Regards.Read the following,ponder over this and give your
comments,please.
The Bureaucracy and the Armed Forces in India
THE BUREAUCRACY AND THE ARMED
FORCES IN INDIA– A CASE OF PENIS
ENVY? (see the article below).
How very true! Do all States have a Lok Ayukth?? Karnataka Lok
Ayukth is presently headed by an ex Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court the Hon'ble Justice Santosh Hegde. Both he and his
predecessor have investigated hundreds of cases of big corruption
against babus running into, I dare say, thousands of crores of
rupees. No actions whatsoever, except for suspension or transfer
of the corrupt officials, have ever taken place!!! Not a single charge
has been brought about against anyone, not a single case has
reached any Court of Law.Compare this with the completed court
martial that have taken place against corrupt Officers of the
Armed Forces in the last few decades. The Press goes ballistic over
corrupt "Colonel Ketchups" and the like, but are not vocal against
corrupt babus except when reported by the Lok Ayukth.When
my older grandchildren tell me of the distorted history that is
being taught in schools of how the British and the Rajas looted the
country for 200 years, I have to bring them up to date with the
fact that the present day rajas (babus and politicians) continue]
to do so everyday with impunity and without any restraints!!
Col Cyrus Dalal (Retd)
THE BUREAUCRACY AND THE ARMED FORCES IN INDIA–
A CASE OF PENIS ENVY?
Imagine two branches of service in the Government of India.
The two branches are different in substance and in the
perception of the citizens. One branch has its halo effect and
is considered both glamorous and praiseworthy in public
perception. The other branch is often pejoratively titled
“babudom”.Now consider the following points:
The armed forces have their uniforms and shiny medals.
The bureaucrats have none.
Generals, Admirals and Air Marhsals sport three stars on
their vehicles, and sometimes four stars. Even officers of the
rank of Brigadier sport a star. The bureaucrats of similar
seniority have to make do with just a red or blue light. Lest
you consider this a trivial matter not worthy of the attention
of a senior bureaucrat, consider this – when my brother,
an Air Commodore, was posted as India’s Air Attache in
Washington, he was entitled to put a single star –
the US Army’s designated insignia for a brigadier level officer –
on his vehicle. This gave him certain parking and other
privileges in specified buildings. His administrative superior
– an officer belonging to the Indian Foreign Service – actually
urged my brother to remove the star from his car since he, the
senior officer, was not entitled to it.
The armed forces, with their bemedalled heroes guarding our
boundaries, and their fighter pilots, navy commanders etc.
garner favourable publicity in the media and are viewed as
services with an air of professionalism and macho. They carry
an aura of glamour. The bureaucrats, on the other hand, do
not have such an image – in fact, they are widely considered
to be working in musty offices, surrounded by files and aided
by often sloppy staff, who the average citizen encounters in
his or her daily life.If professions could be said to have sexes,
the armed forces would definitely be considered masculine
and the bureaucrats, their civilian counterpart, feminine.
In saying this I do not mean to slight the feminine aspect.
I am just stating the obvious – the aggressive, protective,
outgoing principle vis a vis the protected, home-bound civilian
bureaucrats.This dichotomy between the two appears to have
affected the bureaucratic wing adversely as far as their
attitude towards the defence wing is concerned. The closest we
can express this attitude in psychological terms is by saying that
they suffer from penis-envy.Sigmund Freud introduced the
concept of a little girl's envy of the penis in his 1908 article
"On the Sexual Theories of Children," and developed the idea
later in his work “On Narcissism”. Subsequently, his theory has
been overtaken by more accurate theories of female sexuality
by psychologists such as Eric Ericson ad Jian Paget. It has also
been criticised by feminists and others. However, here we are
not dealing with the girl child’s psychological development.
We are concerned with a similar emotion amongst India’s
bureaucrats vis a vis our Armed Forces where this theory does
appear to apply rather closely.The bureaucrats subconsciously
appear to wish that they had more glamour in their profession,
that they had smart, uniformed assistants and starred vehicles
and be-medalled uniforms. Acquiring these appears as difficult
as the girl’s covert wish to acquire a penis. However, unlike the
girl child, the bureaucrats can do something about it. They may
not be able to acquire a penis for themselves, but they leave no
occasion to try and castrate the armed forces.The recent sixth
pay commission controversy is only one factor in the ongoing
struggle for supremacy which the bureaucrats have tried this
castration. In pursuance of this effort, the bureaucrats have not
permitted even a single representative of the armed forces –
India’s largest employer – in the Pay Commission. An indicative
incident of the feeling of animosity can be judged by he incident
where the military attaché in one of our embassies overheard
one of the senior-most bureaucrats visiting that country make
a pejorative comment in reference to the noise being made by
the armed forces about the Sixth Pay Commission award
anomalies. The senior bureaucrats comment was that on his
return to India “We will fix the bastards”.Another indication of
this castration is the order of precedence. This is the official
order in which dignitaries are seated at formal functions and the
ceremonial importance given to each relative to the others. At
the time of independence, the senior most general was second in
the Order of Precedence. Now the Army Chief is 12th in this list.
The Cabinet Secretary is 11th, as is the Attorney General. At the
23rd position are “Officers of the rank of full General or equivalent
rank” on par with Secretaries to the Government, Commissioner
for Linguistic Minorities , Secretary, Minorities Commission,
Secretary, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission
Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes ,
Members, Minorities Commission , Members, National Commission
for Scheduled Castes, Members, National Commission for
Scheduled Tribes and a host of others.There are many other
areas where no opportunity is missed by the bureaucrats to show
the armed forces down.The overt reason one hears for
maintaining the supremacy of the bureaucrats over the armed
forces is that we should adhere to the principle of “the civilian
control of the army”. However, civilian control does not mean
the Chief of India’s Army, who commands 1.3 million officers
and soldiers, apart from 1.4 million reserve and territorial
army personnel, waiting at the pleasure of the bureaucrats
manning the Ministry of Defence orders of a civilian Minister
of Defence, it would ensure the principle of civilian control
adequately. However, the bureaucrats will never agree to this
because this argument will take away one more tool which
facilitates the castration mentioned above.These attempts
at castration of the armed forces by the bureaucracy are
resulting in the demoralisation of our armed forces at all
levels. The retired officers speak about this openly and the
serving ones in hushed tones. This complex of the bureaucrats
needs to be recognised for what it is and, then, needs to be
addressed firmly and fairly by the political masters, Unless
this is done, we will continue devaluing the spear and shield
of the country to satisfy the castrative instinct of the
bureaucrats. If a further devaluation of the tools of India's
defence happens, we should not be surprised that, when we
need a steely response to danger on our borders, we will get
a wooden one. Then, paradoxically, the bureaucrats will get
one more reason to castrate the armed forces further and the
vicious spiral will continue making holes in our national
defence shield.
Kishore Asthana
asthana1@yahoo.comTHE BUREAUCRACY AND THE ARMED FORCES IN INDIA– A CASE OF PENIS ENVY?
Posted by SIGNAL on Sunday, December 13, 2009
Labels: Bureaucratic Arrogance, Bureaucratic Impotence, Combating Corruption, Criminal Justice System, Failing Constitution, Judicial Intervention, Judicial Reforms, Lok Ayukth, Proactive Citizen, RTI
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