Superseded Officers: Handle them with Compassion

[Spectre]

This controversy between officers and other ranks is as old as the Greeks and the Romans. I wouldn't be so cavalier about the extra burden on officers; it is easy to be democratic about something like the military, but it never worked - I can walk you right through military history and show you how every time it had to be reversed - painfully - and the older system reinstated.

This is just an illusion. Pure rubbish.

I agree when you say that democratization is an anathema to vertical structure and chain of command in army. However there is an important issue vis a vis blatant exposition of privilege and the effect it has on the moral. System of sahayaks and social apartheid must be look into and reformed.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I agree when you say that democratization is an anathema to vertical structure and chain of command in army. However there is an important issue vis a vis blatant exposition of privilege and the effect it has on the moral. System of sahayaks and social apartheid must be look into and reformed.

That part was not the part I objected to. Everybody knows how these privileges have been handed down, and misused, and not these alone but a whole host of others. Those are not the areas to be addressed on priority. There are other, very serious operational and doctrinal issues, which is not to say by any means that social disparity should not be addressed.

Second, I object strongly - very strongly - to your use of the phrase social apartheid. You may be making a point, but your choice of words is singularly unfortunate. Please check the number of officers who are themselves the sons of jawans or of NCOs; the number descended from JCOs is visible to all. I respect your posts, otherwise that most unpleasant phrase would have attracted a harsher response.

My objection was elsewhere. It was the simple and elementary lack of knowledge that would allow a person to distinguish between supersession and the denial of promotional opportunities. It was the gibberish about differentials between officer casualty rates and OR casualty rates, and the cheap gibe about the reason why officer casualty rates are higher. I could go on and on, but it is so obviously a scalawag who knows nothing and is an armchair critic from the outside that it was revolting.

 

[Spectre]

That part was not the part I objected to. Everybody knows how these privileges have been handed down, and misused, and not these alone but a whole host of others. Those are not the areas to be addressed on priority. There are other, very serious operational and doctrinal issues, which is not to say by any means that social disparity should not be addressed.

Second, I object strongly - very strongly - to your use of the phrase social apartheid. You may be making a point, but your choice of words is singularly unfortunate. Please check the number of officers who are themselves the sons of jawans or of NCOs; the number descended from JCOs is visible to all. I respect your posts, otherwise that most unpleasant phrase would have attracted a harsher response.

My objection was elsewhere. It was the simple and elementary lack of knowledge that would allow a person to distinguish between supersession and the denial of promotional opportunities. It was the gibberish about differentials between officer casualty rates and OR casualty rates, and the cheap gibe about the reason why officer casualty rates are higher. I could go on and on, but it is so obviously a scalawag who knows nothing and is an armchair critic from the outside that it was revolting.

I would have to think before retracting the phrase:

There are two components to this -

a. Discrimination b/w superseded and promoted officers with privileges as a frame of reference.
b. Officers and Jawans

In case of Officers and Jawans, I know about too many incidents to instantly dismiss the allegations of class divide in the worst possible sense yet I don't know enough to say that 'tis a thing which is institutionalized and not mere anecdotal.
Army is a closed loop so any "real information" is hard to come by and investigative details made public are notoriously one sided. I would say more but this is not the place for it.

About casualty rates - I agree that it is complete fabrication, while there might be issues as I said in the earlier para but an avg officer is no more a coward or a hero than an avg Jawan. There is a SoP and they work within the chain of command as a team.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I would have to think before retracting the phrase:

There are two components to this -

a. Discrimination b/w superseded and promoted officers with privileges as a frame of reference.
b. Officers and Jawans

In case of Officers and Jawans, I know about too many incidents to instantly dismiss the allegations of class divide in the worst possible sense yet I don't know enough to say that 'tis a thing which is institutionalized and not mere anecdotal.
Army is a closed loop so any "real information" is hard to come by and investigative details made public are notoriously one sided. I would say more but this is not the place for it.

About casualty rates - I agree that it is complete fabrication, while there might be issues as I said in the earlier para but an avg officer is no more a coward or a hero than an avg Jawan. There is a SoP and they work within the chain of command as a team.

A very unsatisfactory reply.

It is entirely up to you.

To say that you would have to think before retracting the phrase contradicts your own statement below,"....In case of Officers and Jawans....." Either you know because you have been directly exposed to the system, or because you have access to first-hand information, or you don't. It seems from what you yourself say that you don't. In that case, your having to think is a meaningless demonstration of independence. If you don't know enough to say that it is institutionalised and not merely anecdotal, if you have no 'real information', and if you yourself think that investigative details made public are notoriously one-sided, what is it that you are thinking about? and why?

 

[livingdead]

I dont like the idea of promotion based on ability at all(in army), it should be automatic based on seniority. If at all you promote out of turn, we should keep a cap on it, and it should be rare.
I think in a hierarchical structure like army, promoting out of turn is open to abuse. Seniors will pick their favorites, and subordinate will try to lick feet of their seniors. Also it causes lot of disruption and heartburn to others.

 

[Spectre]

A very unsatisfactory reply.

It is entirely up to you.

To say that you would have to think before retracting the phrase contradicts your own statement below,"....In case of Officers and Jawans....." Either you know because you have been directly exposed to the system, or because you have access to first-hand information, or you don't. It seems from what you yourself say that you don't. In that case, your having to think is a meaningless demonstration of independence. If you don't know enough to say that it is institutionalised and not merely anecdotal, if you have no 'real information', and if you yourself think that investigative details made public are notoriously one-sided, what is it that you are thinking about? and why?

Let me clarify. There are two aspects which i somehow mashed up

Public incidents

As far as I am aware there have one major and two minor incidents in recent memory where the findings of Army was an affront to sense of natural justice. I think you are well are of the one I am talking about.

Think is a subjective term - You see perversion of justice, there is no question that it is wrong objectively but sometimes greater good which is chain of command in this case comes into picture. Mutiny and punishments meted out and so and so forth nevermind if mutiny was the right thing to do. This is a ethical dilemma which required me to put some thought into it.

Personal Experience

I have lengthy talks with Jawans who I met during the days of my ticketless travels in trains, my uncle is a defence contractor and his sons are officers, I have been a product of Elite Boarding School which boasts numerous Generals and Admirals among it's alumni and sends approx ~30% of its crop to NDA. My personal experiences suggest institutional apathy or worst abuse but since all this is hearsay - I will not feel confident taking this to court.

 

[SQ8]

Lets put it on a differrent perspective and look at the messenger and his tone.
The entire crux of the article rests on two things; A strict hierarchy and a flawed evaluation system.

The Strict hierarchy is part and participle of not just the military but many organizations until the 20th century and its reformists. Suffice to say, a flat layout seen at certain small businesses and consulting firms cannot apply to a military force.

Next, comes the issue of evaluation; which is being looked at as a system rather than looking at the input to a system. Sycophancy and Nepotism are keystones of subcontinent society even today, a system looking to grade people from 1 to 10 where relationships, caste(not your religious ones but tribal ones) can come into play at decisions is going to be effected.

The issue is NOT then the evaluation but rather the officer to troop ratio. You are looking at a million man army where the emphasis of command in combat and administration is left to the officer class with the enlisted having very little authority or command inputs beyond what the officers accord them. While there is currently a shortage of officers in the IA advertised, this is superficial and has to do with the delegated powers to the officer class rather than making and creating an enlisted cadre capable of decision making authority for most of the tasks. Sure, we have the NCO system available but to what extent is the NCO able to provide command and decision making capability?

On the other hand, take a western army and its NCOs as many of them would qualify to be officers in a subcontinent army.
Independence of decision will reduce the dependency on so many officers to control such a large troop strength. At the same time, the "superseded" officer count will gradually reduce over the years to where better officers are available anyway.

@Joe Shearer I am not saying this is an answer, but a door to peek into

P.S The other solution is to take the Pakistan Army approach and get the IA into Business and maybe a coup or two?
That way all the superseded officers can be "posted" after retirement into ..say a steel mill, fertilizer plant, toffee factory.. or manage places like Bhatinda's water works.

 

[Spectre]

Lets put it on a differrent perspective and look at the messenger and his tone.
The entire crux of the article rests on two things; A strict hierarchy and a flawed evaluation system.

The Strict hierarchy is part and participle of not just the military but many organizations until the 20th century and its reformists. Suffice to say, a flat layout seen at certain small businesses and consulting firms cannot apply to a military force.

Next, comes the issue of evaluation; which is being looked at as a system rather than looking at the input to a system. Sycophancy and Nepotism are keystones of subcontinent society even today, a system looking to grade people from 1 to 10 where relationships, caste(not your religious ones but tribal ones) can come into play at decisions is going to be effected.

The issue is NOT then the evaluation but rather the officer to troop ratio. You are looking at a million man army where the emphasis of command in combat and administration is left to the officer class with the enlisted having very little authority or command inputs beyond what the officers accord them. While there is currently a shortage of officers in the IA advertised, this is superficial and has to do with the delegated powers to the officer class rather than making and creating an enlisted cadre capable of decision making authority for most of the tasks. Sure, we have the NCO system available but to what extent is the NCO able to provide command and decision making capability?

On the other hand, take a western army and its NCOs as many of them would qualify to be officers in a subcontinent army.
Independence of decision will reduce the dependency on so many officers to control such a large troop strength. At the same time, the "superseded" officer count will gradually reduce over the years to where better officers are available anyway.

@Joe Shearer I am not saying this is an answer, but a door to peek into

P.S The other solution is to take the Pakistan Army approach and get the IA into Business and maybe a coup or two?
That way all the superseded officers can be "posted" after retirement into ..say a steel mill, fertilizer plant, toffee factory.. or manage places like Bhatinda's water works.

Only someone from the IA would be able to comment on the NCOs, the degree of autonomy they are allowed and the ratio of their conversion to officer cadre.

As for superseded officers, a large proportion of them are absorbed in corporate sector usually in security specific profile. Flag rank and Brigadiers also have a lot of profiles available in project management and HR.

Vibrant corporate sector does away the need for compensatory public sector postings which are exclusively the reserve of retired sycophantic bureaucrats and judges. Though you would find some exceptional flag rank officers being given sensitive posts in administration.

The other avenue is obviously intelligence services.

 

[Indika]

This one is dedicated to the officers who had to sacrifice their careers because they did not massage the ego of their super seniors.

whats new in it? every organization does have such ppl. lesser the number better, greater it is the organization will start to decay and become stagnant. Unlike civilian corporate organizations which are measure based on growth in monetary terms public institutions escape that scrutiny. Only time & circumstance ( war?) will tell how the organization has fared. Until then keep your fingers crossed for the facade of institutional respect will never let you know what is happening underneath.

 

[Levina]

Cat -1 is the present one based on laid down requisites. Cat-2 should be a time based promotion.

As far as I know, cat-2 is already in use for the special category officers in IA. The promotion in this case depends on the availability of vacancies, plus ACR (for obvious reasons).

i suppose any heartbreak or getting demoralized is understandable.
I think the answer to this lies in defining clear cut roadmap of career progression for a person and counselling of some sort to a person who fails to make the cut.

Trust me, its not about the heart break, but the treatment meted out to them once they fail to clear the promotion list. There's a visible discrimination, be it in the parties or in the work handed over to them.
I know a special forces officer who was posted to education dept. The man was shattered, for he felt the army considered him useless. A man who was involved in some high profile operations, does not deserve this.
Definitely not!

Thousands of Soldiers have been superseded and denied bravery awards and recognition because they are not from NDA. They are made to polish shoes and carry bags of the officers wives.

Hi there!
I am definitely sure that when it comes to bravery awards, army hands it to soldiers who deserve it.
I can not say so about other medals (of lesser value) like VSM (vishisht seva medal).
But bravery awards are a different story altogether, so far there has never been any controversy regarding this. You can check the list yourself; the number of jawans might be more than that of the officers.

System of sahayaks and social apartheid must be look into and reformed.

I hope someday sahayak system will be abolished.

I dont like the idea of promotion based on ability at all(in army), it should be automatic based on seniority.

FYI- we do have seniority based promotions in Indian army. But that is applicable to special category only.

a system looking to grade people from 1 to 10 where relationships, caste(not your religious ones but tribal ones) can come into play at decisions is going to be effected.

The issue is this!
And only this!!!
There's a fair amount of discrimination which the superseded officers face, if anything, this exacerbates the situation.
I am not opposed to promoting officers on the basis of their ability, and maintaining a strict APR.
Many of the superseded officers have moiled for IA, and are mavens in their respective fields, but they were denied a chance for promotion when they did not massage the ego of the seniors. Might sound brusque, but I am not exaggerating. Trust me.
I wish I had some officers from IA to prove my point, but for obvious reasons they don't join this forum. Many 're apprehensive.
Albeit, I would like to know how it works in PA. Tagging you @Icarus , hope you can throw some light on this issue.

 

[livingdead]

Only someone from the IA would be able to comment on the NCOs, the degree of autonomy they are allowed and the ratio of their conversion to officer cadre.

As for superseded officers, a large proportion of them are absorbed in corporate sector usually in security specific profile. Flag rank and Brigadiers also have a lot of profiles available in project management and HR.

Vibrant corporate sector does away the need for compensatory public sector postings which are exclusively the reserve of retired sycophantic bureaucrats and judges. Though you would find some exceptional flag rank officers being given sensitive posts in administration.

The other avenue is obviously intelligence services.

Most from services have difficulty in fitting in to civilian sector, they spend their whole life marching up and down, and looking down upon civilians as uncivilized weirdos, army had taken their best years and most of creativity.

As far as I know, cat-2 is already in use for the special category officers in IA. The promotion in this case depends on the availability of vacancies, plus ACR (for obvious reasons).


Trust me, its not about the heart break, but the treatment meted out to them once they fail to clear the promotion list. There's a visible discrimination, be it in the parties or in the work handed over to them.
I know a special forces officer who was posted to education dept. The man was shattered, for he felt the army considered him useless. A man who was involved in some high profile operations, does not deserve this.
Definitely not!





Hi there!
I am definitely sure that when it comes to bravery awards, army hands it to soldiers who deserve it.
I can not say so about other medals (of lesser value) like VSM (vishisht seva medal).
But bravery awards are a different story altogether, so far there has never been any controversy regarding this. You can check the list yourself; the number of jawans might be more than that of the officers.


I hope someday sahayak system will be abolished.

FYI- we do have seniority based promotions in Indian army. But that is applicable to special category only.



The issue is this!
And only this!!!
There's a fair amount of discrimination which the superseded officers face, if anything, this exacerbates the situation.
I am not opposed to promoting officers on the basis of their ability, and maintaining a strict ACR.
Many of the superseded officers have moiled for IA, and are mavens in their respective fields, but they were denied a chance for promotion when they did not massage the ego of the seniors. Might sound brusque, but I am not exaggerating. Trust me.
I wish I had some officers from IA to prove my point, but for obvious reasons they don't join this forum. Many 're apprehensive.
Albeit, I would like to know how it works in PA. Tagging you @Icarus , hope you can throw some light on this issue.

I probably did not make it clear, seniority should be the only criteria for promotion.. medals or appreciation from senior should not affect promotion, however bad report from senior, if not challenged, should be taken into acount. If you want to promote somebody out of turn, it should be rarest of rare case, may be involving the chief. Brigadier and up should never be promoted other than on seniority basis.
What Gen VK Singh's affair showed us, the system is open to abuse, army men can form a gang a punish who is not part of it.

We all know how army treats it jawans(rather how officers treat), its more or less a caste system.

 

[Hyperion]

Not true. All superseded officers, in admin and field alike, with the minimum rank of major can apply for a thrilling and fruitful career @ I S I....... promotion wise, sky is the limit!

 

[anant_s]

The man was shattered, for he felt the army considered him useless.

Sidelining a person who has given a good part of his/her life to military service is indeed very wrong treatment. Training for some reason in India (not just defence) is often treated as being delegated a secondary role which is not aligned with core business of an organization. I'm not sure if this is actually the case, the most able officers are often the most capable trainers or teachers. However, after a while in a service, a person thinks that these roles are basically given to remove him/her from decision making process, which could lead to this personal depressing scenario.
However, treating him badly in social circles is unpardonable and detrimental to morale of organization as a whole. It is here that HR policies come into play.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Lets put it on a differrent perspective and look at the messenger and his tone.
The entire crux of the article rests on two things; A strict hierarchy and a flawed evaluation system.

The Strict hierarchy is part and participle of not just the military but many organizations until the 20th century and its reformists. Suffice to say, a flat layout seen at certain small businesses and consulting firms cannot apply to a military force.

Next, comes the issue of evaluation; which is being looked at as a system rather than looking at the input to a system. Sycophancy and Nepotism are keystones of subcontinent society even today, a system looking to grade people from 1 to 10 where relationships, caste(not your religious ones but tribal ones) can come into play at decisions is going to be effected.

The issue is NOT then the evaluation but rather the officer to troop ratio. You are looking at a million man army where the emphasis of command in combat and administration is left to the officer class with the enlisted having very little authority or command inputs beyond what the officers accord them. While there is currently a shortage of officers in the IA advertised, this is superficial and has to do with the delegated powers to the officer class rather than making and creating an enlisted cadre capable of decision making authority for most of the tasks. Sure, we have the NCO system available but to what extent is the NCO able to provide command and decision making capability?

On the other hand, take a western army and its NCOs as many of them would qualify to be officers in a subcontinent army.
Independence of decision will reduce the dependency on so many officers to control such a large troop strength. At the same time, the "superseded" officer count will gradually reduce over the years to where better officers are available anyway.

@Joe Shearer I am not saying this is an answer, but a door to peek into

P.S The other solution is to take the Pakistan Army approach and get the IA into Business and maybe a coup or two?
That way all the superseded officers can be "posted" after retirement into ..say a steel mill, fertilizer plant, toffee factory.. or manage places like Bhatinda's water works.

@Oscar

I agree with you wholeheartedly on your assessment of the use that we have made on the sub-continent of our bulging professional talent, not only in the NCO cadres, but also in the JCO cadres.

A young friend of mine, ex-PAF, recounts that at an unnamed Pakistani air base, he saw a USAF Sergeant take control of a flight of war-planes (he refused to specify what they were, but they had flown in from Afghanistan), and handle the ordnance load, checking and calibrating it, then dealing with the aircraft themselves and sending them through a pretty elaborate procedure, without a single officer intervening. As you might imagine, he found it unsettling and asked a Major posted at the base about it. The Major was not very sure what the question was, since the Sergeant was certified to do what he was doing, what was the problem? What supervision did my friend think was required? A little later, he asked the Sergeant himself, and got more or less the same answer: since he was certified, why would he need supervision?

Of course, this was a very technical task, and the man was acting in his technical capacity. But my friend's observation of the USAF was that a huge amount of work got done by the men themselves, with minimal or no 'supervision' by the officers. Our own forces overdo the supervision, if at all it can be called supervision. It usually calls for a brief interaction, on the lines of "Jemadar Sahib, sab kuchh thik thak hai?" "Jee, Sir, sab kuchh thik chal raha hai." "Oh, very well, carry on then." (I must remember they are Naib Subedars now, possibly because of the ambiguity of the social context of the original rank). Given the possibility of training our jawans to western standards of autonomy and independence of action, we might turn out to be mildly over-staffed, and with a little streamlining at field level positions, we might be able to avoid the carnage at the levels of full colonels and brigadiers (I don't know how it is in the Pakistani Army, but in the Indian Army, full colonels have become active roles, and people no longer get promoted direct to Brigadier).

That was a good intervention, as usual, Oscar, and most obliged for the same.

 

[Levina]

however bad report from senior, if not challenged, should be taken into acount.

There are 2 parts to an ACR, one part of it is shown to the officer while the other is not. So chances of such reports going unchallenged are very high.

We all know how army treats it jawans(rather how officers treat), its more or less a caste system.

This is true for certain regiments only, like AMC, but not the infantry divisions where the jawans and officers live like a family.

with the minimum rank of major can apply for a thrilling and fruitful career @ I S I.

Don't make ISI sound like politics, where anyone sans any qualification can walk-in. I'm sure spy agencies, your's and our's (ahem), are very competitive agencies with a proven track record. If at all our politicians were as competitive....<sigh>

I'm not sure if this is actually the case, the most able officers are often the most capable trainers or teachers.

Well... a man of action might not like to sit inside a cabin and do paperwork.

However, treating him badly in social circles is unpardonable and detrimental to morale of organization as a whole. It is here that HR policies come into play

Exactly!