POSTED IN THE QUINT(OPINION ) 24 DEC 16
LITTLE KNOWN FACTS
OF HRD IN THE ARMED FORCES
The selection of the Army Chief Gen Rawat has predictably generated much heat both in
the print and electronic media. Social media too is full of malicious gossip and ill informed expert opinions
offered by veterans who have short memories. Nitin Gokhale who has had
considerable experience on matters military ,has attempted a historic survey under
a piece titled ,"A quiet peek in our history".
Supersession and seniority are two buzz words used in most
articles or discussions. Let me posit that super session is a regular feature in
most Militaries of the world. For instance, all cadets joining a military
academy may have the same basic date of entry but a few would pass out of the
academy with a penalty ranging from six months to 18 months due to relegation
as a result of failure in academics, injuries sustained during training,
lowering of medical category and conduct unbecoming of an officer cadet -which
includes moral turpitude. Such cadets are superseded by their term mates who
joined on the same date.
Later during career
courses the performance of young officers is recognised and seniority of up to
one year is awarded to those that excel(there are differing models among the
three services) Here again among course mates of the same seniority, the new
pecking order is revised and published as a gazette notification . The entire
seniority profile of officers of the same course may undergo significant
changes which may later deprive or
assist some who reach senior ranks. But then Military officers live by the
credo that no one can be assured of guaranteed promotion and more importantly
no one is guaranteed that he would be serving or alive in the decades to
follow.
A beautiful poem
called "The laws of the navy" has a stanza which reads,
"Count not upon certain promotion, but rather to gain it aspire, though
the sight line may end on the target, there cometh perchance a
misfire...." Indeed misfires have
not spared some outstanding officers who have chosen to fade away as suggested
in the poem. I have known of Naval officers who did not make the cut for
promotion along with their course mates
at promotion boards, but who made it right to the top by clearing the
subsequent selection board a year later along with their juniors. The selection
for promotion to senior ranks of Colonels and above provides three
opportunities to be considered before
one is told that he will not be placed on the select list. I am merely restating the fact that in a
pyramidical structure which gets narrower at the top with each selection
process, a large number of officers are passed over or superseded at every
rank. In comparison the civil services have a cylindrical structure which
assures promotion upto a senior rank, unless one is unlucky to be caught for
activities of moral turpitude or sheer incompetence. Do remember that an
incompetent senior civil servant may take no decision and survive without
inflicting or causing death of his
colleagues while a less competent military leader would not only cause death of
his men but more importantly lose the war . There are no runners up in war-you
have to win.
To those who constantly carp on the morale of soldiers due to
super session of an officer at the very pinnacle, it would be instructive to
note that the soldier lives with the phenomenon of super session all his life.
He looks up to his immediate superior and leader who leads him into battle , So
long as he has a good leader he is ready to offer the supreme sacrifice.
Although, some officers have challenged their super session in courts of law
much against the service ethos, I cannot remember a single instance of their
subordinates voicing their concern in an open show of grief! Yet we have had a
Chief who challenged the accuracy of his date of birth in order to gain more
time in the chair, only to be reprimanded by the highest court of law. That
conduct would go down as unofficer-
like in that he fought a case for
himself and not for the service as a whole or for betterment of his soldiers.
Such misdemeanor hurts the morale of a disciplined community which looks up to
the leader to set an example. The question now arises on politicization of the
Military.
Apropos the question of deciding on seniority cum merit and
deep selection for the highest rank, the Military would certainly appreciate
consideration of merit. Seniority perse is a lazy solution to the problem as
mere date of birth would decide the line of succession for years to come. That is neither good for the service nor the
individual who is well placed on the
list. But then creating a process which quantifies or at best identifies merit
is a greater challenge. It cannot be subjective and yet it is difficult to rate
human qualities so accurately. All things being equal, the Indian parliament
has little or no experts on matters military to set up an institutional process
like the Senate hearings consisting of members who have participated in
Military training or service in the Armed forces. That is unlikely to happen in
India in the near future.
The best that can be done is to generate a discussion among
experts who have dealt with HRD issues of the Indian Armed forces and not on
electronic or print media-that is, until a feasible and sensible process is
identified by those who have managed the process and not by veterans who have
never had to face the realities at Delhi.
