by Ahmed Ali 10 April 2029
On 15 August 2019, Prime Minister Modi created a new slot of ‘Chief of Defence Staff’ CDS and appointed General Bipin Rawat as the first-ever CDS of the Indian Armed Forces. Politicization against this slot started in the Indian military started. It is the incumbent government that created conditions for the negative political reorientation of all three services of the Indian military it all began when BJP Government started politicizing seniority appointments When Gen Bipin Rawat was appointed India’s first CDS he was already beholden to the BJP government for superseding two senior Generals in making him COAS. In 2019, setting aside seniority principle Modi had named Vice Admiral Karambir Singh as the next Chief of Naval Staff prompting Vice Admiral Bimal Verma the officer who had been superseded to move the Armed Forces Tribunal. BJP government for the first time started misuse of Senior and Junior Ranks’ Photographs. For the first time in elections, pictures of Director General Military Operations, and the strapping of Sikh Lt Gen Ranbir Singh were emblazoned on banners alongside pictures of Modi & Amit Shah during UP elections in violation of Election Commission SOPs.
Photographs of security forces personnel killed in the February 14 suicide bombing in Pulwama were displayed in the background when Modi delivered a few election speeches. A few days before confirmed by that time J&K governor Satya Pal Malik in an interview with “the wire” Malik revealed that the attack on the Central Reserve Police Force convoy in Pulwama was a result of “incompetence” and “laparvahi” by the Indian system and specifically the CRPF and the home ministry. At the time, Rajnath Singh was the home minister. Malik gave extensive details of how the CRPF had asked for aircraft to transport its jawans but was refused by the Union home ministry. He also spoke of how sanitization of the route was not done effectively. More importantly, he said all of these lapses were raised by him directly when Modi called him from outside Corbett Park shortly after the Pulwama attack. He said the prime minister told him to keep quiet about this and not tell anyone. Separately, Malik said that NSA Ajit Doval also told him to keep quiet and not talk about it. This interview raised suspicion that was it an engineered attack (false flag) on the paramilitary force at Pulwama (Feb 2019) in J&K, intending to blame Pakistan first and go vindictive. Thus dropping the pay-load by IAF on a barren mountain peak at Balakot inside Pakistan was politicized for electoral gains (election 2019)
Though Pakistan Air Force PAF crushed that so-called Indian gain by bringing down two Indian Air Force IAF fighter aircraft including one pilot captured and later handed over to India via the Wagah border. Three years later, Balakot air strikes helped BJP’s 303-seat victory in general elections. Balakot and the politics that engulfed it became folklore. The soldier was inveigled into domestic politics. A sequel to a false flag attack (Sep 2016) on the Indian army Brigade HQ at Uri so-called surgical strike (which never took place) across LOC in September 2016 was hyped by Modi to shore up an electoral edge for BJP in UP Assembly elections held months later.
Modi’s party colleagues referred to Army & Air Force as “Modi ki Sena (Modi’s Army)” or “Modi ki vayu Sena (Modi’s Air Force)” during election campaigns. The entrapment of the military and veterans began with an imperfect One Rank, One Pension which is locked in a court. Soldiers started tying Rakhis & Diwali sweets are being distributed among the frontline soldiers. Troops reciprocated by carrying yoga mats, constructing over-bridges & clearing garbage from mountains, thereby enabling officers to ingratiate themselves with the political class. At Artillery Regimental Centre in Deolali, arti has been recited (for the first time) on parade with soldiers clapping. Enshrined on a prominent boulder on the parade ground was the symbol Om. In regimental centers, the parade would end with the singing of the regimental anthem but now the ceremony ends with ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. As per details, only 2% of Muslims serve in the armed forces against their population of 14% with promotions frozen till Colonel. The intelligence community has barely any Muslim representation in a country that portrays itself to be the epitome of secularism
Senior Ranks Activities and Involvement in Politics General (R) Bipin Rawat was compliant with the government agenda and remained associated with some events that were clearly political. He even skipped a Navy Day event for such activities. The political ‘tamasha’ at the inauguration of Purvanchal Expressway (in UP) was attended by all three services chiefs revealing the height of brazenness. On 17 Sep 2021, Corps Commander 15 Corps, responsible for operations in the Kashmir Valley, under its Twitter handle “Chinar Corps” tweeted to felicitate Modi on his 71st birthday. The message with three images of Modi in military combat dress showed servility. Tweet was quickly deleted but the screenshot had dented the apolitical status Indian army. Navy & Air Force Chiefs wrote letters to President & PM for maintaining communal harmony in the military following hate speeches delivered at Dharam Sansad (religious assembly) held at Haridwar in Uttrakhand. Writing of letter was unprecedented
In May 2019, the Leh district election officer complained against a Commanding Officer for being partisan in voting as he was observed persuading armed forces personnel for voting certain candidate. The 60-year-old autonomous Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses was prefixed with the name of former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and for some time, carried Modi’s pictures on flyers. The scams of the Rafael deal and the military housing project also manifested that the institutionalized corruption remains a legacy of the Indian armed forces.