Govt must constitute a parliamentary committee with military advisers to oversee transformational reforms
Recently, the experts have called upon the government to constitute a parliamentary committee with military advisers to oversee transformational reforms in Indian Defence System.
- In 2020, the Government of India has created two entities namely Department of Military Affairs (DMA) and a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) after decades of procrastination by successive governments.
- The management of the armed forces, so far assigned to the civilian Defence Secretary, was brought under a military officer, the CDS.
- The designation of CDS as Secretary DMA made him the first military officer to be recognised as a functionary of the Government of India (GoI) by its Allocation of Business Rules.
Need for Military Reforms
- South Asia being second most unstable region: Among the world’s major democracies, India faces the most complex threats and challenges spanning the full spectrum of conflict from nuclear to sub-conventional.
- Retrospective Indian Defence Planning: The Indian defence planning has been retrospective instead of proactive, marked by knee-jerk reactions to emerging situations and haphazard single-service growth.
- Transforming Military Force to Military Power: The Ministry of Defence and the armed forces need to review and rebalance force structures to optimise combat power and synergize all assets to transform the armed forces from a ‘military force to a military power’ capable of securing the nation and its people against the full spectrum of conflict.
- Clear policy-driven directives: The Indian military requires clear policy-driven directives that meet India’s national security needs and challenges.
- India’s two front challenges: The Sino-Pakistan relationships have strengthened and there is a great deal of alignment in their strategic thinking.
Concerns associated with Military Reforms
- Diluted role played by Parliament: In India, the executive has completely diluted the role of Parliament with respect to national security.
- There is little or no debate on national security both due to procedures and lack of knowledge/interest on the part of parliamentarians.
- The members of the PSCOD are randomly nominated by the speaker and most have little or no domain knowledge.
- India is managing an anomalous territorial challenge exigency: The eastern Ladakh sector saw a stand-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Pangong Tso sector.
- The media reports indicate that stones were used and it is encouraging that no ordnance was exchanged, as has been the pattern for well over three decades.
- Inadequacy of resources: The lack of funds is compounded by bureaucratic prevarication, risk averseness, frequent changes in qualitative requirements by the Army, and occasional corruption charges, which result in blacklisting of vendors in an unplanned manner.
- Irregular warfare: Conflict against a State by employing trained combatants who are not regular military soldiers.
Role of Parliamentary Committee on Military Reforms
- Inter-ministerial and Inter-departmental Coordination: The objective of the committee is to suggest institutional measures that would lead to greater coordination across ministries, departments and agencies in order to obtain optimal outcomes in the task of defending the nation and its interests.
- Establishment of a National Security Council (NSC): The membership of NSC should go beyond those charged with defence forces and includes those responsible for economic development, food security, energy security, internal security and other key sectors as well.
- Restructuring of Ministry of Defence: The MoD should be allowed to have officers posted to it without waiting for comprehensive civil service reforms.
- It should be able to hold them for longer and more frequent tenures, and also ensure compulsory participation in courses run by military training institutes.
- Better equip military officers to work: It would help in both, widening perspectives and better equipping military officers both to handle the MoD, as well as increasing their employment prospects post-retirement which are otherwise constrained for no fault of theirs.
- Military aid to civil authority: is a complex and contentious issue and rather than suggest how to proceed with the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, important as it is, the study will suggest how to improve Army-Civil Administration-CAPF interactions.
- PSCOD must become a vehicle for reform: In most developed nations, the defence committee of the parliament/senate is the main driver for national security reforms.
- The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence (PSCOD) oversees thefunctioning of the Ministry of Defence to ensure accountability of the executive to the legislature with respect to national security.
- The charter and the functioning of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence must be reviewed and the best Members of Parliament must be part of it.
Road Ahead
- With the nation facing a “real and present” military threat from two adversaries, it is incumbent upon the government to find the means to bolster national security.
- India’s ambition of emerging as a leading power would require the country to substantially overhaul its governance systems and structures, and generate long-term economic growth similar to China’s developmental model.
- India needs to accept that there are no free lunches and that it cannot achieve the position of power it aspires to simply by riding on the shoulders of America.
- New Delhi would do well to improve relations with its neighbours so as not to be caught in an unfriendly neighbourhood given how Beijing and Islamabad will attempt to contain and constrain India in the region.
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