10 May 2012 will be marked as one of the lowest point in the Officer-Jawan relationship in an Army Unit when troops of an Artillery Unit undergoing training related activity in Ladakh got involved in fisticuffs with the Officers of their Unit resulting in hospitalization of three persons including the Commanding Officer, a Jawan and another Officer besides five Major rank Officers fleeing from the Unit and Jawans taking control of the Armoury as reported in the Media. It was a complete breakdown of command and control that is associated with the Army. The incident naturally triggered a debate on how did things came to this pass? Is it a symptom of a systemic flaw or a case of non implementation of practices that would have avoided flare up of such an incident that is normally being practiced elsewhere? the jury is still out on that.
As usual many conclusions have been drawn by the commentariat. Most instant analysis pointing towards existence of classes within the Army, Sahayak culture, or a set of rules and culture that is reminiscent of the colonial era. Possible. But, if that were indeed the reason for the incident that took place in Ladakh, it wouldn't have been first of it's kind considering the fact that Indian Army has hundreds of Units and are in existence since last 65 years along with all those factors that are being attributed to that ugly incident.
The Army has been through major transformations in recent times, some of them was deemed necessitated by a change in cultural and socio-economic profile of the people who are joining the organization. The AV Singh Committee Report that was implemented in 2005 has resulted in major changes in the organization that has transformed the Units, the consequences of which are yet to be seen in their entirety.
Younger Age Profile of Units In simple terms, as a result of implementation of AVSC report, the age of the Officers commanding a Unit have been reduced drastically. Prior to AVSC, the Commanding Officer, and other Officers of a Unit used to have much more service than they have now resulting in much youger Unit and Sub Unit Commanders.
If the driving factor for AVSC was to make the Units younger & as a result more fighting fit, changing the age profile of the handful of officers would have hardly made a dent on the average age of the Unit when the Jawans serve in the Unit till their retirement age.
Due to a younger profile of Officers, the collective experience of Officers of a Unit have seen a drastic reduction. Now, how important is collective experience is debatable, but it seems unlikely that a much younger set of Officers will be able to take better decisions than an older one. And it needs to be spared a thought that if the unit that witnessed the incident had an older set of Officers as was prior to AVSC, would the resultant reaction of the Officers managing the Unit would have been markedly different in such a situation?
Tooth to Tail Ratio Officers after completing their command or the ones past that age most likely become part of the administrative tail. Post AVSC, the tooth to tail ratio of the set of Officers have skewed towards the latter. A tail is justified if it exists to maintain & support the teeth - the fighting elements, but if it grows too big, much of it gets used in supporting and upkeep of itself at the expense of the teeth, which could be happening post AVSC. This problem gets compounded when it is combined with an already existing shortage of Officers that was described as critical even before AVSC was implemented and still exists.
Army is known for swift implementation of decisions, needless to say the change recommended by AVSC was effected very fast, but did the organization cope up with the speed of change to which it was subjected? needs to be studied.
It will be a while before the entire consequences of implementation of the AVSC comes to fore, and it could be a mistake to attribute the Ladakh incident or for that matter anything that goes wrong in the Army to AVSC as well, like the uninitiated attributing anything that goes wrong in the Army to class, colonial mindset or archaic rules. I trust their professionalism and hope they'll prove the skeptics wrong.
The recent incident of 124 Pakistani soldiers buried under an avalanche over their post near Siachen glacier reignited the old debate on the futility or otherwise of two nations fighting a battle for control of an inhospitable glacier about 80 km in length that is at a height of over 6000 meters.
There are strong arguments for demilitarization of Siachen glacier, among what has been suggested, firstly it's barren and inhospitable where survival itself, even for a soldier is tough, over 2000 soldiers have lost their lives since it was occupied in 1984, most of them due to extreme weather conditions than the actual conflict. The cost of occupying the area in terms of human lives lost and maintenance of troops in that terrain is immense, and lastly resolution of Siachen can set a precedence for resolution of other contentious issues between India and Pakistan.
It looks like a simple solution to a problem that is not so hard to comprehend given it's coverage in various national and international media. But the issue is more complex than that.
Firstly control of Siachen gives not just a control over the 80 odd km long glacier but about 3000 sq kms of area situated in a crucial region with Shaksam valley controlled by China on it's North, Karakoram Pass and Aksai Chin controlled by China on it's East and Northern Areas of POK on it's west in addition to control over at least three mountain passes. (Map for Reference)
Control of Siachen Glacier might also be of such strategic advantage to whoever controls the area that may not be in public domain. Significantly, Pakistan carried out attacks on multiple occasions losing about 1300 soldiers in the process till a cease fire was brought about in 2003.
Kargil war is proof enough that Pakistan can not be trusted on contentious issues of strategic importance. It need not be reiterated that Pakistan occupied Indian areas vacated during winters in the heights of Kargil and Drass, and blamed it on insurgents that led to Kargil War. Even US got the taste of it on the issue of protecting Osama Bin Laden, Taliban & Al Qaida. That makes it even more difficult for India to accept any agreement involving removal of troops from a strategically important area.
And lastly it could be a mistake to consider Siachen as a bilateral issue between India & Pakistan. China may be an elephant in the room that few are talking about in the context of Siachen, despite the fact that the Shaksam valley area immediately to it's north is controlled by China, and China's attitude towards territorial issues in Tibet, Arunachal, Taiwan, South China Sea, Aksai Chin etc are well known.
To conclude, the issue of Siachen is complex and involves many dimentions, and the basis of India's decisions should be it's own assessment & not of agenda driven global peaceniks, on how it wants to take care of it's territory, by leaving it unattended or by physically occupying it.
Picture from Here
The recent municipal elections in Bombay made news because of low turnout of voters, about 60 percent of the electorate, if not more, did not came out to vote prompting reactions from the commentariat ranging from "they are the reason why our politicians suck to begin with" to "they don't deserve to demand anything from the political establishment" or words to that effect. US also doesn't see a lot of people coming out to vote in their elections despite which it remains a vibrant democracy that sees frequent changes in terms of fresh thinking & leadership at pretty regular interval, but that is besides the point.
US and the much of west grew economically to it's present position on the principles of free market economy, where the market forces drove the decisions of firms, governments and also individuals resulting in massive industrialization and capturing of global markets due to the competitive advantages of industrialization, scale and labour migration. But the present western world is a shadow of it's former self. Welfare systems have taken the place of free market system. The west is reeling under massive burden of social security, healthcare, and need to keep poorly performing factories running just to keep people employed.
Others are no better either, India's love with it's welfare systems can not be over stated, it seems to be waiting for some growth in it's treasury before another, even more massive round of welfare schemes can be unleashed on the crippling economy. That west can afford it to some extent, India can't, doesn't seem to deter the establishment Robin Hoods. China on the other hand, till recently, was making news for it's "state capitalism", but it too has lined up it's own massive welfare schemes of enormous proportions.
The dismantling of the socialist block of Eastern Europe and Soviet Union, increasing isolation of communist North Korea and trail blazing growth of China riding on economic reforms and state capitalism should have resulted in vindication of free market system as the solution to economic problems but reverse seems to be happening defying all conventional knowledge.
One of the reason why free market capitalism proved itself to be a better economic system than communism and socialism was the minimal political interference. Politics was considered to be not more than a necessary evil reflected in no. of people voting in elections, but these days it has taken center stage in all our discourses and all aspects of our lives and work, the increasing no. of people voting in elections also suggests how much people desire political interference in largely economic affairs.
Traditionally the poor of developing countries and the old people of the developed ones were the ones who voted in large numbers and consequently the reason for increasing welfare systems in both may be due to the ageing of the west and continued destitution of the east, which also explains why cities like Bombay has so little turn out for polls. If that is indeed the case, it's natural for the middle class and the young to be apathetic to political processes as IMO it should naturally be. All politicians do everywhere is just feign attempts at solving economic problems and take their cuts in the process, whereas the market dynamics takes care of economic problems as is expected.
I am not resorting to "all politicians are bad" line that we are familiar with, I am not making value judgments, just that politics is just a necessary evil, nothing more, nothing less, voting for them to solve our economic problems is like paying woodoo doctors to give us placebos to cure our ailments. So the bottom line is "consider not voting" lest it inflates their sense of self importance and the false belief in their own abilities to solve economic problems.
Picture from here.
