With Rawat as CDS, defence ministry is finally in the hands of the military

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is in huge transformation. As in many countries, it is now going to be manned mostly by the top military brass with civil servants – unprecedentedly – having to take orders from the Generals.

With Gen. Bipin Rawat as the new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), a recent MoD order has virtually shifted the command structure, which has functioned in the last seven decades as dominated by the civil bureaucracy, in favour of the military.

In the crucial order issued on January 9, 2020, titled ‘Allocation of Work and Staff between Department of Defence and newly-created Department of Military Affairs’, the new rules of business have been well and truly laid down.

With the decision to amend the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961, to create a new Department of Military Affairs (DMA), the allocation of subjects between the Department of Defence (DoD) and DMA has been demarcated. It is not too difficult to see who is in the pole position.

As per the order, “ two posts of Joint Secretary, 13 posts of DS/Director, 25 posts of Under Secretary and 22 section officers along with supporting staff stand transferred to the DMA.”

Other than procurement, the DMA, currently headed by Gen. Rawat, is going to be in charge of the whole ministry, even giving the political leadership of the ministry a somewhat inconvenient nudge.

The DMA’s powers are overweening, leaving very little in the hands the civil bureaucracy and even the politicians. This mammoth 54-point shift from the Department of Defence to the DMA is all pervasive. It takes into its sweep:

*** Promotion to the acting rank of Brigadier and above and posting of officers of the rank of Major General and above.

*** Statutory complaints - policy of all ranks and individual cases of army officers on disciplinary matters.

*** Court martial and disciplinary cases for all army officers/personnel.

*** Human rights violation cases referred by NHRC pertaining to discipline, recruitment, terms and conditions of service and manpower planning in the army.

***Amendment to defence services regulations in provisions relating to recruitment, terms and conditions of service, discipline and manpower planning in the army.

***Prisoners of war/Geneva Convention of 1949, detention in military custody - individual cases.

*** Policy on grant of honorary rank/commission to JCOs and NCOs.

*** Pre-independence awards.

*** Individual cases from infantry pertaining to terms and conditions of personnel.

*** All establishment and administrative matters pertaining to AG's branch i.e. establishment and administrative matters of AG's branch.

**Policy on extension of tenure.

***Recovery of government dues from army personnel.

***Individual cases of furlough, parole and pre-mature release of army prisoners.

***Policy on leave encashment of army personnel.

The substantial powers that lie with the once-powerful DoD are arms acquisitions. The order notes that “the secretariat for Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) presently under the Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Policy Planning and Force Development) - DCIDS (PP&FD) vertical will be shifted to the DG Acquisition Wing of DOD”.

Former Chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC), Gen. Satish Dua (retd), believes that when a 70-year-old system is changed, then some resentment is natural. “But the appointment is on lines with what has happened in other democratic countries and was overdue in India,” he points out.

Dua, also a former Corp Commander in Srinagar, however, believes that the ministry still has a lot on its hands, including policy planning and procurement so it would be incorrect to state that Gen. Rawat is the boss of the MoD. For instance, the order makes it clear that any matter, which has an import on the defence policy, has to be dealt by the DOD.

A senior bureaucrat, who has served in the MoD, speaking on conditions of anonymity, however, believes this is a deliberate attempt to downgrade civil servants in the ministry and wondered what the course of action would be once another government comes to office.

To be sure, the CDS has been in the recommendation stage of several committees since as early as the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war. The most notable among them were the LK Advani-led Group of Ministers (GoM) after the Kargil war and the Naresh Chandra Task Force (NCTF) of 2012.

Experts have long pointed out that all major militaries in the world have integrated their armed forces and even the smaller ones have higher defence organisations to include CDS or an equivalent. India is the only major military power, which until its announcement in December 2019, had neither. India has had to ‘make do’ with a collegiate system of Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), with the senior-most as a rotational head, however, short his stint may be. This, experts like Dua point out, is ill suited to the security needs of India, which has two active borders and two nuclear-capable countries.

The CDS will be like a single-window system for the leadership, instead of the service chiefs either carrying their differences to the high table or rendering weak advice based on the least common denominator, much like a common minimum programme of political alliances. In time, it is expected to synergise all aspects between the army, navy and the air force.