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)
1. Who are our border nations from which aggression is possible? Are they not ideologues? Pakistan, China, Bangladesh? Can any author in that country preach such fears to them? If the war is centred around ideology and not physical ground space how can the enemy be defeated?
2. The article has appeared under the opinion column so it needs be taken only at that value and seriousness.
Revisiting this space I find an interesting pattern of comment authorship.
Best described statistically as Predictable ! Usual suspects ! But We the people…all. Vipra (wise) they too are….
Excellent initiatives. It won’t politicise it will instil nationalism for Bharat. Making a Hindu as a religious icon is really poor fear mongering. I have seen a few defence folks toe this line and kattar Congressi and as political as their accusations.
Amarjeet Kumar
So the author heartily believes that recognition of ‘Clash of Civilisations’ as a determinant of Geopolitics is imaginary ? And Western Exceptionalism and Absolutism fictitious ? And he must believe that India only deserves hand me down worldviews , a national consciousness shaped by narratives of loss, losers, worthlessness, intellectual
penury, weakness, a perpetual Stockholm like syndrome ? Does he advocate perpetuity of a jurisprudence rooted (invisibly) in absolutist tribal worldviews. And so on….
An infantry division holds a line of defence on orders, with or without understanding why.
An army of intellectuals likewise is often enrolled to defend a poltical status quo. If this is not the case here, does he
write this despite knowing the depths and profundities of Bharatiya worldview and its socio cultural byproducts and its past, present and eternal relevance to at least the physical, mental, social and cosmological truths of the world, and see no value in it ?
Indian method of debate you may know begins with presenting the opposite view, distilling its principles and proceeding to falsify them. This journalistic campaign venture
would be more effective in this framework even for the author’s purposes. But what happens is they assume the infallibilty of their view only because its status quo not because they have thought it through. Then they declare fallibilty of the other view
only because it is the prevailing wisdom . Not by exposing some of its bases and countering it intellectually or logically etc. They seldom go beyond the superficial. Same for this article.
As a senior and concerned citizen I fervently hope that people who have been privileged with high positions in the security and strategy establishment would HONESTLY consider some of the following questions , beyond whether everything called Hindu is Right or Left :-
Do the facts of Anglosphere, the Arab world, Christendom, Islamic Ummah, have any security and strategic implication ?
Where does India stand in this scheme ?
Is there a sphere by name Indic ? Physical, intellectual, philosophical. Cultural ?
If so how do we define its core.
If we think we need not nurture an Indic Sphere do we nurture an Indic sphere at least in India ? Is it any worth towards a stronger confident nation .
If yes do we need to disseminate valuable Indic knowledge n worldview just a little more than the colonists did in our youth ?
If yes why DSSC is an exception ?
Elementary Dear Watson…
PAY BACK TIME TO THE NATION !
Dear writer
Ur wrong that the hindu right is catching army offrs . It’s the basic fact that india is being weakened by left wing sponsored by China and pakis isi. Isi is sponsor of Islamic jihad do u deny. Vatican is pumping funds for conversion do u deny. Both islam and Christian church leaders are going all out funding conversion. Do u deny. Have u heard Sikhs jains budha funding conversions. Go to Punjab Uttarakhand kerala assam see on ground the actual demographic change. It’s the writing on the wall that hindus are the target in order to split and weaken india
A good article on a bad trend. My compliments to Gen Menon.
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.