{"id":969,"date":"2019-08-23T19:58:57","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T14:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aradhanamishra.com\/?p=969"},"modified":"2019-08-23T19:58:57","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T14:28:57","slug":"changing-milieu-of-indian-military-officers-socially-and-structurally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/?p=969","title":{"rendered":"Changing Milieu of Indian Military Officers: Socially and structurally"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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 \u201cAb raja ka beta raja nahi banega, ab raja woh banega jo haqdaar hoga,\u201d this famous dialogue from super 30 may not really be appropriate to begin a write up, that\u2019s about the officers of Indian Army but this perhaps encapsulates the essence of what I intend to convey, in the best possible manner. The second objective of this write up is to discuss as to why our army is still short of 7,399 officers (As per the written reply by our Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Rajya Sabha on Jan 1st<\/sup>, 2019) despite the perceived superior and distinct lifestyle that its ambit promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming\nback to the first point, there cannot be any denying that army\u2019s social milieu\nhas been changing for the last few years in an irreversible manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While its soldiers are more educated – matriculation being the minimum qualification for recruitment since 1980 – its officer class is being fed more and more by the offspring of achievement-oriented lower middleclass families. As in times of old, it is also becoming a class apart with an increasing proportion of new entrants being sons of army men. And a lot of people (officers\u2019 class of the yore) I interacted with, didn\u2019t seem to be comfortable with the idea. \u201cWhat has the Army come to! They can\u2019t talk even one line in correct English!\u201d some of them uttered! ( I too am guilty of harboring this thought at one point of time) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Really!!!!!!\nShould that be our concern that the officer is not being able to converse in\nEnglish or not playing enough golf, polo and croquet! Somewhere I had read that\nthe Indian army is more British than the British Army and I suppose it\u2019s time\nthat we change that, and it makes sense. Indian army can\u2019t be anything but\nIndian.  It\u2019s time that we equate quality\nwith correct parameters and not one\u2019s ability to stick to the British era\ncustoms and traditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anything, we\nshould be proud of the officers coming from the humble background, assisted\nonly by their aspirations and hard work. \nAnd that\u2019s where that dialogue came into my mind. Any individual, of any\nbackground, with the right set of values, leadership qualities and intellect (English\nspeaking ability can not really decide one\u2019s intellect, at best it can only be\nan added facet) can qualify to be an officer or anything that he wishes for.  There are IITians, MBAs, Doctors coming from\nall walks of life, doing very well in their chosen fields. They are not\nscrutinized based on their perceived class! Gone are the days when the kings and\nOfficers children only could come into the army. And this reflects how far we\nhave come as an inclusive society and to me, this call for celebration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But only as long\nas the best minds, irrespective of the caste, class, religion, come into its\nfold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately,\nthat doesn\u2019t appear to be the case and army no longer seems to be the first\nchoice of the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me of the academic fraternity. Besides, there is a\nshortage of the officers signalling that today\u2019s youth is shying away from\njoining the defence and cumulatively both these trends could have profound\nnegative implications in the coming times! This is rather telling, when you\nconsider the fact that according to the UNFPA State of the World\u2019s population\nreport, India has largest youth population in the world. In this background,\nit\u2019s surprising that the requirement of the Army is still not being met!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\ndid sit for the 2018 April, NDA written test, just to test the waters and\ncleared it too. But didn\u2019t go for SSB as at that time (Jan 2019) I had to\nprepare for my 12th board and JEE, which for me was the priority. Also, they\ntake so long for SSB,\u201d says Nilay Rastogi* Clearly for him, SSB wasn\u2019t the priority.\nWhen probed further, it turned out that it wasn\u2019t the money that was the\nyardstick for him to accept or reject army. It was its steep promotional\nstructure along with the fear of stagnation that bothered him.  Another boy pursuing B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur\nconceded that while there was this liking for army in his heart, he felt that\nit wouldn\u2019t give him opportunity to grow beyond a point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe\nthey had a point. Afterall, while an IAS officer reaches the rank of joint\nsecretary in just 18 years of service, an officer takes, on average, 30 years\nof service to reach the equivalent rank of Maj Gen, that is if he keeps getting\npromotions which in itself is not easy.This\nfact also prompts an uncomfortably large number of mid-career officers to leave\narmy! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then\nthere are some other aspects too, to be considered. \u201cOnce in Army, it\u2019s not\nonly the officer, the family too suffers.\nThey face an unsettled family life, staying away from their wives and children\nfor months or years at a stretch, losing out on the crucial formative years of\ntheir children. Postings lead them to staying put in remote areas and harsh\nclimates for two years at time, with hardly any civilization nearby. The compensation or incentive provided to the\narmy personnel is simply not at par in comparison to the commitment that is\nasked of them,\u201d says a retd senior Officer. He didn\u2019t want to be named.\nContrast it with the corporate sector which is offering attractive packages\nwith the promise of growth for the ones who are ready to work hard and all that\nwith a settled family life!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sensing the growing disenchantment, govt is trying to bring in structural changes, the talk of time scale Maj-Gen is one such prospective change among many. Hopefully the changes shall not only make our Army more meaningful but once again will make serving for one\u2019s country a worthwhile passion. A significant change, which shall attract the young and the best to join army beyond the rhetoric of patriotism, for serving in army is not the only act of patriotism, working in the field of science, sports, humanities and arts can equally be patriotic if that brings laurels for the country, employment, better living for the fellow citizens!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Name\nchanged <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright\n\u00a9 Aradhana Mishra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 \u201cAb raja ka beta raja nahi banega, ab raja woh banega jo haqdaar hoga,\u201d this famous dialogue from super 30 may not really be appropriate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[28,84,147,152,158],"class_list":["post-969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social","tag-army-officer","tag-defence","tag-indian-army-officer","tag-indian-military","tag-inidan-army"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}