The Indian armed forces have enjoyed extraordinary public trust because they have historically remained secular, apolitical and professionally detached from political contestation – essential qualities of a military in a diverse republic.
The Indian Military Academy’s (IMA) hallowed Chetwode Hall is home to the portraits of all army chiefs and commandants, each with their respective names inscribed in Hindi. The touching pursuit of the Hindi cause is, in truth, a sign of political control over the military. Or, it would be, if the military were not already more loyal than the king. What earlier was the domain of the paramilitary forces, falling over themselves to show their worthiness on this score, now afflicts the army as well.
This is happening alongside the complementary Hinduisation agenda, addressed most recently by a prominent military-watcher, who warns of the severe consequences of continuing in this way. He wrote, “The concern is not religion itself. The concern is the perception that the military institution may be identifying itself with particular religious narratives at a time when religion has become deeply intertwined with political discourse.”
The Indian armed forces have enjoyed extraordinary public trust precisely because they have historically remained secular, apolitical and professionally detached from political contestation. This reputation is a national asset. Its dilution has horrendous ramifications for the military of a multi-religious, multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual nation, he wrote.
The general lets the brass hats off the hook, assuming that such a “dilution” in values may be for “perceived personal gains”. The temple visits of General Dwivedi show a conscious lending of an epauleted shoulder to the national reset. It is moot whether this was for personal gains, now that he departs into the sunset. Precedent set, his successor cannot but be expected to conform.
However, what if brass hats are instead driven by a sense of their mandate, handed to them tacitly by the regime? What if the military leadership believes that the way to go for the militaryis to keep step with the pronounced and unmistakable turn in the social and political spheres?
Two perspectives of the nation – multi-religious, multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual nation versus one propelled by and driven to Hindutva thinking which emphasises uniformity – are in contention. Even if the latter is not a full-fledged reality, it is not quite illusory either.
The national security-conscious military may be sufficiently impressed with the unity-conferring promise of the majoritarian paradigm, and it is consciously playing its part in consolidating that promise. Politically sensitive to changes in the political culture, the military may view the three characteristics, secular, apolitical and professionally detached, as anachronistic. The 2H – Hindi-isation and Hinduisation – are the pincers of revision.
Will a majoritarian state fit national security interests better or would the general’s foreboding of “horrendous ramifications be the outcome?
Adjusting to a new dawn
A grand leader, advertising strength in his body language and rhetoric, is at the helm in the country, nastily deriding dynastic politics. Since taking power, the regime has consolidated its grip, through the Chanakyan ministrations of a latter-day Kautilya.
The planet’s richest and largest political party has the world’s largest NGO as its back office and to hold its back. The unregistered NGO sees no distinction between itself and Hinduism. A revivalist narrative, built over the last hundred years, has ended up superseding the unity in diversity thesis with unity sans diversity. The one-party dominant political system is reminiscent of the Congress system of yore, but diverges in terms of religion at its core and – religion by itself being insufficient – insurance in the form of a unifying Other.
Military veterans, whether enamoured by the new idea or simply bought over, projected the benefits of a strong-on-defence regime prepared to foster a national will. The military was done with the strategic formulation of resolve and restraint, manifested in supposedly limp-wristed responses to the proxy war, Kargil, Kandahar, parliament attack, spate of lesser terror attacks and 26/11.
Sensing a military conditioned for institutional capture, the regime professed to be supportive of its claims and interests and demands.
It gave the military a “free hand” for retribution through exercise of conventional force. It took on its shoulders responsibility for the army blindsided by China in Ladakh. It delivered on long-demanded baubles, such as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) position and the constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir. It left the military to arrive at jointness and integration at its own pace. It upped the defence budget and fast–tracked acquisitions.
It has also avoided the operational-directive route that fostered accountability in favour of a coffee-table variety of unenforceable vision of the defence forces and strategic guidance. The regime ingratiated itself with the military, through a set of parvs and photo opportunities, taking care that the apex leadership was sufficiently supervised by a deep selectee, the CDS. The beguiling Agnipath scheme has helped with coup-proofing. Forget any drift towards critical thinking, leave alone dissent, within the military.
The military appears to have seen the writing on the wall, as have other pillars of democracy and institutions of governance. Now, no statement from a military functionary is without reference to either the “honourable prime minister”, viksit-ism and triumphalism, even over military operations with meagre strategic effect.
The military has also put forth the concept of fusion: collaboration of all stakeholders in the defence sector in the national security effort. However, since fusion is a two-way street, the military is also subject to an inverse embrace, such as hosting the defence secretary at its staff college or ferrying exam papers. It appears that the earlier bureaucratic buffer between the military and its political master has receded. Such proximity presages an influx of ideology.
The military has pragmatically cast the weight of its authority and respect it commands on the side of the majoritarian enterprise. In the secular era, in which democratic alternation between parties was feasible, the military was secular and apolitical. Now the multifarious idea of India that accompanied the concept of being secular is potentially redundant. With a single party set to dominate even the regional political space, the idea of being apolitical, too, is irrelevant. In an era of one nation, one party, one election, to belabour these two would amount to landing offside the political masters.
To land on the winning side, the military has wilfully discarded political distancing as a hallmark of professionalism. And the regime, noting that to be ‘professionally detached’ may yet be desirable, has taken care to ensure interminable deployments on the northern border and a continuing operation on the western one.
The military is sanguine that any backlash that the bulldozing incites can be managed by an up-gunned central armed police force that demonstrated its accountability-exempt capability in cleansing central India of Maoists. The suppressive template – with the Israelis being the template – has been finetuned in Kashmir. The long-standing strategy of exhaustion appears operational in Manipur. No ‘horrendous consequences’ impending, the 2H can be allowed to do its thing within the military to attune it to a fusionist future.
A reality check
But what if the military has been barking up the wrong tree? Worst-case preparedness requires vetting the military’s assumptions: one, that a national levelling is underway; two, that military assistance for the regime is called for; three, that a plaisant national security environment will emerge from all its efforts.
The military needs a reminder: the elevation of crookery to a sublime political art does not a nation make. Even if it is enthused by the vision, the means and methods matter. To deploy cunning as a strategy will only conjure up a house of cards. False gods are subject to the emperor’s new clothes syndrome. It would require wisdom to recogise this. Anything can go wrong from policy missteps to fratricide over succession, etc.. At the eventual dénouement, the nation would need a ticking military; any dilution cannot but have ‘horrendous ramifications.’
Politicisation of the military has been in the air for long. Now it is taking flight. The cautioning extant is for the political class – essentially the Opposition – to keep off the military, such as in General Naravane’s take on keeping contents of his book out of the hurly-burly of political scrutiny. But the other line of caution, which has fallen by the wayside entirely, is that the regime itself should not appropriate the national institution’s for self-aggrandisement. As for politicisation from below – the military’s unbidden turn towards one side of the political spectrum – there is little comprehension, leave alone commentary.
For now, it cannot be said with any certainty whether the infusion of 2H into the military is organic, through osmosis with society, or if it is an institutionally sanctioned programme. Either way, the two tend to ally the military with baser political forces that have beset north India over recent decades. Consequently, it distances the military from the social and geographic periphery, where diversity is the most pronounced.
Since the tendency in current-day politics is for the dominant political forces of the heartland to devour the periphery, the military’s 2H program makes it appear as a willing participant on the side of the latter. It really ought to let up on its zeal to jump through these hoops before the rim strikes back.
Ali Ahmed is a strategic analyst. This article first appeared on his blog, ‘ali’s version’.
This article went live on June twenty-fourth, two thousand twenty six, at six minutes past three in the afternoon.
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