Away from the glare

Seventy six members of Indias paramilitary forces were killed on Tuesday,in an ambush by a well-armed,well-organised adversary seeking to overthrow the Indian state. That is the very definition of an internal security crisis,the moment at which one would expect that the entire security establishment would retreat within itself,asking what it can do to help,examining and removing constraints on state action,helping to craft a suitably comprehensive response to an attack of unprecedented audacity and effectiveness. In any such effort,the leaders of our armed forces would naturally play a leading role,as is expected of senior officers with their expertise and ability. Yet,barely 48 hours after the ambush,the new head of the air force,Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik,said he was not in favour of deploying the IAF in situations like the Naxal problem; and Indias new army chief,General V.K. Singh,said that the CRPF had deficiencies in training and other things,and that the counter-insurgency performance of the army was that much better.

These may be valid points. That is not the issue. The issue is this: they were made in full public glare. This raises the larger question: why is it that leaders of Indias forces feel the need to discuss tactics and training in public in the manner that General Singh did particularly at a time of such crisis? A political consensus on a muscular counter to the Maoists has finally,thankfully,emerged. This is hardly the time that anyone would expect diverse,half-considered,views to be expressed in public by senior members of the uniformed services,as well as of the civil services by the head of the air force,by the home secretary,by the army chief. This is the time to hunker down,to throw solutions back and forth,to talk to each other rather than at each other. Public musing is not an option.

That such public interventions have become more and more frequent is certainly a major concern; it is a basic principle that arguments that appear to speak for the military or the paramilitary,if they must be public,should be made and refuted from within the political leadership. Certainly,the army chief and the director general of the CRPF should not wind up making or debunking criticisms in public. The problem,of course,is that the political leadership has for some time now been unable to provide the forces with sufficient cover and leadership. This latest airing out of something best discussed and sorted out between themselves only buttresses that point.