Brown Sahibs- Inheritance of arrogance

this post I have taken from another blog known as vijaywani and the comments offered by some one known as Gautam kaul but posted there in the name of Deepak. I wish the baabu must have had the courage to come forward with his name, rather then going under psyudo name. comments of BABUJEE reflect upon the upbringing and the way he must be treating the public as public servant can be any ones guess. These are healthy signs of our maturing democracy but the debate seems to have turned unhealthy, Good effort of BABu to become a General.

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i am forwarding this mail for the knowledge of all the army officers who are short on facts and rely more on hearsay..pls have patience to read it. regards. For the past two years, officers of the Defense Forces of India have been undertaking a co-ordinated campaign to circulate publically articles featuring their case for a better deal in their pay scales. The main thrust has been led by the army officers. The writers are retired army officers, working either singularly or under various wraps of NGOs. Most of these NGOs are created or funded by the Army Headquarters and some of them created under the general umbrella of the MoD but not for the promotion of pay packets but for other more relevent issues. The campaign is well coordinated, and cannot be read in isolation. When one writer contributes a paper to the newspaper, after a gap in time, another officer writer takes over the cause. The strategy is that readers must not be allowed to forget that there is an Indian army with a lost cause on pay matters. That writers from the other two wings of the defense forces are so scanty in their presence, reveals that the army officers as a block have been assigned their tasks from within the ranks of the active service officers to plead their case. They are being provided with arguments and information from within the active ranks. Data which does not favour them, is quietly kept back and the picture that emerges is that army officers have been given a bad deal by the Government of India, their rightful case has been ignored and the faithful army still remains loyal to the government inspite of all the injuries heaped upon the Services. In all righteousness the Central Government has in the past preferred to keep silent against all the rag-tag provocations provided to it, allowing the institutional organisations to take up the matters of revision of scales of pay and other perks through discussions, presentations and proper channel. Such graces unfortunately have not been preferred by army officers,who in the past have believed thatif a push is required, give a shove. In the proceedings of the Fourth Pay Commission the Inter Defense Pay Committee decided to seek the then novel scheme of long scales with rank pay. The recomendadtions were taken in a delegation to the Chairman of the Pay Commission, Justice Singhal, and led by the Minister Arun Singh. Justice Singhal was told that the Commission should accept these recomendations in toto and integrated them into the main final Report. He was told that these recomendations had the consent of the Prime Minister and did not require further discussion. The bluff was, that the PM was not even aware of this project. Once the recomendations were accepted without discussion, it was found that the project had its inherent failings, and efforts were then made to wriggle out of the scheme. Ten years past by to water down the effects of this blunder. The Fifth Pay Commission also went past and the army officers accepted their boosted pays with some murmer, but when it was time for the arrival of the Six Pay Commission, the officers planned a campaign much ahead of time. They pulled out a new war book, prepared campaigns targetting issues which other services may conjure up while pleading their own cases. These officers then started a bombardment to soften up their battleline shores. The main 'enemy of the people' was the IAS lobby to start with; the focus was also the group of IAS officers who were posted in the MoD and the Min of Fin. For a considerable time this campaign of disinformation was carried out brazenly countrywide. It did not have the desired effect and the Pay Commission issued its Reort to the great dislike of these officers. The three Service chiefs were goaded to protest and the Navy Chief also decided to act in the grey zone of mutinous conduct. A weak governemt failed to descipline him. The recomendations were reviewed and modified. It was a bad precedence. We laid back with the hope that now peace will prevail. How badly this was underestimated, is now revealed. The devil is not asleep. It keeps vigil in the Messes spread nationwide and we now have a new string of writings coming up again into public circulation which need to be noticed. To the great glee of serving army officers, and their reading pleasure, the latest of such articles was put in circulation coming from the pen of a relatively unknown soldier, namely Major General Surjit Singh PVSM, VSM. He floated his article on the internet(and maybe put it also in some erudite journal) on 26th March 2009. This article was not supposed to enter the civilian circuit, but the article was so warped in its presentation, that as a show of proof of disinformation, it came to be shared outside the defense circles. Woe be to Major General Surjit Singh now. He though he was being orginal in not taking on the IAS lobby. Instead he has put his hand and head both into a nest of wasps--namely the Indian Police Service and its other subordinate ranks. This article after its journey has now come to me for my reading. I have preferred to reply to this long note sentence by sentence so that anyone not familier with the orginal article, does not stand to loose on the various issues on record. It is hoped the original writer will have the pateince to read my note with his evening 'chota' and have the forebearance to rewrite his own original essay. I consider myself a bit qualified for this job. I have been associated in one or the other capacity with the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and also the 6th Pay Commission. Probably the only officer with this distinction. Within my own Service, I have not been known to be the most courtious of officer, but be brash, blunt and no respector of ranks when there was a cause to fight. In taking up the issues of the orginal writer I will henceforth refer to him by his filial name of Surjit. It is short and sweet and occupies only a corner of the line in my typing machine. I offer my profound apologies to any reader who feels offended with what I need to present. There is nothing personal. It is just that Surjit has put his hand into a nest of wasps, and so he is entitled to be stung!!! Quote" If India is united and intact today, it is because of its military...I dare you to name a colonel or a general who is either communal or a zealot." Unquote. It is very modest of Surjit to put such a small number of required names for an answer, namely "a" . But we will start from the beginning. Surjit is wrong in his statement that it is the military which has kept the nation united. The case is true for Pakistan, and not India. The so called steel frame of bureaucrasy has been the IAS-IPS and some major Central Services whose contribution to keep India united far out weighs the contribution of the 'military'. I am not speaking thus because I am one of the has beens. Experts woldwide when they have commented on the affairs of South Asian nations, have acknowledged this fact. It is the civil services of the country which have also protected the defense forces from unwanted attacks to spread dissentions within the ranks, and a big contribution has come from our intelligence services. We have enemies who have attempted to target the defense forces to act outside their discipled living and working. But to be fair to the Forces, they have in the past acted in some ways which could have brought populations to spin out of the Indian nation. Two examples should suffice, Nagaland and Sikkim. Sikkim was hurt first in a short spell when it was brought into the Union and the army was deployed to quell protest. The strong arm tactics used nearly helped our enemies to get a rebellion successful. Nagaland troubles are the making of army mishandling. The people have neen known to be freedom loving, but so do all others living elsewhere. In Nagaland's case the army handling was such which left much to be done. Even today the sense of alienation felt locally is charectorised by anti army conduct. No sir, India's internal problems have been taken care of by its bureaucrasy excluding the military. The military has taken care of India's international borders and only moderately successful at that. Surjit wants us to name only one colonel and one general in seperate categories. Of course, our lists in both the categories run into pages. But to freshen up Surjit's memory, we have Colonel Purohit and General Shahbeg Singh which fill the required number. And what about General Massih for stealing the affection of a junior officer's wife. Surjit, you should not have started this debate unless you had the help of an archive of recorded deeds. Quote" On Republic Day, as they march down the Rajpath, the lay Indian cannot tell between the Army and the Police....their swords, rifles and even badges of ranks are similar... the Commission recomended that a lot could be achieved if soldiers retiring from the Army laterally shifted to the police force".Unquote. The Indian Police force was historically created out of the existing Indian Army. The civilian police force was given the same ranks as of the army because they were laterally shifted in 1861-63 to create the police force. All military traditions were transferred Even after 150 years of seperate identities, the rural population of the States of UP. Bihar and MP refer the rank of Supdt. of Police, as 'Kaptan sahib' following the order when army officers holding the ranks of Captains were sent out on deputation into civilian duties with the local police forces. To facilitate this lateral transfer, since the army captains were deficient in their education being only High School or Senior Cambridge pass, the orginal inductions in civil police forces were also kept as Matric and SC pass. It was only after Independence that the basic qualification for IPS was raised to Graduate degree. If the Commission was now recomending again a lateral transfer from Army to Police, Surjit and his friends have been vocally protesting. Today even the Indian Police does not want the concept of lateral transfer of Army officers into police ranks. Officers coming from the defense forces will face the full blast of the hot winds of civilian working, and end up to grieve their situations. This is a lessson learnt also when ECOs have been moving today who finally end up requiring the protection of their civilian colleagues when they find the Armed battalion postings more conducive to their working. We agree with Surjit that there need not be lateral postings, and because MHA has agreed with us, Surjit need not plead on this cause henceforth. His point is taken. Surjit is still wrong that the "lay Indian cannot tell the difference between the Army and police personnel on parade". The distinction is well marked nowadays. First the Defense force contingents come first in the order of marching. Their weaponery is different. Their uniforms are different. They march more sloppily then the police contingents. Originally there was only one marching contingent trophy. When this trophy was consecutively won by marching police contingents, a seperate trophy was added seperating the recognition for defence contingents and police contingents. The army contingents are essentially collected for the Army Day celebrations prededing the Republic Day. AGCR objects to high expenses for R Day, but Government has allocated approved expenditure for Formation day celebrations. Thus the AHQ is able to show that R-Day arrangements are less expensive to the government. Surjit has laid a table to show there is great difference in the formations of the defense forces and police in the counrty. I do not find his sourse of data, but he is wide off the mark. May be it suited him to keep the realistic data under cover, otherwise how could he give his presentation to us stupid folks! According to his table, there are 9 officers in the army above PB4 grade, while the police has over 250 officers. This is the Brigagier's rank. Both numbers are wrong. The army formations have more than 790 officers in the rank of Brigadiers, while in the all India system of the Police, this number is closer to 1500 persons. Surjit lost himself in a "typo" Again in the figures of annual intake of officers, he shows 1050 regulars, while indicates 60 for IPS. He is wide off the mark. His army data is an approx. while for IPS it should read 38 IPS average per year. Because of the poor intake of IPS officers for political reasons ( essentially to break the all India charector of the service), there is a standing vacancy of 568 officers to be urgently filled up to provide manpower to Central Government police jobs. In the column for Defficiency in officers, Surjit is showing 11500 vacancies, which is what is being touted by AHQ officially. In the POLICE HE SHOWS NIL VACANCIES. Suits his case, but this is patent falsehood. We have shown the vacancy for IPS officers. The all India picture for State police services is closer to 6500 vacancies in officer ranks and 149,000 in other lower ranks. Bihar Police alone has 40,000 vacancies in its ranks. The same is the fate of other datas left in the diagram. Surjit is bent on distorting data to put his case. My advise is: Do not pick on the police for your woes. In the matter of levels of entry, Surjit submits that in the Army there are two levels of induction, at officers and as enlisted men. In the police he informs the entry is at four levels, as constable, as inspectors, subordinate service cadre and the IPS. Wrong again. Entry into the Army comes from different selection processes. At the officer level, there is the regular SSC, then again the ECO level, then subordinate service level for specialist assignments and finally the direct selection for enlisted soldiers. In the police services, it is the IPS, then the State service cadres GOs, then SI/ASI level, then HC clerks and finally the ordinary constables rank. In stating these levels it is not understood what was the writer trying to suggest. Is this discrimination? In Promotion Prospects and Terms of Engagement. Surjit launches himself with a wrong statement." All police personnel retire at the age of 60 years". In Kerala, all police personal retire at the age of 55 years. In Nagaland and in Para Military organisations, officers upto the rank of DIGs retire at the age of 57 years . All State police personnel generally retire at the age of 58 years. IPS officers and those officers holding rank of IGPs retire at the age of 60 years. They number less than 90 retirements per year nationwide. Wrong again Surjit when you say that all IPS officers retire at the level of DGPs. Most of the IPS rank officers cross the DIG level, many also cross the IPG level, Most of the IPS officers crawl to the rank of Addl. DGs and only very few, which is 5 to 8 percent of the individual cadres, retire holding the rank of DGs. Only one person will be the State DGP having all State magisterial powers! Right now the Army as 54 similar ranking officers. So who should be complaining. The argument on promotional opportunities stated, is also full of holes. The army trains its officers to primarily lead the battalion formations. In the police services, the officer cadre is trained to head the District administration. The District SP should be holding this charge for an average of 16 years and see an averge of three transfer. But this is not the reality today. I know an extreme case of an IPS officer being transferred 17 times in 91 days, and he was NO crook infact one of most upright officers in his state cadre. Being transferred six or seven times in ten years for a field officer today is the norm. So Surjit do not eye the pastures across the fence. The situation is far worst here then in your grounds. Surjit has a complaint on cadre management. So do we. But over the years I have come to realise that nowhere in the world is there an ideal system to governance, and in India, we seem to be better off even with all the infirmities. Comparisons with the army and police are impracticable and there is no meeting point since the roles are different, the clients are different and the enemies are different. Surjit is again on a weak wicket on Leader-Led ratio. Using untested hearsay evidence he marches into a bush!. He says there are 400 officers in UP police and half of them are at least in the rank of DIGs and there are about 20 officers in the rank of DGs.Surjit is right in this information he uses, but what he hides is the fact that UP Police also has about 3,00,000 personnel sanctioned by the government. This officers strength is correct. The strength of higher ranks also includes duties which are missing in the Army and there cannot be any fair claim on parity. Now Surjit shows a really ego problem on record. He finds fault with his men going to the rescue of Prince trapped in a borehole. Here he should complaint to his bosses, to say no to to such silly civilian requests. May be Surjit would have a different say had he been facing the cameras and talking to the press when this small operation was on. Someone else in the Military stole the thunder ! Surjit does not know that a Head Constable is operationally equal in status to a DGP, because both in law can open fire without the need for an magistrate around if the situation demands. The HC is a 'senior officer' in the police force. If the army finds the rank situation intolarable, then they should not attend meetings and depute officers of such ranks who can take decisions on behalf of their department on the spot. This does not happen unfortunately. As for terrorisat attacks, and riots incidents when army help is sought. This is essentially a case of the missing higher fire power. By design, the MoD has directed the government on the advise of the Military not to provide equal fire power to the police forces. This is a tactical move and Surjit is unaware. But we are. Para military forces get the obsolete fire power discarded by the Army for their use. The debate on INSAS rifles being given to the police is long and glorious. Worst is the case of AK 54 weapons coming to the police. The Army by design has kept an upper hand for itself and Surjit need not complaint on this call of duty. The Police would love to see the Army stay at the Border, but then at its own terms. The police is kept weak by design, and not by fault. Surjit questions: What impels Police to turn to the Army for help? The answer according to Surjit is better leadership qualities. Wrong Surjit. The police lacks resourses, denied by the Army to it. Man to man there is no difference in leadership. In civilian situations the police leadership has repeated trimphed over Army leadership, and the most glaring example of failed army leadership was the Golden Temple seige. It was only the police that trimphed finally and without shedding a drop of blood. We do not grudge the battles that the Army has fought but the secret is that that second rung defense units triumped in war where the front line units collapsed. The Kargil war is a well kept secret of first desperation and then truimph in battle. But the best man was not recognised here. So let us not talk of leadership, because there are many issues involved in this. On Caste and Community factors, Surjit states that Police serves political ends. In riots, police has run away or joined the mob. If the army can control the mob, it is because of superior fire power which is known to the mob. Police are armed with sticks. This is well known, so this cannot be held against the police which first is already outnumbered by very thin presence, and again poorly equipped to handle mob frenzy. Incidently police in India is not special in this situation. Worldwide, the national guards and the armed forces are called in for short spells by civilian authorities against organised agitation, revolutions and mob frenzy. It is not an issue for pay revision. Surjit is in his element best for his contempt of the police force in the paragraph on the image of the police in India. I am wondering how a police image is involved in matters of the 6th Pay Commission and the case for the Army. The people get the police they deserve and they also get their army they deserve. Surjit ends his ditribe against the police by taking on the Paramilitary organisations. He does not want competition but cooperation. Surjit has perhaps little field experience working with the paramilitary units of the government. Units of BSF, CRPF have for decades been working under army commands. ITBP forces have been working in cooperation and not under the command of the Army. There has been no competition, but in joint operations it has been found and the AHQ accepts that the ITBP is a better force than the army unit when they have performed togather in inclement zones. As for corruption, the army and the police are brothers at arms. It is a matter of where one is working. At the border, the army also helps itself as the police does in its own area of operations. Surjit attempts to being cynical and falls flat when he redicules the police force for not being able to provide security to the cricket IPL. What perhaps has not been told to Surjit was the fact that the Taliban had laid out allegedly a major plan to cause major incidents, similar to the Bombay episode involving players and people togather. IPL can wait for another season. But then that is how gentlmen in the army think! Gautam Kaul, India



deepak


05 Apr 2009

We can foresee a change- It will help improve the complacent and selfserving leadership

I read your article on the two land forces with some interest. There are some factual inaccuracies and methodology related issues that I would like to draw your kind attention to. First of all the table showing the police and the Army strengths is completely flawed. Are there only 9 officers in the Armed Forces of PB-4 grade and above? By my count there are about 750 officers of Brigadier rank and above in the Army alone. Correspondingly, the no of DIG rank and above officers in the IPS is about 1500. Considering that by your admission there are twice as many men under the police having twice as many senior officers would not be entirely out of place. Second, your vacancy position is also flawed, in the IPS too as 01/01/09 and I am quoting from the MHA's website, against an authorised strength of 3889 there are 3332 officers available, a shortfall of over 15%. Not as much as the Army but significant nonetheless. Third your comparison of a division with UP Police is flawed. A division level formation is about 20,000 men. The UP police today has a sanctioned strength of over 3,00,000. The two are not comparable in any way. And the no of sanctioned DG level posts in the government of India, including deputation reserves etc are well under 100 and not 300. Soldiers love to comment on the incompetence of the police, should we talk in the same manner about Kargil when criminal negligence by the Army formations on the ground allowed the Pakistanis to infiltrate and occupy our positions and then regaining our own territory with considerable American pressure was proclaimed as a great victory? All institutions have their strengths and weaknesses and this display of contempt and condescension by our soldiers for civilian institutions is completely uncalled for. You dared us to name a general who was a zealot, perhaps you have heard the name of General Shahbeg Singh who was killed leading the terrorists in Operation Bluestar? Colonel Purohit, recently arrested by the Maharashtra ATS is another case in point. The point is that like the civil services the Armed Forces have their black sheep too, only they are better hidden from the public gaze under the guise of national security. Your point about absorbing sidelined military personnel in the CPOs reflects a parochial mindset. How would you feel if we suggested that all those rejected in the UPSC interview were given a commission in the Army to make up for your shortfall of officers? Resettlement of young soldiers is an area of concern, but please try to see the merit in the argument that the skills and orientation required for soldiering and policing, despite the superficial similarities of uniform, may in fact be quite different. In today's world, the Police are a well established and well recognized a profession as the Armed Forces with their unique requiremnts of training, porfessional skills and orientation. The point dear sir is that we in the civil services have our professional pride too. We don't pretend we can do your job better than you and it would be nice if for a change serving and retired soldiers were gracious enough to return this courtesy. The Army has the structure it does for its own internal operational logic. You have a battalion with 20 odd officers. In a police district, there are seldom more than 2 or three IPS officers. The Armed Forces are welcome to shift to a four tier system of entry to ensure that a few thousand officers in the fast track would have promotion prospects similar to the IPS and the IAS. How that would impact your organization and operational efficiency is for you to assess. The IAS/IPS are the top executive cadre of the civil services while in the Armed Forces the officer cadre performs the whole gamut of managerial functions from platoon level upwards. You can't compare the much larger top half of a two tier pyramid with the much smaller top level of a four tier pyramid. The Colonel of 20 years service may feel reluctant in being courteous to a DIG on only 14 years of service. But please consider the fact that the DIG may be a product of IIT/IIM, and he is responsible for a division consisting of three to four districts and a population in excess of four-five million. Length of service may be an absolute value in the Armed Forces but it is quite strange to expect that civil institutions can be structured in such rigid terms. Your prescription for tackling the terrorist menace flies in the face of historical experience. Tactical prowess of the kind the military excels in is of course required to combat specific instances of terror but it needs strategic leadership and good governance too something that is best left to civilians. The experience of terrorism in Punjab, where it was the inspiring leadership of two IPS officers, Shri Ribeiro and Shri Gill that turned the tide, is a case in point. If terrorism could be countered by military might alone the Kashmir Valley and the North-east would have been silent a long ago. No right minded civil servant in the IAS/IPS would deny that the civil services really need to get their act together and start performing. Corruption and incompetence in our services are a serious cause for concern. But at the same time one has to appreciate the enormous pressures and constraints faced by today's civil servants. The police population ratio in India is far below international norms, we have meagre resources for training. Welfare of our men is much neglected. But if we talk about improving the pay and working conditions of our police forces and this will be opposed by the Armed Forces because in 1935 a captain of the Army was the SSP of a district, then I think meaningful police reforms will always be held hostage to the izzat and iqbal of the Armed Forces. You express contempt at the fact that the Army is often requested to assist civil authorities for a whole range of situations. The nation invests roughly three times as many resources in its Armed Forces each year as it does on the police and the Armed Forces are the only insititution that has the specialized equipment and the trained manpower to deal with such requests. The Armed Forces are not doing anyone a favour by responding to such requests. This is very much a part of their duties in democratic societies and to suggest otherwise shows a feudal/colonial mindest. Even in the US the Armed Forces are routinely called out to assist in relief and rescue after major natural disasters/accidents . The Armed Forces are an institution every Indian is justifiably proud of. Your professionalism, your sense of dedication, your discipline are something worth admiring and emulating. But of late the kind of comments that have come out of our soldiers are biased, ill-informed and display a shocking lack of perspective about the challenges facing our country. warm regards Abhinav Kumar


Abhinav Kumar


01 Apr 2009