On 27 August, the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, the highest-level Integrated Headquarters of the Armed Forces, tweeted, “Exploring the Idea That is India from a Strategic Perspective, the Commandant of the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC), Wellington set the stage for the Seminar by questioning what defines the Idea of India.”
The rest of the tweet described the speakers and the topics they covered. The projected basic theme was the need to revise the ‘Idea of India’ currently inhered in our Constitution and bring it in line with India’s historical legacy, which is anchored in the Hindu civilisation. It is based on the notion that colonisation had distorted and suppressed the truth about India’s ancient heritage, derailing the country’s intellectual originality by replacing it with Western ideas. Rediscovering India’s true identity, therefore, would become an imperative from a strategic perspective.
The IDS tweet caught the attention of several veterans who voiced their discomfort with a military training institution like the DSSC providing a platform to what could only be described as a Rightist ideology and that too bordering on the extreme. It is worth noting that the DSSC is the ideal institution to influence the minds of future military leaders, as it has specially selected officers at the level of Majors and Lieutenant Colonels or their equivalents drawn from all three Armed Forces. Some of them can be expected to occupy the highest rungs of leadership in the course of time. The institution also provides a large assemblage of military officers at a common location, studying and interacting with each other for as long as a year.
DSSC isn’t the only educational institution where the theories of India’s Hindu legacy are being propagated. Nearly, two years ago, the author had personally witnessed a similar theme being expounded at one of India’s hallowed engineering institutions. The pattern of planting such ideologies reveals a long-term project at work—the aim is to convince Indians of the unquestionable validity of the Hindu majoritarian idea as the basis of modern India’s political structure.
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Impact on military professionalism
For the military, several questions arise about permitting the entry of such ideas into the pedagogy at training institutions. First, should the military provide platforms for promoting ideologically weighted themes? Second, can military institutions, already overloaded with technological changes in warfare, afford to allocate time to domestic political ideologies? Third, since such themes are politically loaded, what would be its impact on the apolitical nature of the military?
The answer to the first question must be explored from the point of view of its impact on the development and growth of military professionalism. Ideological discourses rooted in domestic politics may concern military leaders, especially when dealing with internal security, which is not their primary duty, anyway. However, from a professional standpoint, understanding the political nuances of the situation could be beneficial. Exposure to these issues may come in handy to senior military officers who may have to deal with such situations if required. Since domestic political disputes are perennial and dynamic in their content, form and focus, introducing them into military training offers no meaningful benefit for personnel whose primary duty is defence of the nation against external forces.
Regarding the second question, there has been a major expansion of the professional space that the military has to cover, primarily driven by the growing salience of other geographies like space and cyber. Military institutions have been hard-pressed for long to adjust their syllabi to accommodate these changes, demanding more content, time, and effort. It is also evident that exposure to ideologically weighted themes does not contribute to military professionalism. Apart from the sidetracking effect, if the ideology is presented without contrarian views, it could be tantamount to an attempt at brainwashing. This structural flaw was seen in the seminar held at the DSSC, where all speakers supported a common theme and vented a selfsame ideological standpoint, convinced of its superiority over any alternatives. There was, therefore, a complete lack of balance and no possibility of questioning the historical interpretations often conflated with religious mythology.
For the military, several questions arise about permitting the entry of such ideas into the pedagogy at training institutions. First, should the military provide platforms for promoting ideologically weighted themes? Second, can military institutions, already overloaded with technological changes in warfare, afford to allocate time to domestic political ideologies? Third, since such themes are politically loaded, what would be its impact on the apolitical nature of the military?
The answer to the third question lies in the stories being popularised to support these ideological themes. The notion of amending the Constitution to accommodate the religious legacy of an ancient Hindu civilisation is being sold to young military audiences. All said and done, the military’s loyalty is to the Constitution, symbolised by the President as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. If the Constitution is amended through legal and democratic means, the Armed Forces have no choice but to maintain their loyalty to the revised document. However, there is an issue of principle involved here. If the narrative being pushed on military audiences is aimed at ensuring partisan support, it must be resisted, as it has negative consequences for the apolitical character of the Indian Military.
The DSSC seminar and its conduct ought to be reviewed by the senior military leadership to assess whether its impact on the minds of future military leaders aligns with the demands of military professionalism, especially in preserving its apolitical character and nurturing of its professional capabilities. More importantly, they must deal with the underlying forces driving this unwelcome development of ‘catching them (future military leaders) young’ in a manner that is far from appropriate.
Lt Gen (Dr) Prakash Menon (retd) is Director, Strategic Studies Programme, Takshashila Institution; former military adviser, National Security Council Secretariat. He tweets @prakashmenon51. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
The military is the last bastion. We must withstand all attempts to breach it. We never had such seminars or discussion in our time at DSSC. Has the military not delivered to need such an introspection or is something not right in our thought process or ethos which is necessitating this discussion ? Where are we headed ? Our senior leadership needs to seriously ponder.
Why are we so afraid of a discussion or discourse? Not allowed to discuss !! Only permitted to keep on harping one version! Is not it better to delve into the topic & deepen our understanding. Ultimately, a sound narrative will win. Questioning or curbing such debates are not helpful. Let’s get out of comfort zones & make an endeavour to understand an alternative point of view.