Will the next Army chief be appointed by quotas?

[bhramos]

A recent letter, boldly written by a serving lieutenant colonel to the army chief, General V K Singh says: "PROFESSIONAL DISCRIMINATION is upgrading (sic) into SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION. The formidable INDIAN ARMY is developing cracks. What the enemy would have loved to foster, is happening on its own."

Says a senior officer of the mechanised forces who was recently promoted, but sees equally competent compatriots being overtaken by lesser officers: "The Indian army has been effectively Mandalised. The traditional meritocracy of senior rank has given way to a shoddy system of quotas that is placing unconfident and incompetent officers to command troops in battle."

People sometimes wonder what drives soldiers in the face of death. The answer, surprisingly, is not patriotism, religion, discipline, bloodlust, or a quest for glory. Instead, most soldiers affirm that a shared brotherhood with their comrades is what drives them through mortal danger.

The ones who die do so in the belief that death is better than besmirching the legacy of their unit or sub-unit. "Soldiers live and die for the name of their unit alone," says Brigadier Virendar Singh who led the assault on the 21,000-feet-high Bana Post above the Siachen Glacier in 1987, one of India's most stirring military exploits.

Will the next Army chief be appointed by quotas? - Rediff.com News

 

[W.G.Ewald]

"The Indian army has been effectively Mandalised. The traditional meritocracy of senior rank has given way to a shoddy system of quotas that is placing unconfident and incompetent officers to command troops in battle."

As a non-Indian I had to do a little research.

Mandal Commission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Mandal Commission was established in India in 1979 by the Janata Party government under Prime Minister Morarji Desai with a mandate to "identify the socially or educationally backward."[1] It was headed by Indian parliamentarian Bindheshwari Prasad Mandal to consider the question of seat reservations and quotas for people to redress caste discrimination, and used eleven social, economic, and educational indicators to determine backwardness. In 1980, the commission's report affirmed the affirmative action practice under Indian law whereby members of lower castes (known as Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Scheduled Castes and Tribes) were given exclusive access to a certain portion of government jobs and slots in public universities, and recommended changes to these quotas, increasing them by 27% to 49.5%.[1] In a historical context, the Mandal Commission was one of the many aspects of the social justice movement in post-Independence India. Mobilization on caste lines had followed the political empowerment of ordinary citizens by the constitution of free India that allowed common people to politically assert themselves through the right to vote.

 

[arya]

my god what you will do if under operation you know that the doctor is just because or quotas

well why not if every thing is given to our leaders then they can sell every single Indian

yes they can

 

[Singh]

Ray sir can confirm this I think,

Army chiefs from infantry have already gotten a higher preference due to Gen Malik's policy change ?

 

[Bhadra]

What is mandalisation ? Can any one ask the author of that crap piece?

 

[Bhadra]

my god what you will do if under operation you know that the doctor is just because or quotas

well why not if every thing is given to our leaders then they can sell every single Indian

yes they can

What will the country do if in a war like in 1962, when an officer of supply called Gen Kaul was given command of Tezpur Corps by Nehru that saw the complete debacle ?? Surgical operation by meritorious??

 

[bhramos]

Will the next Army chief be appointed by quotas? | My India My News
Will the next Army chief be appointed by quotas? - Rediff.com News – Sulekha News
Will the next Army chief be appointed by quotas? - One News Page [India]

but this is Ajay Shukla post.....

 

[Bhadra]

Will the next Army chief be appointed by quotas? | My India My News
Will the next Army chief be appointed by quotas? - Rediff.com News – Sulekha News
Will the next Army chief be appointed by quotas? - One News Page [India]

but this is Ajay Shukla post.....

and who is Ajay Shukla ?? Crap remains Crap !!

 

[W.G.Ewald]

What is mandalisation ? Can any one ask the author of that crap piece?

The reference is to the Mandal Commission. It must have resulted in something like affirmative action in the US.

Affirmative action - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin"[1] into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.

 

[Ray]

This part is true and a bone of contention

Over the preceding decade, a string of army chiefs from two arms -- the infantry and the artillery -- have fiddled with promotion policies to boost the career prospects of officers from their arms. But every winner also creates a loser in the zero-sum contest to fill a very limited number of promotion vacancies.

It started with Gen Rodrigues, to include the Staff and Command division.

Pro-rata began in 2002 under an artillery chief, General S Padmanabhan, and was consolidated by his successors: General N C Vij (infantry), General J J Singh (infantry) and General Deepak Kapoor (artillery). In 2009, when General Kapoor was the army chief, this institutionally-debilitating move was translated into formal policy.

How far is this correct I cannot say:

While Singh has been a relatively fair chief, he has posted officers from the regiment to practically every crucial appointment: the deputy chief of army staff, the director general of military operations, the adjutant general (responsible for discipline and manpower planning), the military secretary who posts and promotes officers, and the additional director general of administration and coordination.

I think AK Chaudhury of my Regt is the DGMO and Gen Nehra of Madras Regt was supposed to have taken over as AG.

Though an internal army study has found that non-infantry officers perform as gallantly as infantry officers in RR/AR, exclusionary conditions were framed to make it almost impossible for armoured corps or mechanised infantry officers to command these units. With this one step, the infantry's colonel vacancies went up from 350 to 460, a jump of almost 30 per cent.

Nobody wants to join the Infantry since it is a hard slog and every alternate tenure (every two years back to the field after a peace tenure where one gets family accommodation after a wait of one year) an infantry officer has to be up in the front or CI. To see that people join infantry (the cutting edge of the army), after much debate, this was done. Other Arms and Services don't go through every two years facing possible death or family disturbances and dislocation.

The infantry, unsurprisingly, got the shortest command tenure of just two-and-a-half years. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that with 460 colonels needed every two-and-a-half years, the infantry must promote some 184 colonels every year.

It has the largest number of officers. If the tenure is made longer, promotions will be slow and many will get wasted out as Lt Col and there will be discontent and none would like to join infantry.

"We would not go to war as Arms/Supporting arms... but as Indian army. 'The command based model' expect us (sic) to be fragmented in peace and united in war," says the lieutenant colonel's letter to General Singh.

One can recall Lt Gen BM Kaul (ASC)'s contribution as a Commanding General.

What one should not forget it is the environment that hones the combat leadership skills. Combat leadership is not merely theoretical, much of it is learnt from the experience gathered in the environment. A person from the Services who has dealing with rations or blanket issue or repairing vehicle would hardly be the ideal to lead troops in battle.

I fail to understand the officers grouse. While Armoured Corps, Artillery, Engineer officers can command Infantry Brigades, Infantry officers are not allowed to command Armoured Formations, Artillery Formation or Engineer formations. (Formation is Brigade and above). Now, would that not be discrimination too?

The reason is simple, Infantry officers cannot command non Infantry formations because they are not conversant in detail the environment that galvanises such non Infantry formations. Even though, at formation level, it does not matter!

Says a young infantry lieutenant colonel: "Promotion prospects are 50 per cent higher in the infantry; so why should anyone join the mechanised infantry?"

That is for the sake of talking.

Most from IMA volunteer for the Mechanised Infantry and the Armoured Corps since it has the prestige of being in a Combat Arm as also it ensures that the travails and tribulation of the Infantry is avoided like High Altitude, or even walking endless with a heavy load on the back in long exercises!

n contrast to these promotion delays, Navy and Air Force promotion boards, which adhere to fair and well-documented rules, are normally cleared by the ministry within 15 to 20 days.

Ask Admiral Bhagawat!

General Singh blames the current delay on "letters, comments and private confabulations" between lobbyists and the ministry.

Speaks for itself!

 

[Ray]

And we all know Ajai Shukla!

The one who condemned Arjun and then backflipped and found it a 22nd Century wonder!

 

[Ray]

General N C Vij (infantry), General J J Singh (infantry) and General Deepak Kapoor (artillery

They were not exactly paragons of virtue or endowed with vision!

 

[Ray]

Let us understand as to why command was upgraded to the rank of Colonel?

The Lt Cols were doing well as it is.

It is because the majority of the Army was being wasted out, because of lack of vacancies, at the rank of a Major.

It was a disincentive.

By making Lt Col the rank where people are retired even though competent but there being no vacancy, their pensions got better.

Infantry having a huge number of officers now a days, may have a greater number of vacancies. If it was not there, who would join the infantry and even if he did, how long would he take the rigours and not apply for premature?

 

[Ray]

The reference is to the Mandal Commission. It must have resulted in something like affirmative action in the US.

Affirmative action - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes.

He is using the word to illustrate the issue in context of things being based on quotas.

 

[Ray]

Says a senior officer of the mechanised forces who was recently promoted, but sees equally competent compatriots being overtaken by lesser officers

It is because the ACR system can never be objective. It is subjective.

The only competitive exam in the Army is the Defence Services Staff College Entrance Examination.

And every other fancy course thereafter is on the merits as decided by the ACR.

Rank does not always indicate competence and expertise.

Capt Amrinder Singh's book Lest We Forget shows that while Ravi Eipe of 2 RAJPUT scooted out of Thagla Ridge in 1962, when his unit perished or were taken PsW, he rose to be GOC in C Eastern Command!