10 December2021
While it is always too early to write about the legacy of a person who donned the mantle of India’s first CDS, General Rawat, was as much a person of his circumstances as he was an artful survivor of the system that produces India’s military bureaucracy and what we call as ‘leadership’. That he made these transitions to the top at a time when a bevy of reforms and controversies were strewn along the dingy dusty corridors that were South Block and its adjoining hutments in Lutyens Delhi is indirectly a tribute to his dogged pursuit of his professional career. This is not the place to comment on how the military created a new promotion policy, it streamlined its leadership into command and staff, or how the military weathered a series of controversies in the last decade, with allegations of a coup, assertion by columnists and media of resenting civilian control, allegations over the ‘age’ of a serving Chief and then the very contestable succession chain which was first tested when outgoing Chief placed an incoming one in a spot of disciplinary bother, and then when it was his turn to find a successor, the very chain was upturned and General Rawat stepped over two seniors to become the Chief. A context is what is sought to be provided, to qualify this assertion that the late General was indeed a man for all occasions, weathering uncertainties and taking in his stride the changing equations within the civil military bureaucracy in India, that controls much of the fates of those in Uniformed Services in the garb of Civilian control of Armed Forces.
If there were votaries who backed General Rawat because of his ‘deemed closeness’ with the NSA Mr Ajit Doval, who remains a very powerful behind the scenes player within the PMO and surfacing into the public domain with his ground visits in Kashmir and in Delhi ( during the tense strife/riots in these places), there were more respected observers who felt that having a political appointee as the COAS was to be a help to the military, as access to the levers of power could be taken for granted in such a situation. One hoped that military modernisation and indeed reforms, would gather pace and get done, due to the favourable winds that General Rawat would be able to muster.
When he was chosen as COAS the logic of his extensive experience in JK was given as the main reason and in the after math of the legislative alteration in status of the State in August 2019, the measures the government took to contain the fall out in the Kashmir Valley and the overall security situation that has prevailed since, it would appear that this faith was rewarded. His appointment as CDS that came about in 2020, and his two years as the first CDS of India is where the efforts of General Rawat to bring ‘reforms’ to the oldest bureaucratic military of colonial origins in the world are in question. It is seen that unlike what was expected, the three services managed to tide over the initial 100 days and later the first year, and many of his proposals are still being weighed in with service wise review. While General Hooda in his tribute has expressed optimism, the manner in which General Rawat’s Appointment as CDS was translated into bureaucratic posting as Secretary for DMA (Department of Military Affairs). For a clear understanding, one just needs to see this official registry of the Ministry of Defence to understanding how the pecking order was crafted after the CDS was appointed in January 2020. There are six clear Departments within the ministry, with the mandate for ‘waging war on behalf of the Union’ resting with the Department of Defence which remained under the Secretary of Defence who is a career IAS officer. So DoD, DF, DDP, DRDO,DMA, and DESW are inter se the manner of their hierarchical organisation, with the Secretary of DoD being the clear leader of the civilian military leadership mix. The earlier Cabinet Secretariat where Secretary to the Government of India as the Cabinet Secretary is officially designated, had a military wing, this military wing became the Chiefs of Staff Committee, and the CDS is now the permanent chairman of this COSC. With the creation of CDS, the government should have converted the adhoc COSC into a permanent body, placing it as a independent direct advisor for all military matters related to India’s defence and strategic affairs. In most democracies where the CDS is a designated post, the NSA and CDS are points men for the Political Executive. In India the political executive is the Cabinet Committee on Security, and hence along with the Cabinet Secretary, the NSA and CDS should have been the three persons from whom the government of the day sought and obtained advice on security issues. However the NSA has been placed at a level far above the other two principal advisors, the Cabinet Secretary and CDS, before the CDS appointment. Moreever in appointing General Rawat, the Government dumped this tier by ruling in favour of pegging the CDS as the Permanent Chairman COSC, with the DMA created to run largely the Integrated Defence Staff Headquarters that was formed immediately after the Kargil war as a step toward greater synergy amongst the three services.
India has Air Force, Navy and Army specific commands which are headed by “army commander and equivalent” general officers from the three services. Notionally the Army Commanders themselves are ‘secretaries to the Government of India’. Service Chiefs inter se ranked higher than the Secretaries and were pegged along the same level as the Cabinet Secretary. This has made the appointment of CDS as a Secretary DMA an anomaly not for mere protocol purposes but for the architecture of the business rules of the Government of India itself. So while General Rawat may have had the ear of the three Service Chiefs who were junior in service to him, they and other Departments of the Defence Ministry could have continued to run around in circles, as they denied turf to the CDS.
Without a simultaneous ‘theaterisation’ and Jointness of Leadership and assets in the military, the CDS could effect only changes in how newer force forms like Cyber or Strategic Weapons were shaped under him. The real meat of the military as in Army, Navy and Air Force fighting formations remained largely outside his pale, including how the COAS shuffled the order of battle of some formations in the South Western theatre to the now hot Himalayan Northern theatre. So far, Indian military’s revolution in military affairs (RMA), has been more of discussion and ‘down sizing’ rather than any holistic restructuring that veterans like General Panag are now passionate about. For a leader with his confessed vision of military reform and his closeness to the political executive, General Rawat was unfortunate to leave the scene with these challenges largely unaddressed.
Indian military bureaucracy offers stability as a compromise over dynamism, so the inertia is rather high, resistance to change is a given. We will see only a decade from now, if General Rawat was able to carve a legacy for himself in the manner in which India’s military system concedes to the mandates of reform and conforms to modern RMA concepts of waging war through jointedness. As a first step, the choice of General Rawat’s successor would be a first indicator of the tenacity of the government to proceed with his vision.
indiarubberman.com 