Indian military history came into focus in a rather embarrassing manner recently. Last week, while on the campaign trail in Karnataka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticised the Congress party for insulting two illustrious generals of the Indian Army . Both these military icons, Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa and General K.S. Thimayya, are from the local Coorgi (now Kodava) community. And this case of “disrespect” goes back many decades, to the 1947-48 war (Pakistan) and the 1962 war (China).
Import and subtext
A translation of what the Prime Minister, who spoke in Hindi, is: “In 1948 we won the war against Pakistan under General Thimayya’s leadership. But after such gallantry, the saviour of Kashmir, General Thimayya, was repeatedly insulted by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon. And for this reason, General Thimayya, to retain the sanctity of his position, had to resign from his post.”
The Prime Minister then made a sweeping reference to the war with China and referred to Field Marshal Cariappa by saying, “What did they do to the Field Marshal?” — insinuating that the Congress government of the day had behaved in a less than appropriate manner with the distinguished general.
The electoral subtext was clear — to show the Congress in a bad light in relation to national security and exploit the widely held perception that Nehru and Krishna Menon, were disdainful of the two generals.
The factual errors in the Prime Minister’s statements were glaring. The Indian Army had a British chief during the 1947-48 war for Kashmir; Thimmaya was a two-star general in the Kashmir operations under the command of Lt. General Cariappa, who was the Army Commander. Sardar Baldev Singh was the Defence Minister in 1948 and Thimmaya did not resign at that time. Similarly, the reference to Cariappa was way off the mark, for he had retired in 1953 and was in no way involved with the 1962 war.
The Congress did not cover itself with glory either in its bid to counterattack the Prime Minister for his factual errors, in turn making its own gaffes on social media but later correcting them.
It is true that Krishna Menon sought to politicise the top brass of the Army and that Nehru chided Thimmaya in Parliament, but the relevance of Army history to a State election is tenuous. What is pertinent and merits deep reflection for its corrosive implications is the manner in which the Indian military and its historical track record are being invoked for short-term electoral gain.
A polarisation
Indian electioneering and the rhetoric on the campaign trail have acquired a very sharp and polarising sectarian contour since 2014 and the Prime Minister has demonstrated that veiled aspersions can be cast even against a former Prime Minister and Vice-President, if these can lead to electoral advantage.
Should all this be allowed to be extended to the Indian military? Those in the political establishment (in this case the elders in the national political parties) and those who advise the people who matter on issues of campaign strategy for 2019 would be well advised to consider the long-term consequences of denigrating and demonising the political ‘other’ on matters of national security through their imagined and burnished history.
It is a fact that there have been many national security omissions and policy blunders by successive Indian governments since 1948, but these are better deliberated in Parliament for redress and consensual correction.
Apolitical institution
Indian democracy has been enabled in no small measure by the apolitical nature of the Indian military going back to the period when General Cariappa was appointed as the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army in January 1949. In the decades that have followed, the Army has retained its institutional fidelity to the Constitution and internalised the principle of the supremacy of the elected civilian government.
This objective apolitical commitment was tested during the Emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975. To his credit, the then Army Chief, General T.N. Raina, refused to be drawn into that unsavoury national experience. Various overtures and suggestions were made to him through the then Defence Minister, Bansi Lal, but these were resisted, and as hindsight has proved, rightly so.
Over the decades since the 1971 Bangladesh war, the Indian military as an institution has been treated in a shabby manner by Delhi’s politico-bureaucratic dispensation. Alas, there has been no Ambedkar equivalent to champion the legitimate rights of an important part of the state and the armed forces have scored their own self goals. Lowering the profile of the military vis-à-vis the civil servant through the non-functional upgrade (NFU) scheme by the United Progressive Alliance government and its tacit endorsement by the legislature has been another setback.
The democratic ecosystem is best nurtured by institutions that are fire-walled from corrosive slander and disparaging remarks that can have long-term negative implications. Yes, the national discourse about the military ought to be critical in a constructive manner. But the form and content of this discourse must be in keeping with a constitutional, democratic ethos and acknowledge that the abiding national security interest transcends the electoral fortunes of political parties.
C. Uday Bhaskar is a retired Commodore and is Director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi
