of any surgical strikes prior to the ones under Narendra Modi. This intervention by the military was in the controversy over the Congress claim that it had conducted six such operations in its time at the helm. There was no need for Anil Chauhan to underwrite the governments’ side of the debate nor for the army commander to step up in its defence.

It is not a malady confined to the army. The last air chief was at pains to point to the well known virtues of the Rafale aircraft, particularly since an underequipped F-16 shot down one of his Mig 21 Bison aircraft, which we are now informed by an American expert speaking at the military literature festival in Chandigarh this December that the Indian plane was superior to the Pakistan-owned American one. The expert, Christine Fair, went out of her way to underline that she was no friend of Pakistan when she made her comments, a well known fact since her book on the Pakistani army is a well regarded critique of that army.

At the event, the former air chief, now retired, Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa, rode his favourite hobby horse once again. While earlier bureaucratic lethargy and political pusillanimity in the United Progressive Alliance era was the subtext, in contrast to the Modi-Doval innovative short cuts of procedure by way of which Rafale purchases were fast forwarded in Paris, this time round Dhanoa – recently retired – was explicit with his critique and implicit contrast.

Missing in the air chief marshal’s perspective are two elements that make for the distinction between the strategic and political planes. One is affordability, since security expenditures have an opportunity cost. The second is merging of the security and diplomatic prongs of grand strategy to influence a neighbour. By this yardstick, there was no compulsion for the UPA government to fast track Rafale purchases.

Also, there was no compulsion for the successor government to move to a proactive strategic stance without first putting in place the elements necessary. It is no wonder then India suffered a set-back in its strategic proactivism, with Pakistan not only shooting down an Indian plane but also having the last crack at India in its riposte to Balakot. Since the Indians missed their target at Balakot, the Pakistanis were wise enough to convey a message by missing their three targets in the Rajauri-Naushera sector. For Dhanoa to now claim that they were ready to climb up the escalation ladder – despite its well known dangers including nuclear ones - only shows up the deficit of strategic level commanders strutting at the political level.

This exposé of the direction India’s civil-military relations have been headed in the Modi regime is to forewarn the army yet again on politicization. Since all institutions of governance have already fallen by the wayside, including arguably the Supreme Court, the army cannot be an exception. The more its generals advertise its susceptibility, the more likely will be such a denouement. Naravane can yet spare the army such fate.

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Salute, April-May 2019 issue

Consequences of operational decisions
https://salute.co.in/consequences-of-operational-decisions/

A trial balloon was floated recently in the media that the government has asked the army to dispense with services of the commanders of the bases that were attacked by terrorists. Three bases found mention in the media report: Uri, Nagrota and Sanjuvan. Rightly, the army has reportedly pushed back, citing the negative effect on aggressive leadership any such move is likely to have.  

While the veracity of the report is not known, the media source being largely credible, it bears reflection as to what the political minders and bureaucratic henchmen imagined when they sought to prevail on the army to take such action.

It is well known that the military has to be on perpetual alert in counter insurgency beset areas, whereas the insurgents/terrorists have to be lucky but once. Therefore, for a base to be attacked as part of an ongoing insurgency/proxy war is only par for the course. It is the immediate reaction and response that is consequential in determining the showing of the outfit attacked.

By this yardstick, it can be argued that even the seeming setback suffered in the Uri terror attack needs moderating. The deaths of a dozen jawans owed not so much to terror action but to an accident resulting from the situation in which the tent they were sleeping in burnt down. The three terrorists were neutralised with just about double the number of own dead, which is reasonable considering that terrorists are no pushovers themselves and their advantage of surprise had first to be negated.

The army transferring of the commander out of the area then was therefore justified, but going any further now would amount to being stampeded by an unrealistic expectation in the minds of civilian desk warriors in Delhi.

They need reminding that friction is endemic in conflict. Friction is the military equivalent of Murphy’s law. As Clausewitz illustrated it, all actions in conflict zones are akin to walking in water. Its effects must be factored in when envisaging operations and their consequences. The fog of war serves to compound fluid situations.  

This phenomenon is true for crisis also. The heightened tensions can result in unintended and inadvertent actions, such as in the unfortunate case of fratricide in which an air force missile unit shot down an own helicopter at Budgam. The friendly fire incident owed to the spike in tension and uncertainty – the fog of war – resulting in the tragedy, an instance of friction.

Though the air force is  considering legal action against the involved officers and weapons handlers, it bears reminding that the situation was one of an ongoing armed attack. Insisting on standard operating procedure implementation is fine, but the human element in combat needs taking into account in any such consideration. The air force must not be overly zealous in attempting to impress its political minders by taking legal recourse in relation to an operational action.

If this advice is valid for the air force that lost air men in the accident, it holds doubly true for the army when confronted with unreasonable demands on how its handles its internal inquiry systems. It needs maintaining its autonomy and having military considerations prevail. 

It is strange that this suggestion has been bandied when there has been no accountability in relation to the Pulwama incident. Pinning of responsibility would have reckoned with at least two heads to have rolled of the Indian Police Service brass, namely, the ones who planned the convoy that was targeted and the intelligence supervisors who missed the car bombing in the offing.

Protecting internal turf is a command responsibility. The army chain has let the government know that the necessary action has been taken. Any further push by civilians is therefore only intended to push the military into a corner and keep it there, in a travesty of civil-military relations. Appropriate democratic civil-military relations entail the military professional sphere being off limits to political muddling.

The theory that has it that civilians are always right even when patently wrong is viable only in states where civilians have a modicum of sensibility for what the military domain implies. The idea broached of sacking commanders instead has fingerprints of amateurs all over it.

Fortunately, the brass shot down – for now - the sentiment likely originating in the national security bureaucracy that over-lays the defence sector these days. Only by standing up will the military continue standing tall.

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http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=92061

AT THE DOORSTEP OF INDIAN MILITARY POLITICIZATION

It would appear that the air chief, who is to retire this September, is auditioning for a job. While angling for a post retirement job is not unusual for those in uniform, khakis or safari suits, the air chief is likely lining up for a kick upstairs, as no less than India's first Chief of Defence Staff equivalent. This can be made out from his claim that the Pakistani air force did not cross the Line of Control (LC) at Rajauri-Naushera on 27 February, the day after India delivered its reprisal at Balakot for the Pulwama terror attack. 
Media reports on his statement at a function at Gwalior air base commemorating the Kargil War's twentieth anniversary draw attention alongside to the Indian statement on Pakistani aggression and air intrusion into Indian air space that day. Explaining this away later, sources in the air force reportedly suggested that intrusion was not by Pakistani air planes but by ordnance used by the Pakistani air force in its stand-off attack on Indian military installations along the LC, which, in the event, missed their intended targets. 
Perhaps the air chief - being himself a hero of the Kargil War - got carried away at his motivational talk to airmen at Gwalior air base. He was pointing out that while Indian pilots hit their target a Balakot - a controversial claim - the Pakistanis did not. For their part, the Pakistanis claim to have deliberately missed their Indian military targets, quite like the Indians - according to the Pakistani military spokesperson - missed theirs. 
Only a couple of weeks back, the army let on that its two senior commanders in the sector, the army and corps commander, had escaped targeting at the tactical level headquarters that was targeted in an air raid by the Pakistanis. Media reports that the army is in the midst of shifting air defence units to the LC. For its part, the air force, staking a claim to shooting down an F-16 had provided evidence in the form of missile parts that had been recovered from the Indian side of the LC. It is apparent that till the air chief rewrote history, the version on which both sides agreed was that the Pakistanis did come across, even if they exited equally speedily chased away by intrepid airmen led by redoubtable, bewhiskered, Abhinandan Varthaman. 
Admittedly, contemporary versions of events are an information war battleground and military history is collateral damage in conflict. However, for the air chief to go overboard in the manner he has must have something more to it. Of the two possible explanations above - the air chief wanting an extension and playing to the gallery at an air base - the former unfortunately may hold more water, and there lies the trouble.
Rumours are rife of an impending defence structural reform. Many commentators are making a pitch for these, arguing that the renewed mandate with an enhanced majority allows the government to do more for defence, in particular implement the reforms left over from the post Kargil era when these were first put down in the recommendations of successive review panels. The chief of defence staff equivalent appointment is a holdover from the period. The intervening governments did not have the political heft. 
The current government set up a defence planning committee (DPC) under its national security adviser (NSA) early last year. It is amply clear that two of its four sub-committees, namely, on policy and strategy and plans and capability development, cannot but have a chair higher than the three chiefs. Neither can the chairman chiefs of staff rule against the other two, nor, without a conflict of interest, rule favourably on his service position sent up by him as its chief. No civilian can substitute since the defence secretary is of an inferior rank to the three chiefs. The NSA, though a man-for-all-seasons, being head of the DPC, cannot also head the two subcommittees, howsoever much he may like to play the role of the chief of defence staff. While he displaced the cabinet secretary from the strategic policy group headship, he cannot also displace a military man from heading the two sub-committees. So the government is likely to be considering elevating a military man at long last to the post of chief of defence staff equivalent.
Since the government has the option of deep selection, having set a precedent in doing so with the selection of the army chief last time, who it will appoint - if it does - is a matter of speculation. The Americans once reached down some thirty slots to elevate Colin Powell to head the joint chiefs panel there. Even so, there are two lead contenders: the air chief who hangs up his wings in September and the army chief who hangs up his boots in December. 
It is no secret for readers of this publication and in this part of India, that the army chief has endeared himself to the government in his leading the army. The army chief has constantly piped up on the government's Kashmir policy. The personal interest is in his justifying to himself - as much as to others - his controversial elevation to the job based on his counter insurgency expertise, and also the government's line through its first term resulting in over 600 youth dead. The army latest play of music for the ears of its political master has been the rejection of any notion that surgical strikes were also carried out by the opposition when in government. These - to the northern army commander and its operations branch - were patented by the Modi-Doval combine. This appears to be a bit of dual positioning - the northern army commander for the army chief's baton while the army chief has the chief of defence staff chair in his sights. 
The maneuverings have acquired competition. The air force has gone out of its way to bolster the ruling party head's questionable claim that some 300 terrorists perished in its aerial surgical strike. The claim turned the tables on the opposition that had till then seemingly clawed its way back based on the traditional issues as unemployment, farmers' suicides, rural distress, economic mismanagement etc. With Pulwama and its riposte at Balakot, the narrative changed. 
If only the fight had stayed at the political level. Engineering a false flag operation - such as at Pulwama - cannot be put beyond the intelligence agencies. It is already clear that they were the first converts to the cultural nationalist ideology of their political minders. However, for a service to pitch-in unmindful of the traditional stipulation on being apolitical is concerning. True, the tradition has taken a beating of late. The last air chief while demitting the appointment trashed the narrative of 'strategic restraint' - the strategic doctrine of the predecessor government he had once served - in line with the then newly minted Modi government's redefining of India. Such revisionism is of a piece with the writing of a military history of South Asia's wars by a former air marshal, which at the very outset reveal cultural nationalist inspiration in his take - shared with Hindutva ideologues - that Moghuls who once ruled and lived in India were foreigners. 
In the instant case, the air force - presumably miffed by the opposition's calling out the government's grandstanding - jumped into the fray. Not only did the air force serve up ammunition in support for the government's position on the curious Rafale deal, but also pushed inordinately for taking the government's word on Balakot. It lent its professionally authoritative status and credibility for political use of its political masters. 
If the air chief does not have an axe to grind - and he is by all accounts an honourable man - then can it be inferred instead that the air force was put to it? This possibility is the worse one, with implications for civil-military relations in terms of politicization of the military. It bespeaks of a military brass that is politically deaf, lacking spine, ideologically persuaded or all three combined. 
This is the outcome of the precedent set by this government in the army chief's appointment. The brass was served notice to speak what the government wishes to hear. This has set up the scramble. Whispers have it that a current frontrunner for next army chief has links with the new ruling party working head, dating to their juvenile friendship. The selection of a chief is a visible manifestation of potential politicization, politicization itself is what could follow: swallowing of the cultural nationalist bait by the military.
Over the coming term, the government may interpret its mandate expansively, believing that enhanced voting in its favour allows it to finally get down to the Hindutva project. This may entail constitutional changes 2022 onwards when it has control of the Rajya Sabha. If de jure changes are arrived at in a legally valid procedure - and do not fall afoul of the Supreme Court's jealous guarding of the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution - the army has absolutely no role or say. Therefore, the government would be well-advised to sensibly keep the military at professional distance. It can do without overkill in trying - in the interim - to shape the military's political understanding in line with its thinking by an unnecessary bear-hug in its civil-military relations.