Globespotting
Military brass told to mind their language
Indrani Bagchi Sunday June 28, 2009
That is the message from the Indian government to its military brass after a series of comments that has driven the civilian government up the wall. After a series of sharp rebukes, notice the peaceable tone of the army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor when he said on Saturday that India would never be a threat to Pakistan, it was only in Pakistan's mind.
The more important part of his comments was about China and how despite a border problem everybody was in reasonably good humour and anyway, talks by senior officials was "on."
The "sweet reasonableness" comes after his predecessor and currently governor of Arunachal Pradesh, General JJ Singh let fly some weeks ago about stationing some 60,000 troops on the Chinese border, and Sukhoi fighter aircraft in Assam. That remark unleashed a storm of protest from an increasingly nationalist Chinese government and people, its media alternately threatening India, and dismissing India's "jealousy" about its eastern neighbour.
Actually, it was the outgoing air force chief Air Marshal Homi Major that set it off, saying China was the "real" threat, Pakistan just being a sideshow. Which is perfectly true, but just as in 1998, when India articulated its real reason for the nuclear tests, it pierced the veil of civilized state-to-state behaviour.
That was bad enough, coming after a series of veiled threats by the navy chief that our defense relations with Russia needed to be reviewed. But the government really saw red after the Air Force said they wanted to do an "inauguration" ceremony when the Sukhois were deployed in Tezpur and Chhabua. An angry denial of permission left both the services and the diplomats fuming.
A couple of seemingly unrelated issues need to be flagged here.
First, the governor of a state, particularly one as sensitive as Arunachal Pradesh really needs to follow certain rules, and they don't include tom-toming troop deployments. India has to do what she has to do, there's absolutely no need to create rhetorical ripples while doing it.
Second, the Indian government need to be a lot more open and realistic about China and our security perceptions about that country. It's absolutely no use if the government, particularly the foreign office, just pretends that China - or our problems with it - don't actually exist and are a figment of the feverish imagination of journalists. This has created a very funny situation where government keeps insisting that ties are "doing fine", while newspapers and TV channels continue the drumbeat of difficulties in relations. Its not surprising therefore that the military services decided it was time to call a spade a spade.
Third, is the glaring disconnect between our fighting brains and our diplomatic and strategic brains. The services have been kept out of the strategic discourse in this country for years, which is not only a shame but is probably why there is a certain "innocence" (you know, the kind that comes from being kept out) within the armed forces elite. Its a crying shame. The results of this have been disastrous.
For decades, the army was at the forefront in denying development to our border areas, believing keeping these areas depressed would slow the advance of enemy forces into Indian territory. The advance of technology rendered this argument impotent, as was the fact that on the other side of the border, infrastructure development brought troops and weapons closer to the border and the whole argument was turned on its head. It took a lot of hard work by former foreign secretary Shyam Saran to work out a change in defence mindset, and initiate one of the biggest border infrastructure projects in this country. But if there had been deeper and more frequent interface between the defence and diplomatic systems, maybe we would have been only a couple of years behind the Chinese rather than a whole decade.
... it was right on the part of govt to issue the warning...... we dont want the army influencing the people s sentiments by their non stop rantlings (also like some countries)...without much action
