What does it say in your language - if it ain't broken, don't fix it.
Batman or Sahayak system or club for senior officers work well enough that we have managed to come at top at every conflict we have been in since 1947, except 1962 which was screw up by the political leadership. Our army fought wars where fields were pretty much even and sometimes tilted against our boys, still they won.
So, believe what you want to. Our officer corps are competent bunch and the existing system makes them so. So there is no need to change the existing system.
Also, Sahayaks assist the officers in daily chores. Indian troops are not JCO or NCO run troops, but officer run troops. Officers have more work to do in an unit than their western counter parts. So, I don't find why should anyone have any problem with Batman system so long it is not affecting unit function adversely?
I generally do not comment on these threads. But this one needs a bit of context.
Dont fix what aint broken. The French army of 1940 would beg very very hard to disagree. So would the Imperial Japanese in 1942. And the Chinese in 1979. Everything works until it doesn't. You don't wait around waiting for the army to get destroyed as an institution before fixing it.
Sahayak system is an enslavement, nothing less and most certainly nothing more. A system designed for a colonial power, for the comfort of colonial officers at the expense of their Indian troops, has no place in a country that calls itself or even pretends to be a democracy. It is telling that the very entity basis which this system is styled, i.e. the British Army, did away with the system a long time back. It is and forever will be a disgrace to the army and to the country.
Sahayak system and the overall separation between officers and non-officers in Indian army is antediluvian in concept and construct. It was feasible when officers and non-officers came from two different societies/classes with very limited intermixing. Now officers and non-officers right down to the lowest ranks come from the same society, and nobody will put up with the systematic enslavement that sahayak system entails.
The officers' treatment of NCOs and non-officer ranks has already created major issues at company and battalion level in the recent past. Most people here forget the rebellion that broke out in entire battalions. Indians are slowly, but finally coming out of their acceptance of servitude. And as this grows, the outdated ideas and systems in Indian army will get stretched either to breaking point, or to course correction.
It is time for Indian army officers to learn that they are probably first among equals, not superiors humans. They command soldiers, not own slaves. Everything about the dynamics between officers and non-officers needs to change. Everything except the need for emotional separation between juniors and seniors and the requirement for absolute equality of juniors in the eyes of seniors.
Definitely not for this thread.
As for the competence of our senior staff, the Kargil war committee begs to disagree. Less said about the senior staff the better.
Note: A lot of officers, especially officers from the last two generations, treat their sahayaks as aides and not as sahayaks, and are dismayed by this system and horrified by how certain officers treat their sahayaks. However with the army the accolades and blame goes to the entire institution. So it should.
