Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness in India

2011

Military is better to remain under civilian domain

The Round Table

This article gives an overview of the state of the Indian military by assessing its overall performance, current debates, and future challenges. While doing so it covers three main subjects-the role of the military in nation-building, contemporary challenges, and defence reforms. This covers a wide range of issues, from the military's historical role-in wars and domestic counter-insurgencies, current threats, and missions to preparing for the future. In the penultimate section, it describes debates on defence reforms and military transformation triggered by the creation in 2019 of the post of Chief of Defence staff. It concludes with an overview of state-military relations and identifies some areas for future research.

Democratization , 2020

India’s practice of civil-military relations has had four distinct features: conscious subordination of the military to civil authority; grant of a wide degree of autonomy to the military leadership in affairs internal to the services; reluctance to carry out reforms that may unwittingly result in an assertive military leadership, and intrusive monitoring of the military by the civilian bureaucracy. These features are the product of three major concerns that have dominated the thinking of the political leadership: the need to ensure that defence and development go hand in hand; the imperative of subordinating the military leadership to civilian authority; and not empowering the military leadership in any manner that might contribute to their assertiveness. These concerns are indeed endemic to all democracies. The theory of civil-military relations itself is based on democratic theory and its most fundamental principle – ensuring that the people have ultimate control over the government.

How do countries transition from single service to joint operations? This article engages with the discussion on military innovation to argue that civil–military relations are the most important driver for jointness. In doing so it examines jointness in the Indian military. Relying on archival research and primary interviews this article sheds new light on the operations of the Indian Peacekeeping Forces (IPKF) in Sri Lanka from 1987–1990, the 1999 Kargil War and the Post-Kargil defence reforms. The main argument is that the Indian military’s transition to jointness has been ‘incomplete’ primarily because of its prevailing model of civil-military relations. This model prevents civilians from interfering in the operational issues of the military, including on matters pertaining to jointness. It therefore recommends more forceful civilian intervention to overcome the prevailing single service approach.

The aim of this paper is to conceptualize a comparative framework on civil-military relations (CMR), at both political and strategic levels, in the context of major South Asian states such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. There are complexities involved in framing and explaining power relations between political/ bureaucratic and military elites in these countries. Methodology used in this paper is basically content analysis, interviews, and observations made, and inferences drawn by the author himself, given his professional experience. The paper concludes there are both similarities and dissimilarities in such relations between democratic and quasi-democratic or between liberal and illiberal polities.

Armed Forces & Society

The Journal of Political Science, 2021

The Indian Armed Forces have been witnessing a major strategic shift in the recent years. The codified version of Indian doctrinal mapping has been manoeuvred to entertain offensive military posture with less emphasis on strategic restraint. The strategic shift, however, is visible not only in the Indian Defence Policy but also pragmatically enforced with the acquisition of advanced weapons and its practical demonstration. Its aggression from Balakot strikes against Pakistan to more recent incursions in Eastern Ladakh against China aims to integrate its offensive military posture with wider geostrategic ambitions in the region. India is utilizing its bilateral strategic partnerships with powers including Russia, the United States, and Israel to augment its military capacity and credibility. The enhanced synergy is consistent with the revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) philosophy which reflects India's will to adopt proactive and offensive strategy in orderto emerge as the leading power in Asia.The methodology used in the paper is qualitative in nature, based on exploratory researchmethod and used both primary and secondary resources. It unveils India's growing military modernization in the theoretical context of 'Offensive-cum-Defensive' Strategy. The paper argues that India's doctrinal shift in favour of offensive military postures combines with its regional assertiveness against Pakistan and China, is potentially threatening strategic stability in South Asia.

2013

The emergence of India as an Asian great power in line with its economic development in recent years is a matter of significant strategic interest regionally and globally. India's unique position as the world's most populous democracy, with its diverse societal mix combined with its central geostrategic position, places it at the core of Asian and Indo-Pacific Ocean economic and strategic considerations. Land borders with China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh combined with aspirations for strategic dominance in the Indian Ocean, and possession of nuclear weapons in the framework of a national policy of strategic autonomy and a stated desire for greater defence self-reliance, add to India's uniqueness. These factors underscore the importance for both international and domestic audiences to understand India's strategic ambitions and prospects. Analysts struggle to gain that understanding because of the lack of overt Indian defence policy documents and joint military doctrine perpetrated by an apparently incoherent politico-civil-military establishment where the elite largely operate in a policy environment of ambiguity. In this light, the edited compendium of expert insights into India's efforts to modernize its defence forces, drawn together by Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), is a welcome contribution.