The Greeks, John Murray writes in his Book; the History of India, have described Indians as tall and active. Their bravery was always spoken of as characteristic; their superiority in war to other Asiatics is repeatedly asserted and appears in more ways than one. They are said to be sober, moderate, peaceable, good soldiers, good farmers, remarkable for simplicity and integrity; so reasonable as never to have recourse to a law suit; and so honest as neither to require locks to their doors nor writings to bind their agreements. Above all no Indian was ever known to tell an untruth”. How soldierly our ancestors were.

However, what about the contemporary Indian society.   Swapan Dasgupta in his forthright article in India Today in Aug ’98 said “Indians lack discipline and Civic sense”.

The Indian army because of its apolitical nature has often been confined to the cantonments & is therefore known to the civil society only through the electronic media and Hindi movies. The soldier for our society is like a sacrificial goat; looked after by the Govt, who only knows how to use a weapon and parade and is supposed to die while fighting the enemy. The officer is a habitual drunkard who parties around, laughs loudly and in the face of the enemy orders the Jawan Aage Barh. It is this reason why no eyebrows were raised when 1500 troops were killed in Sri Lanka, and almost 20 times of that number in J&K while fighting the Pakistanis and terrorists. Unfortunately the leaders responsible for creating this mess are still revered by the Indian polity. Such leaders in US & UK would have been kicked out of politics forever.

Stephen Cohen while discussing about the Indian military traditions writes in his book The Indian Army “There are particularly two different sets of attitudes towards military in India. Modern militarism and traditional militarism”. The modern militarism, he says, was the outcome of the realization that the Army is the symbol of state power and was an expression of national will which demanded equalitarian recruitment. This sentiment was more prominent in Bengal and Western India and thereafter grew in other regions. Whereas the Traditional Militarism was confined to specific regions and castes.  He further adds that, “As a result of agitation both in England and India the strength of Indians in ICS increased to the 5% of the total within a span of 15-20 years whereas during the same period although the lower ranks of Indian Army were mainly Indians but the representation in the officer cadre was much below 5% and it was not till the late 20th century that there was some pressure from urban India”. This implies that Army was never a lucrative career for the urban and educated Indian youth.

The confinement of Indian Army to barracks, limited military traditions coupled with indifferent attitude of urban youth towards military has deprived the Indian civic society from imbibing military values and qualities a soldier is known for. Even our leaders have looked at the soldiers with disdain. Nehru in his Book towards Freedom writes “Bred in different atmosphere, where reins and criticism not tolerated; so he resents the advice of others and when he errs, errs thoroughly and persists in error. For him his chin is more important than brain or mind”. He further wrote about the military man who stiffening to attention, drops his humanity and acting as automation, shoots and kills inoffensive and harmless persons who have done him no ill”. Surprisingly, the pillar of Indian Democracy never listened to any one’s advice when it came to China and J&K and therefore erred completely.   A leader’s worth is known when he is long gone.

Militarism does not only mean a belief to use a weapon and parade. It stands for discipline, loyalty, brotherhood, honesty, straightforwardness, moral courage, sacrifice and even-handedness.  This lack of interest in military affairs and scant regard for military values has adversely affected the civic society, its institutions as well as the military. Having taken premature retirement from army, I have really felt the need for our countrymen to learn something from their own army men. But they are scared to learn from us because most of them have been brought up in an environment which encourages indiscipline, treachery, deceit, craftiness and guile. Consequently, the moment someone rakes up the issue of compulsory military training for the Indians, the corrupt and the dishonest amongst us are the first ones to shout and oppose the proposal.

The study of British history reveals that the British Society, has not only strived hard for the creation of various institutions, including Military, but for numerous other reasons have imbibed those qualities, for which a soldier is known for but are an anathema to our civic society. Don’t we all appreciate the sense of duty and discipline of the British and the Japanese? Shri C Rajagopalachari mentioned in his prison diary in 1922 “Elections and their corruption, injustice and the power and tyranny of wealth and inefficiency of administration will make hell of life as soon as freedom is given to us. Men will look regretfully back to the old regime of comparative justice and efficient, peaceful more or less honest administration. The only thing gained from independence will be that as a race we will be saved from dishonour and subordination”.

Did the British acquire these qualities from their historical military traditions or are they inherently justice loving and disciplined. Is there any relation between military traditions, militarism that has helped the societies become disciplined, apolitical, justice loving, honest and diligent?

The tactical and strategic goof ups and excessive casualties have never been a cause of concern for the Indian polity as well as media to make it an election issue during any of the Indian elections and as a result Indian polity has never punished the political leaders for referring the J&K issue to the UN, declaring cease fire in J&K in 1948, not settling the J&K issue once for all in 1972, inducting Indian troops in Sri Lanka in 1987 in a hurry without basic logistic planning and preparation, attacking Golden Temple when the same objectives could have been achieved by some other method as achieved by Mr Ved Marwah the very next year (1985), and for fighting the Kargil war in a manner it shouldn’t have been fought.

As a matter of fact strategy has never been our domain. Nehru also after the ignominious defeat in 1962 remarked’ we were living in our own make believe world’. Kargil episode has shown that we are still continuing to grope in that make believe world. Historically also except the great strategist Chanakya, we have not produced any military thinker unlike the Chinese, British and Germans. However, we can boast of number of legendary warriors who laid down their lives fighting the enemy. Probably, as India attained freedom through peaceful means, few Indian leaders had the vision and experience like the British with the application of Force and its relationship to statecraft and diplomacy. Those who had the vision and took interest in military matters were politically marginalised.

We Indians as a result seem to have no strategy to deal with our inimical neighbours, and to project India as a power. Even in South Asia it is unable to truly exercise power by influencing the behaviour of its neighbours, as underscored by Pak’s ability to wage unconventional war against India with impunity and the growing anti India activities in Nepal and Bangladesh. We are being hemmed in from all sides.

If the taxpayer is not concerned about how the security forces are spending his hard earned money the consequences can be disastrous. Harinder Baweja in her book ‘The soldier’s Diary’ while blaming the entire set up for the Kargil war says, ‘Maybe this diary will expose those responsible. But who will pay the price? My overwhelming fear is that the sacrifices of so many brave soldiers will have been in vain.

Can the armed forces alone be blamed for all the strategic goof ups? Or it should be equally shared by the civic society as well, to include the media and the political organizations as well as the government.

Stephen Cohen in his book, Emerging Power: India says, “No other country has ever engaged in as lengthy wide ranging and intensive discussions as India did before it crossed various nuclear thresholds. This was when its neighbour with whom it had fought a war had become nuclear in 1967. Probably, under the influence of the moral precepts the Indian establishment does not possess the expertise to deal with such concepts as limited nuclear war or deterrence.

Few arm chair scholars while praising India for its greatness often boast that India has never conquered territories but the influence of its culture has spread far and wide to distant lands, not realising that only an economically developed and militarily powerful country can sell its culture, a weak nation cannot. (The Clash of Civilisations by Samuel Huntington). Asoka, the Great sold Buddhism to the World when he became the Emperor and the Cholas could spread Indian culture to South East Asian nations because they were powerful Kings, and had a strong navy.

Thus contemporary India which is corrupt and seems to be aping West in every aspect is in no position to have any influence on its neighbours whether it adopts Gujral doctrine or not. Although, economically India appears set on a rising path, it is far from becoming a world power in its true sense. A country where after every monsoon children die of dengue and chikungunya can never become a super power. We need to work out a strategy to project India as a power and in order to do that there is an urgent need to overhaul the entire setup and develop strategic vision for the future.

We need to find answers to few basic questions and reform & reorganize ourselves to face the challenges; what are our objectives? What are our core values? Where are we heading to? Will this current arrangement and structure be able to meet our objectives and take us on the right path? What should be our place in the comity of nations and how to prevent inimical powers from harming us? What sort of society do we wish to be? These connected matters of identity, of Self esteem, of our Values and of security are the ones we need to think clearly and find answers to.

Brahma Chellany a renowned strategist says “In spite of the economic progress, India can neither wait half a century to be heard with respect internationally nor can rising prosperity by itself bring power and respect as exemplified by todays Japan, which faces a dwindling international profile in spite of remaining the world’s second largest economic power house. There is hence a need to project national power through an integrated approach, which utilises the military, economic, cultural, social, political & technology levers”.

It is only then that the world will listen to us and we would be able to spread our values and our culture far as the Cholas and Emperor Asoka did, without waging a war.