Indian Military and Bureaucracy Namita Wahi , Harvard Law School Oct 2010

1. Indian Military and Bureaucracy Namita Wahi , Harvard Law School Oct 2010

2. Indian Military Features Composition Roles

3. Features of the Indian Military • Consists of the Army, Air Force and the Navy • President of India, Commander in Chief • Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Finance • Third largest standing military in the world • 9th in the world in terms of total military spending (2009: $36.3 billion) • Military spending 2.6% of the GDP

4. Composition of the Military • Martial Race theory • Diversification during wartime • Professional officer Corps • Social Mobility • Secular credentials

5. Army Camp, Sonamarg, Kashmir

6. Roles of the Military • Nation building • External Defence • Internal Security • Aid to civilian operations • UN peacekeeping operations

7. Nation Building • First Kashmir War, 1947 • Inclusion of Hyderabad,1948 • Liberation of Goa, Daman and Diu, 1961

8. External Defence • Sino Indian conflict, 1962 • Indo Pak conflict, 1965 • Indo Pak conflict, 1971 (Creation of Bangladesh) • Siachen conflict, 1984 • Kargil conflict, 1999 • Mumbai terror attack, 2008, “26/11” (“Operation Black Tornado”)

9. Internal Security • Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 • Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland,Tripura • Operation Bluestar, 1984 • Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990

10. Political Map of India

11. Aid to Civilian Relief Operations • Settlement of colonies • Strengthening communication networks, railways, telegraph • Road repairs • Flood control • Disaster relief • Famine and epidemic relief

12. Why did India never have a military coup? • Nehru’s distrust of the military • Personal Dislike • Military tool of the Raj • 1958 Coup in Pakistan furthered distrust

13. Nehru’s Personal Dislike • The military man who, “stiffening to attention, drops his humanity and, acting as an automaton shoots and kills inoffensive and harmless persons who have done him no ill.”

14. Nehru’s Policies • Position of Army Chief as “equal” to Air Force and Naval Chiefs • Abolished position of Joint Commander of the Forces • Focus on economic growth, reduced defence spending • Change following Sino Indian War, 1962

15. Size and Complexity of India • India too big to be run from the centre • India politically complex; no dominant group • Legitimacy and integrity of the political system until the 1970s

16. Military Traditions • Ethnically diverse • Tradition of distaste for exercising control over civilian population • High standards of professionalism • Good leadership

17. Future Challenges for the Military • Huge shortage of officers and staff • Erosion of professionalism and integrity • Erosion of legitimacy • Need for modernisation of equipment, weaponry • Need for greater coordination amongst the services • Gender issues

18. Bureaucracy • Indian Civil Service • Nehru • “"The ICS was 'neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service.'" • Patel: • "In point of patriotism, in point of sincerity and in point of ability, you cannot have a substitute...”

19. All India Services • Indian Administrative Service • Indian Foreign Service • Indian Police Service • Competitive national exam (UPSC) • Reservations for SC/ST and OBCs • Long institutional memory: the “file system”

20. Politicisation of the bureaucracy during Indira Gandhi’s regime • 85/128 (Transparency International, 2009) • Ranked least efficient bureaucracy in Asia (2009)