Admiral Karambir Singh, who assumed command as Chief ofNaval Staff (CNS) last month-end, has put out “elaborate directives aimed atcurbing subservient behaviour, restricting certain ceremonial practices andensuring equality among the ranks.” Thedirectives vary from the standard of cutlery and the quality of food based onrank to practices that are not official protocol but have acquired the statusof protocol – like wives of officers standing up when seniors arrive at afunction. All of the practices sought to be stopped serve to reinforceseparation of rank and servitude to the superior in various activities,functions and day-to-day activities of the Indian Navy. The significance ofthese changes cannot be overstated. That they have come in barely a week afterAdmiral Singh took over as CNS signals that the Navy Chief comes in from aclear point of view that abhors undue and unnecessary ceremony and servilityassociated with hierarchy. His position deserves to be supported and the CNSmust be congratulated for launching his term with such a momentousannouncement.
Undueobsequiousnesscoupled with undue ceremony (not to speakof exploitation of juniors) is certainly seen a lot in the defence services butis by no means limited to the services. It remains the curse that is allprevalent in the deep recesses of our oversized bureaucracy and it hurts inways that are not always seen or fully understood. Shorn of all the reasoningthat is offered in its support – from the functional to the more fancy and exotic– the system is an insult to the people of India, to our democratic traditionsand is a living example of how we as a nation have been unable to fully breakaway from the chains imposed on us by the British. Very few among the rank and file have been ableto take a stand against these entrenched practices and interests. The standardpractice is to protect and preserve privileges, however obscene they are.
Of course, change is not easy and issues are complex,particularly in the defence services, as was seen recently in the way questionswere raised on the “sahayak” system in the Indian army which pairs an officerwith a “buddy” who helps the senior with his everyday duties, including dutieslike waking up the officer in time for PT, walking the dogs etc. – in short, ade facto personal attendant. The fact that a soldier raised a stink on socialmedia by pointing out that he was made to polish shoes, and the fact that thesystem in essence continues, tells us about what this means to the army andthat fixing this obvious malady is not as easy as it might look from theoutside. In such a system, senior voices are important, all attempts at changeneed support and voices form outside the system must equally be encouraged toprobe, ask and debate. In that sense, the voice of the new CNS marks animportant milestone in the journey to greater professionalism in the services.
Consider some other examples of how hierarchy is enforcedand exploited in the Indian system in general, not necessarily in the defenceservices. A Director General of Police and Additional Director General ofPolice get as many as six orderlies each. The Bombay Police Manual of 1959describes the number of orderlies “for personal attendance on officers of thepolice department” — policemen who are reduced to servants. Superintendents ofPolice are allotted three orderlies; an Inspector General of Police is allottedfour. In the Reserve Bank of India, senior officers are allotted personalattendants called ‘jamadars’. They wear ceremonial uniform and are expected tohold the door, carry the bag and generally attend to the personal needs of theofficer. The senior-most ‘jamadar’ is allotted to the Governor. Not even thevery dynamic Raghuram Rajan, who has presumably grown-up seeing the use of orderliessince his father was a senior IPS officer, deemed it fit to scrap this falsesense of ceremony and utterly wasteful and ugly misuse of people. In therailways, another system that is full of all manner of attendants, it was onlyearlier this year that the board decided to scrap positions such as cook,butler, bearer, server, jamadar, porter, helper, safaiwala,mali, duftaryand thelike. The roles continue under new designations that hopefully will set thecourse for better utilisation of these employees.
The idea of orderlies and in general the use of officiallypaid and hired servants (that is what this amounts to) originates from the timeof the East India Company and the British in India. The thinking at the root ofthis is well captured in “Observations and Remarks on the Dress,Discipline of the Military”, a booklet attributed to an officer fromBengal. The writer notes in a section titled “Orderlies”: “In India, everynative…is either a tyrant or a slave…(to whom)…the idea of general liberty, orthe natural equality of man, (is) totally incomprehensible or incongruous…whenhe regards the several distinctions of ranks…as the prescribed ordination ofGod himself…the strongest security…for regulation of public manners isobtained.” Ranks were to be worshipped, and orderlies preserved, promoted andprotected the hierarchy. But even in those days, there was misuse and the”wanton and too general use of sepoys as orderlies” was prohibited. In 2013, a Parliamentary Committee underVenkaiah Naidu called the orderly system in police forces “quite discriminatoryand reminiscent of British colonial era which affects the morale of the forcespersonnel”. It recommended that the system be abolished completely, forthwith,as recommended by Sixth Pay Commission. The system of course continues.
None of the changes mean that discipline in services thatseek to free themselves form the colonial hangover will be marred. As the CNShas correctly pointed out, juniors are expected to be disciplined andrespectful but not subservient. The new culture, if implemented well and withnational support, will free the leadership of a repugnant culture ofyesmanship, will bring up more ideas and advice on the table and pave the wayfor leadership that can engage with a diversity of ideas. Military hardware canbe bought for money but a change is culture that runs deep and challenges acentury and more of bad customs needs to be built form inside, brick by brick.That is why this is a challenging change but its rewards will be as deep andlong lasting.
(The author is a journalist withThe Billion Pressandafaculty member at SPJIMR.