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British Empire’s sun hasn’t set on Indian officers’ clubs — centre of civil-military tussle

In ‘India’s Power Elite’, Sanjaya Baru writes that BJP’s greater political prominence to military heroes has not always raised their profile within the power elite.

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Writing in the 1950s, Wright Mills included the military brass in America’s power elite, along with the political and business elite, referring to them as ‘warlords’. He saw the US victory in the Second World War as being responsible for the elevated social status of military leaders and their influence on politics and government. After all, the American public had voted a war-time general to the nation’s presidency in 1953 when General Dwight Eisenhower became the 34th president. Mills also worried about the excessive influence of military men on diplomacy and international relations, giving a military edge to post-War US foreign policy. He was nervous about retired generals joining company boards and creating a link between the military brass and corporate interests, a concern that gained in importance with the growth of a large defence manufacturing industry in the private sector. 

The ‘military-industrial’ complex, as Mills put it, was the arena within which political, business and military interests combined, making defence production and defence diplomacy integral to US economic and political power. Mills believed the military ‘warlords’ with corporate links had become an important source of funding for research and development and in science and technology institutions. ‘Yes, there is a military clique,’ concluded Mills, ‘but it is more accurately termed the power elite, for it is composed of economic, political, as well as military, men whose interests have increasingly coincided. In order to understand the role of the military within this power elite, we must understand the role of the corporation executive and the politician within it. 

If US democracy was so concerned about the growing prestige and power of its military brass, the nascent democracies of most postcolonial nations were being overtaken by their militaries. India’s post-Independence leadership was also wary about the intentions of its military brass, and the coup in Pakistan did little to set at rest nascent anxieties at home. Many scholars have written at length about the evolution of the relationship between civilian and military leadership in India. Most of them have noted the fact that India’s civilian power elite—politicians and the bureaucracy—have kept military brass on a tight leash, allowing a degree of autonomy in professional and military matters. 

The marginal role played by Netaji’s Indian National Army in the freedom struggle and the fact that the armed forces remained loyal to the British till the end, barring the single incident of the naval mutiny in February 1946, ensured that the military brass did not acquire a high social profile at the time of Independence. The profile of the armed forces was, in fact, dented by its performance in the border conflict with China in 1962. Their performance in the war with Pakistan in 1965 was also not particularly impressive, but Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s slogan of ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’, the campaign to get citizens to contribute gold for the war effort and the exhibition of captured Pakistani Patton tanks around the country in celebratory melas, helped raise their public profile a bit. It was, however, the 1971 war with Pakistan, the creation of Bangladesh and the consequent break-up of Pakistan, that gave the armed forces and the military leadership high social standing.


Also read: Political ideology has a direct impact on Army’s leadership, and that’s a worry


Subsequently, and despite the bravery of the forces in the Kargil war, Indian armed forces have produced few leaders who have been able to become national heroes on the scale required to make a successful bid for political power. The few who did become heroes, like Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw and the Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh, studiously avoided any political involvement. It was not until the BJP began recruiting retired military leaders into politics that there was any significant presence of military brass within the world of politics and the corridors of power. While the BJP has given greater political prominence to military men and war heroes, this has not always served the cause of raising their profile within the power elite. Consider the case of the former army chief V.K. Singh, who has been a member of Modi’s council of ministers. His career ended under a cloud, with controversy about his date of birth and, therefore, date of retirement. Singh further blotted his reputation entering into a pointless argument with a senior editor, calling journalists ‘presstitutes’.

The image of military leaders has also taken a beating with some retired generals repeatedly appearing on television and participating in shouting matches with all sorts of characters. With the exception of a few senior military men like Admiral Raja Menon and Air Chief Marshal S. Krishnaswamy and a few others, not many military leaders have been able to conduct themselves with dignity in post-retirement public life. 

The recent decision of the central government to create the office of chief of defence staff (CDS), and more importantly, to make the CDS the executive head of a newly constituted department of military affairs within the defence ministry has altered, albeit at the margin, the relationship between the civil service and the armed forces within the highest decision-making organization of the government, raising the profile of the latter. This new command structure is still to take concrete shape. As it evolves and systems and procedures get created and established, there will be jockeying for authority and influence between the civil and military officials within the defence ministry. How these equations develop will partly depend on the political leadership and partly on real-life situations. It is only in the midst of a real war that real power equations get settled. 

The growing visibility of military leaders in public life, especially in the media, has run parallel to the declining attraction of the defence services to the middle class. Till the 1980s, the children of both civil servants and military brass chose to walk in their parents’ professional footsteps. A more recent trend, thanks to the BJP, of celebrating the performance of the armed forces has helped raise the stature of the defence services in public perception. For the moment, this neo-nationalism of the middle class is not yet making the armed services an adequately attractive professional option for the middle class enamoured by financially more rewarding professions. Senior military leaders are worried both about the quality of recruits at the officers’ level and the rising dropout rate after a minimum period of service. The military leadership would like lateral movement of middle-level officers into other arms of the government as a way of keeping entry to the services attractive.


Also read: CDS Bipin Rawat told Gorakhpur students to rediscover culture but forgot military tradition


Apart from the corridors of the ministry of defence, the other theatre of conflict between the civil and military leadership in Lutyens’ Delhi is the Delhi Gymkhana Club. So intense is their power struggle for leadership within the club that a few years back a senior functionary of the PMO had to step in to ensure ceasefire. Officers’ clubs are one of the last bastions of privilege of the civil and defence services. After Independence they have also been open to the private sector, a source of revenue for the clubs. The institution of the ‘officers’ clubs’ started during the British Raj to offer a common space outside work for Englishmen and natives in government to socialize. Since these were started as government initiatives, they became entitled to government land. Every district headquarter and cantonment had an officers’ club, and Delhi had its Gymkhana and Golf Club. These institutions of privilege survived the end of the Raj but continued in their own ways. One could not enter them in ‘Indian attire’, as defence minister of India George Fernandes was politely reminded that his kurta-pyjama and chappals attire would debar him from entering any of the clubs of the armed forces. Some of the clubs made membership virtually hereditary and, as a gesture to the erstwhile empire that gave them birth, these clubs allowed access to members from similar clubs around the world. The sun has not yet set on the world of British- era officers’ clubs. 

While the civil and military brass have succeeded in retaining their power in the face of significant change both within the institutions of the state and in civil society, the social composition of those entering these services has changed in a direction that may have benefited the BJP and its parent organization, the RSS. Extending Indira Gandhi’s idea of a ‘committed civil service’ to a larger ideological commitment to the world view of the ruling dispensation, the RSS and the BJP increasingly seek the allegiance of the civil and military brass to their idea of India. In 1969, when the Congress leadership spoke of a committed civil service, Jagjivan Ram spelt it out as follows: ‘Theory of neutral bureaucracy is hardly relevant to Indian conditions. We need a service committed to the ideal of democracy, socialism and secularism.’ Today the BJP would, perhaps, drop the word ‘secularism’ and replace it with ‘nationalism’. A series of initiatives with respect to civil service ‘reform’ taken by the Modi government, including posting non-IAS officers to traditionally IAS postings, increasing the number of ‘lateral’ entrants into government, and so on, have been interpreted by some senior civil servants as the politicization of a ‘neutral’ civil service. 

The politicization of military leadership came into sharp focus when the former chief of army staff General V.K. Singh joined the BJP and was then inducted into the Union council of ministers. More recently, another chief of army staff, General Bipin Rawat, subsequently appointed the first chief of defence staff, came in for criticism for making adverse comments on those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). A former Union minister of finance and home, P. Chidambaram, remarked that it is not the business of the army to tell politicians what they should do and that the general should ‘mind his business’. If the long-standing politicization of the civil service has dented the meritocratic elitism of the IAS, IPS and the Indian Forest Service (IFS), the growing instance of military leaders making political statements has also taken the shine off the brass. 

This excerpt from Sanjaya Baru’s ‘India’s Power Elite: Caste, Class and Cultural Revolution’ has been published with permission from Penguin Random House India.

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10 COMMENTS

  1. VK Singh ji’s personality, achievements and legacy is going to be much more valued down the line in, and today’s history .. rather more in contrast to the whole existence of the”print” presstitutes n nobody shouts that out loud, just ’cause it’s as usual as four directions are (NWES) , this rubbish article is disgrace to the existence of a video of Sri Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw’s lecture on leadership.
    Kuch to seekha hota press ke ku karmio (presstitutes).
    Most upside down pillar of the society.

  2. Marginal contribution of BOSE’s INA !!!

    Where do you get your weed dude? Read Attley’s statement (read as confession) about british leaving India hastily…

    Keep s***ING…

  3. Three arms of the democratic government in our country has been corrupted to an unacceptable level for a country to progress.
    Remember Chanakya who warned the Emperor
    about looking after the armed forces for the empire to survive. Looking after, means holding the dignity and prestige high and not merely pecuniary benefit.
    So, not withstanding Colonial past, certain privileges to sustain the status and privileges of the Armed Forces and ensuring non politicising the Armed Forces leadership by doling out BITs
    will be secure for the future of our nation. After all members of Armed Forces come from the same Social Strata as others.

  4. Some observatuons:

    The stature of the Armed Forces in the public perception has been what it was in all the decades after Independence. The evolution of the Indian Armed Forces since Independence is a complex matter not confined to clubs and optics. That has to be discussed in terms of quality, training, resources, strength and such matters which should conform to a National Security policy if ever there was / is one.

    Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was a five-star general in the US Army and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. He was in charge of planning and supervising the invasion of North in 1942-43 and the successful invasion of Normandy in 1944–45.

    I want to address just two points made in this extract.

    1. “The marginal role played by Netaji’s Indian National Army in the freedom struggle and the fact that the armed forces remained loyal to the British till the end, barring the single incident of the naval mutiny in February 1946, ensured that the military brass did not acquire a high social profile at the time of Independence”

    In this regard I wonder, whether the leaders spearheading the “Independence Movement” wanted the Armed Forces to participate in the struggle. I would not think so. Even after Independence, I believe, our First PM wanted the Army to be continued to be commanded by A British General as in his view there was no senior officer in the Army of independent India capable of leading the Indian Army. SO much for acquiring high profile by those in uniform.

    2. “The image of military leaders has also taken a beating with some retired generals repeatedly appearing on television and participating in shouting matches with all sorts of characters. “

    This is absolutely true and such public appearances and behaviours of some on TV shows were definitely undignified and avoidable. The sad aspect of these spectacles is that while the public loathed it the media lapped it up with TRP as the aim. Yet, I will fault those who Military men for it than the media.

    Military leaders, except from mythology, ancient and medieval times have never captured the imagination of the general public unless they had a political role too.

    Examples:

    1. Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was a five-star general in the US Army and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. He was in charge of planning and supervising the invasion of North in 1942-43 and the successful invasion of Normandy in 1944–45. Ike is well known because he became the POTUS, and all other US generals wjho excelled in the World Wars remain only in the annals of Military history.

    2. Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and the Second World War. He led tye allied forces with distinction in Africa and Europe in the II WW. In this case Winston Churchill, the PM of Britain is better known than the Field Marshal.

    British influence on Indian Army.

    Any Military will derive strength and motivation from its past. So does the Indian Armed Forces. That It was British Indian Army for centuries is on record and obviously there was no escape from it. In this regard, we should also realise that the society at large has also imbibed and assimilated a lot of cultural aspect from the foreigners who ruled India for centuries. It is best that we do not go into these aspects in details we may find “foreign” influence in about everything Indian now. Are we talking about rediscovering the Indian and Indianness?

    Tailpiece: I wonder what exactly does the author want to convey by referring to civil-military tussle. I thought in a democracy it was always the Civil which was supreme!!!

  5. You people are propagating and publicizing speech against men in uniform who is guarding your freedodm with their blood and life. Try living in a nation like Turkey or Sudan where inspite of so called Liberal nationalism you will not survive for a day. Shame on you , for publishing such a scandalous article. Your article has no meat in it and neither has been able to make sense of what you wanted to convey. The only thing which comes out is you are vilifying the men in uniform It shows that you have sold your patriotism for petty penny gains. AFTER TODAY I WILL CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRINT.

  6. To this day, one believes the essential truth of the C story in Indian Express. It sure kept a lot of people awake at night.

  7. Shri Sanjay Vary should understand that ‘Systems’ evolve with the times. Officers’ Gymkhana is one such Institution where one can unwind by playing games with colleagues, socialise during the week-ends, and have a good meal by placing a prior order. If run efficiently, these Clubs serve a very useful purpose. In contrast the privately run Clubs are accessible only to the very rich in comparison.

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