Recovering from Bhagwat News Archive News

A distressing feature of the petition is that highly sensitive documents/statements pertaining to performance of different types of equip...

Written by Manvendra Singh

April 6, 1999 12:00 AM IST

6 min read

A distressing feature of the petition is that highly sensitive documents/statements pertaining to performance of different types of equipment in the Navy have also been included" (28/9/90). "Bhagwat is a disgruntled officer who is also mentally unbalanced. He is schizophrenic and needs psychiatric help" (30/10/90). "The FOC-in-C Western Naval Command has further informed me that Rear Admiral V Bhagwat has been in the habit of unauthorisedly obtaining and making photocopies of classified official documents for personal use…I am, therefore, of the opinion that the only course which is expedient, speedy and commensurate with the gravity of the misdemeanour of the Flag Officer is to invoke the pleasure doctrine’ contained in Article 310 of the Constitution and Section 15 (I) of the Navy Act, 1957. I, therefore, recommend that the services of Rear Admiral V Bhagwat be immediately terminated under this clause". This is also a 1990 quote attributable to the then Chief of Naval Staff, responding to the infamouspetition filed by Bhagwat on September 12, 1990. In between is an observation by the then chief of the Western Naval Command. That the pleasure doctrine’ was finally exercised after eight years is the gist of much political football in the country today. But in between that recommendation and the final termination of Bhagwat from service in end 1998 is a sordid tale, as much of political manipulation and manoeuvring as it is of the degeneration of service ethos and character. For this writer to swing from batting on the side of Bhagwat to now accepting the saneness of his dismissal is an achievement for which the former Admiral must take full credit. His actions before the dismissal, coupled with the government’s mishandling during the sorry episode have now been compounded by the extremely unofficer-like behaviour of the former Admiral. An affidavit has been submitted, under oath, which is shoddy and full of errors. And his attack on Gen V.P. Malik remains unabated and grossly inaccurate in chronology andfact. But when the mind is full of conspiracies there is little room for reason and reflection. What the affidavit will achieve, along with the debate in Parliament that is to follow, is to open the cupboards on service matters for the world to see that the spit and polish of January 26 has a seamier side to it. So how do the armed forces recover from this episode?

That things are not hunky-dory in the service is already the stuff of much speculation in the transit camps and the langars. Those who think that the soldiers remain unaware of what their officers are up to live in a make-believe world. But they will soldier on, under those very officers, remaining true to their salt. And that is only because in the vast expanse of Bharat soldiering is still regarded as a matter of honour, and for the sanctity of the uniform it is still worth dying. This is a peculiarity, of great discipline in a country of unimaginable anarchy. Where loyalty to the honour of the uniform and the nation will find Kumaonisclimbing glacial heights without oxygen or the right equipment, and where some will continue to genuflect before the white skin. But this happens only in India. Therefore, in order to get the armed forces out of the quagmire that they have been pushed into by the former Admiral’s sustained effort at projecting the self before the service, certain hard decisions will have to be taken. The motive then must be to prevent, as much the decision of December 30 as to disallow officers from creating conditions that lead to such situations. "It is particularly essential that this case also results in some reforms in the manner in which serving officers can approach the courts and in the process jeopardise national security by disclosing sensitive information".

Prophetic words these, and again from 1990. Which only brings us back to the malaise in the armed forces, and its prevention. As a first step, it is in the interests of the three services that some measures be taken to prevent the culture of litigation fromspreading. The armed forces personnel have in any case forfeited certain fundamental rights, so it would only help the services if there be no sanction to litigate for promotion. This country is unique in allowing its soldiers to take that route to higher rank. However undemocratic as it may sound, but this loophole has to be plugged, with new or amended legislation if need be. What this will do is to sustain the sanctity of the promotion boards at the service headquarters. Currently, and as the above mentioned quotes amply demonstrate, they can be mocked by the legal and political connections of the officers. The first Army officer to step into combat in Jaffna against the LTTE, and the first to be injured, is today a superseded man. Unhappy, but with his honour intact and an impeccable spoken reputation. Which then takes us back to an oft-repeated, in-house assessment of an officer, his spoken reputation. While this honourable Army officer did not petition the service headquarter or the courts, those thathave continue to progress in their careers.

Can this anomaly be allowed to be continued? It cannot if the interests of the services and the security of the nation is uppermost in the minds of the people’s representatives. If national security is indeed the motivating factor in calling for a debate on the dismissal of Bhagwat, then members who claim to be honourable must be prepared for the display of the dirtier side of the services. Skeletons will appear whose DNA does not match that of today, and the debate will then be, to use another of those incomparable American phrases, like pissing in the wind’.

Tags: