Military Digest | Seniority vs merit in Army promotions: How Nehru’s Govt in newly Independent India tackled this challenge

Seniority cannot be sole criterion: Nehru

In a letter written to the then Defence Minister Baldev Singh in May 1950, the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru referred to the case of the proposed promotion of an Army officer who the Selection Board had recommended but, because of various reasons which the defence minister brought out to Nehru, had not been approved of by him.

“This has led me to think of the wider and general problem of promotion in our Defence Services. Indeed it applies not only to promotion but to appointments and selections throughout. The more I think of it, the more I feel that in the higher ranks seniority should be only one of the minor reasons for promotion,” wrote Nehru.

According to him, seniority means or should mean experience which is naturally valuable. “But there are other qualities necessary today in our officers, which are of far greater importance than seniority. At any time these qualities of intelligence, initiative, capacity to absorb new ideas, leadership and a certain technical understanding of modern warfare are important,” he said.

According to Nehru, in the rapidly changing circumstances of the day, insofar as the art of warfare is concerned, it becomes still more necessary that officers in senior commands should fit in with new ideas and should not be merely attached to the old routines and ruts.

The PM emphasised that while routine is essential, as discipline is in any force, too much routine and too little of other qualities dull the mind and lessen its adaptability to changing conditions.

What Nehru wrote in 1950 is also very pertinent today, when warfare is evolving rapidly. “The world has now definitely taken to what is called scientific warfare. Old style methods are out of date against any modern enemy. Scientific warfare involves an entirely different and a more technical approach to the problems than the old style of warfare,” he wrote.

“It is well known that almost every weapon that was used in the last War is out of date, and a new war on a major scale will be fought by entirely new weapons. It will be far more than ever that of scientists’ and technicians’ war,” added Nehru.

According to him, while it cannot be expected that all military officers will be scientists and technicians, we should expect them to have a certain scientific and technical approach to problems and a capacity to understand the new ideas in warfare accepted by the leading countries today.

“This line of thought leads one to the conclusion that people, who are too wedded to old-style methods, may find it rather difficult to adapt themselves to conditions. Thus seniority, though it brings experience, may not always bring experience of the right type and its value is lessened. I realise that it is not always easy to ignore seniority and this may even lead to possible nepotism.”

“But the fact remains that if we intend to have a really modern army, it must be thought out in modern terms and our officers must clearly understand this. Those who are too much wedded to old ways may, therefore, not be suitable for high and responsible posts. These facts should be borne in mind in the selection and promotion of officers,” wrote Nehru to Baldev Singh.

Selecting officer candidates

Another important issue highlighted by Nehru was the manner in which young candidates were selected for commission in the defence services. Here again, we can see interesting parallels with what India is experiencing today, even though what Nehru highlighted was also applicable more than seven decades ago.

“I am told that a very large number of applicants are rejected after some kind of test or examination and then it is said that a sufficient number of people are not coming forward for the Army or the Navy or the Air Force. As an inducement, more pay and amenities are suggested.”

“Apart from the fact that our country just cannot afford to increase salaries and allowances of the Defence Forces, I think that our manner of approach to this problem is worth reconsideration. I cannot imagine that we do not have good material. Possibly one reason why many boys are not selected is their inadequate knowledge of English or their ignorance of what might be called social behaviour according to old practice,” he said.

Nehru said that it must be remembered that, in schools, colleges, and universities, teaching was increasingly taking place in Indian languages and less and less in English.

“It is inevitable that in future the general knowledge of English will not be so good as today. If we make that as a test, boys will fail. In regard to social behaviour also, the average boy who comes from a middle-class family today, except a small group coming from more or less anglicised families, is unused to what the army expects. There will be an increasing tendency for our patterns of social behaviour to change, as they are changing today. To think therefore in terms of the old patterns and expect young boys to come up to those standards is to ignore realities,” he said.

Nehru stressed the need to develop new methods of selection that should not take into account knowledge of English or social behaviour. In his opinion, the intake of officer cadets in the country in the years before Independence was mainly from so-called elite families and there was a need now to cater to the aspirations of all strata of society, especially those who are not necessarily educated in English. This, too, has resonance in today’s day and age because of the changing aspirations of the youth.