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Antony's And Singh's Dilemma

By Major General S.G.Vombatkere

12 February, 2012
Countercurrents.org

Reputation for honesty

There are three kinds of honesty (financial integrity inasmuch as demanding or accepting bribes in cash or kind): “ honest-for-lack-of-opportunity ”, “ honest-for-fear-of-punishment ” and “ honest-by-choice-and-principle ”. It can safely be said that most people fall in category one, many fall in category two and few belong to the third category. Elected or unelected politicians, IAS cadre and lower bureaucrats, and most military officers (all “officials”, hereinafter) cannot belong to category one. That amounts to saying that the bulk of officials are corrupt. There is likely to be little dispute on this point, even if the cynic says that every official is purchasable and the issue is only the amount.

An individual official's honesty can never be definitely known because there is threat of punishment for proven corruption, while it is virtually impossible to prove honesty as a general attribute. Hence, an official's honesty is known only by “spoken reputation”, carefully guarded by every third category person [ Note 1 ].

Present context

The current so-called civil-army stand-off is not so much between the civil and the military in general nor between the defence minister and the army chief in particular. It is actually between the corrupt and the honest, between the corrupting arms lobby and the tiny yet determined force of principled and honest politicians, bureaucrats and military officers. In this situation, both Defence Minister A.K.Antony and Army Chief Gen V.K.Singh, being honest by their own choice and principles, with squeaky clean reputations, are eminent targets for character assassination. Both men are rare exceptions because the opportunities for corruption in their respective positions are known to be enormous, as examples of most of their predecessors have shown. The circumstance that they occupy those closely-related chairs at the same time, when the working and personal relationship between them has a huge bearing on national security is unique.

Honest officials are a threat to the nexus of corrupt officials. But these two men are also a threat to the international arms lobby, which would conveniently work out plans to harm their reputations; certainly in the case of Gen V.K.Singh, the facts appear to substantiate it.

Mr.Antony was known to hold back defence supplies deals because of the corruption involved, or to play safe to protect his reputation for honesty earned over decades. This would doubtless have led to offers from the arms lobby to the political hierarchy enabled by sections of the bureaucracy and a clique of corrupt serving and retired senior military officers, to cajole or coerce him into accepting contracts. It cannot be emphasized sufficiently that this impinges very adversely on national defence and security, and corruption in this area of governance goes beyond dishonesty, to treason.

Defence contracts

Defence procurement and service contracts at the level of the union government are meant to: make up numerical deficiencies in equipment [ Note 2 ] or expendable materials occurring due to operations or training; repair unserviceable hardware to bring the equipment state to required levels; upgrade existing critical military equipment; or purchase new state-of-the-art equipment to maintain military capability parity or achieve superiority vis-a-vis a potential adversary. Obviously the above four need to be done within some planning and budgetary time frame, so that military capability is maintained to meet present and future operational requirements and satisfy strategic imperatives vital to national security.

Especially in view of Gen V.K.Singh's courageous, path-breaking opposition to corruption involving bureaucrats and retired military personnel, it needs to be clarified that the army's indents for replacements for equipment like Tatra vehicles which are in use at present, are cleared and procurement is done by the Ministry of Defence, not the army. That is, procurement processes are bureaucrat-controlled. To be fair, delays in obtaining supplies are sometimes due to bureaucratic red tape and lack of understanding at lower bureaucratic levels, for there are surely honest military officers and bureaucrats. Also, military officers sometimes cause delay due to slipshod statements of case that are rightly questioned by bureaucrats.

The fact of mutually felt general antipathy between bureaucrats and military officers needs to be recognized. However, it is obvious that contracts involving corruption would easily overcome bureaucratic obstacles and delays at any stage by suitable oiling of the procurement machinery. It is marvellous how speed money or kickbacks can make bureaucrats and military officers work as a team! It is this “team” or nexus that has been exposed by Gen V.K.Singh, at considerable risk to his good reputation.

Most defence contracts involve hundreds of crores of rupees especially if the equipment is sourced abroad. India has the dubious distinction of being the world's largest importer of military hardware, and major vendors have converged on Delhi especially during the last decade, vying with each other to sell their wares. In this ambience, decision making by an honest official (we are here considering specifically a Defence Minister or Army Chief) would be influenced by several factors, some of which are discussed below.

Clearing a deal finalized by a predecessor in the knowledge that the equipment selected is not the best of the range of options (because its selection was influenced) or that the contracted cost is excessive, involves risk of harming the official's good reputation, because the fact of his non-involvement in the corrupt deal will only come out after an inquiry, if ever one is held. At the same time, stopping the deal will result in delay in procurement and contractual penalty, thus impinging on both national security and the exchequer.

Permitting the continued supply of sub-standard equipment ordered by a predecessor also involves risk of harming the official's good reputation. Likewise, temporarily stopping deliveries until the acceptance/induction process is cleaned up involves the same risk and result.

The issue is somewhat more complicated if the honest official had been misled into signing for selection of equipment that is not the best. This situation would not arise if a system of audit by some statutory body like CAG prior to decision-making , is instituted.

Inevitably, the above situations result in delay in providing the soldier in the field with adequate quantities of military hardware of the required specifications and quality, with which to train and fight. But, as the corrupt nexus has been doing over the years, providing the soldier with sub-standard hardware that may fail or not perform in a combat situation is more dangerous.

National security dilemma

National security is the integral of many factors, including keeping the military up to the mark with equipment. While the precise state of equipment of India 's military may not be known to another nation, countries like China , Pakistan , USA and Israel would have a very good estimation of it. This is a fundamental intelligence task of every government and every military, and India 's intelligence would likewise have estimates with respect to those countries and others. This may appear to make the result of military conflicts a foregone conclusion. But it is not so, because the elements of military morale, training and command, and national political leadership play a major part in combat outcomes. Since the present discussion focusses on corruption in procurement of military hardware, the otherwise very important issues of morale, training and command may be set aside for a separate discussion.

While we may be proud that we have an honest Defence Minister and an honest Army Chief, it may appear that their honesty cannot do much good for national security if they either block corrupt deals or expose corruption as a means to maintaining their good reputation. A cynic may say that the only reason for that could be that in an ambience of deeply embedded systemic corruption, there is no really effective place for honest officials. Every honest official knows from personal experience that their personal dilemmas are the crosses that they have to bear for being honest. But whatever the negative effect on national security, every right-thinking citizen should be proud of them.

The fact is that national security has been adversely affected because of procurement delays as well as procurement of unsuitable or sub-standard military hardware over the years. While the honesty of the present Defence Minister and Army Chief in handling deals could have caused delay, the procurement of unsuitable or substandard material due to corruption has much more negative impact on national security, quite apart from causing monetary loss that adds to the illegal deposits in offshore banks.

Notwithstanding the Defence Minister saying that “ our operational readiness is much higher than before ”, the only way forward now is to very urgently clean up the defence procurement system including instituting pre-decision audit, and take action for high treason against members of the corrupt nexus for working against national security.

Note 1 . As Shakespeare's Iago says in “Othello”, “ Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, // Is the immediate jewel of their souls. // Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; // 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; // But he that filches from me my good name // Robs me of that which not enriches him, // And makes me poor indeed.

Note 2 . Here, “equipment” includes weapons, weapon systems, weapon platforms, and all other military stores including ammunition, combat gear, clothing and instruments.

S.G.Vombatkere retired as major general after 35 years in the Indian military, from the post of Additional DG in charge of Discipline & Vigilance in Army HQ. [email protected]

 

 

 




 


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