Justifying Corruption as Coalition 'Dharma'

I am one of the millions of Indians highly disappointed with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's television interaction with a clutch of handpicked high profile journalists beamed live on the TV on February 16, 2011.

At the end of the long rambling interaction, I was dismayed when the Prime Minister spoke of coalition 'dharma' and the compromises one has to make. Dharma is a sacred word for many and what the coalition in New Delhi in an increasing number of cases is total 'adharma.' And the Prime Minsiter doing a bad job of whitewashing it all and putting the blame on Raja is adharma of the worst sorts. The Prime Minister as Captain of the team shares a greater responsibility because he never set benchmarks of conduct for members of his cabinet and failed to monitor their performance when media produced strong evidence of their misconduct.

He never answered Rajdeep Sardesai's question why he accepted Raja in the cabinet for a second time when Congress came out strong in the last general election. If the Congress Party expected the Prime Minister to shore out the Party of the quagmire of its own and its Prime Minister's making, it miserably failed. 

As one who teaches business communication in management schools I had always found the Prime Minister as one of the poorest communicators among his peers. I wish our politicians and nethas undergo formal training in public speaking (even some of the best of them are rabble rousers) and voice training. I don't know whether Tony Blair, General Musharraf or Mrs Margaret Thatcher had such training; but they had the gift of making their arguments 'convincing' at least for the moment. I do not remember any of our prime ministers in the recent past could carry the country with their speeches, except Atal Bihari Vajapayee who was comfortable and eloquent in Hindi in an intellectual way. Perhaps this is one reason why Dr Manmohan Singh avoids televised interviews; he can be utterly unconvincing while speaking in public. Thank god at least he knows it. Congress Party would do well not to put him on TV if they want somebody to carry the day.   

I am reproducing here my friend B Raman's open letter to the Prime Minister carried in his blog of February 16. It eloquently analyses how the Prime Minister performed in his interview. I share his feelings.

http://ramanstrategicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-fall-was-there-my-countrymen.html

WHAT A FALL WAS THERE, MY COUNTRYMEN

B.RAMAN

Dear Mr.Prime Minister,

Like millions of ordinary Indians, I too watched from the beginning till the end your televised interaction with selected journalists from the electronic media on February 16,2011.

You had never spoken to us, the ordinary people of India, on the various scams which have rocked the country one after another since August last year. Our only source of information has been the media.

As the citizens of this country who put your party in power, we had a right to expect that you will talk to us and explain to us what is the truth and how you intend arresting and reversing the rot that has set in and the continuing decline in the credibility and image of India as a result of the stories of these scams .

These stories---whether correct wholly or only partly--- have brought out one thing loud and clear--- the ineptitude and incompetence of your Government, the poor supervision which seems to prevail in many Ministries and offices, including the Prime Minister's Office, and the insensitivity of many senior members of your Cabinet to public concerns over these alleged scams.

Corruption is nothing new, but the magnitude of it as seen since you came to power has been highly disturbing . What is new is the ineptitude, the incompetence and the lack of supervision which seem to prevail since you came to power--- the like of which one had not seen under any other Prime Minister of India since we became independent in 1947.

You try to blame your difficulties and embarrassments on your having to run a coalition. You are not the first Prime Minister having to run the country at the head of a coalition. V.P.Singh, Chandrasekhar, Deve Gowda, Inder Gujral and Atal Behari Vajpayee headed coalitions too. Despite this, they gave us a government which worked as a team and which did not pull in different directions. I can't recall any instance under the previous coalitions where a Minister repeatedly circumvented the instructions of the Prime Minister, without fearing the consequences of his action.

All the previous Prime Ministers, who headed coalition Cabinets, made it clear to their political associates who the boss was and who would take important decisions. They never tolerated anyone who sought to circumvent their instructions. They never let their political allies dictate terms to them.

This is the first time we are seeing a Prime Minister, who tries to earn not the confidence of the people by projecting himself as a strong leader who will not tolerate any nonsense from his coalition partners, but the pity of the people by projecting himself as a helpless leader, who has nothing but to do what his coalition partners ask him to do.

We watched in utter amazement for one hour on February 16 not the rallying cry of a leader, who has realised the magnitude of the rot and who is determined to set it right whatever be the consequences to his position as the Prime Minister, but an exercise in self-pity of a leader who is at the mercy of his coalition partners and does not have the courage to call them to order.

This was the first time we had an opportunity of listening to you on the State of the country in the light of these scams. We were looking forward not to excuses and pretexts to explain away the sins of commission and omission of your government, but to a bold re-assertion of your leadership as the Prime Minister of this great country, who has the courage to face the people of this country in their eyes and reassure them: Thus far and no further.

I have no doubt in my mind that many right-thinking people of India, like me, must have felt ashamed and enraged as they saw the Prime Minister of this country giving out one excuse after another for not being able to govern effectively and for not being able to prevent blatantly wrong decisions and corruption.

You let us down badly, Mr.Prime Minister. You let us down badly.

Warm regards,

Yours sincerely,

B.Raman, Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi

Learning from CWG

Instead of learning from the forces, are we doing to defence what we did to sports?

Vice Admiral (Retd) Suresh Bangara October 15, 2010

If India can organise a Republic Day parade every year with great efficiency, and could recently host successfully World Military Games, why did it mess up the organisation of the Commonwealth Games (CWG)?

What is common to successful mass events is an empowered structure with clear demarcation of responsibility and accountability. The CWG failed due to an absence of a centralised command structure. Responsibilities were not demarcated, there were too many “Indians” and no chiefs, and, what is more, everyone had an excuse not to own up responsibility.

November 13, 2003 was the date on which the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) resolved to hand over the Games to Delhi. In accordance with article 10A, the host city contract was inked by the Government of India (GoI), the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi(GNCTD), the IOA and the CGF. The organisation of the entire event was allotted to the Organising Committee (OC) of the CWG.

* The key delivery partners listed on the website are the CGF, the IOA, the OC CWG, the GNCTD and the GoI in that order. It also states that several ministries of the GoI and several organisations under the GNCTD and others would be involved in execution.

* Even a prima facie analysis of this structure would point to the fact that the coordination of such a complex body cannot be vested with a committee which has no authority over the key delivery partners. In the Indian context, hierarchy and individual egos play a vital role in the smooth functioning of the organisation. At times, collective organisational goals are sacrificed to appease individual aspirations. Presumably, these considerations caused undue delays of about two years before the OC came into existence on February 10, 2005 — a faulty and toothless structure from day one.

Although representatives of all the delivery partners were constituted on the committee, raising alarms at the CWG meetings, when deadline after deadline failed to be met by their parent organisation, is not a practical proposition. Having taken full responsibility for staging the best ever Games, as outlined on the website, the OC perhaps continued at best as a mute spectator to inter-ministerial red tape and embarrassing delays in execution.

What is needed in the globalised, highly competitive and demanding environment is to professionalise our decision-making structures to include experts in negotiations, project management and other niche areas.

A look at the ministry which manages the armed forces of India in the above context would be instructive. The defence ministry has the responsibility to handle the rapidly increasing defence budget, which is more than twice the amount allotted to the CWG, but on a yearly basis. Is it structured to meet all the requirements of the armed forces of India?

First, since 1952, the three chiefs along with their headquarters were removed from the decision-making structure of the GoI. They were designated as the “attached offices” of the ministry. In effect, all communications from the armed forces were to be addressed only to the ministry and no decision-making power and executive power was to reside with the chiefs, save those related to operations. Not even the revenue budget could be operated by the chief to merely run the service as it existed. The chiefs could send their recommendations and plans for modernisation, which effectively rested at the table of some functionary without even an acknowledgement. The ministry continued to be manned by generalists — civil servants who often learnt about the armed forces after they were placed in the chair.

While the authority to take decisions with the concurrence of the minister was vested with the ministry, there were no provisions for accountability. Having been removed from the chain, the chiefs could only make proposals and could not be held accountable. The procurement of Advanced Jet Trainers(AJTs) for the Air Force took over two decades, by which time costs had escalated by 500 per cent. The decision to induct Gorshkov took over a decade, by which time the deteriorating cables of the ship warranted doubling of the original cost. Many thousand crores are surrendered unspent year after year despite the urgent operational needs of the Army. There are no clear-cut penalties for procrastination and opportunity costs incurred thereof. Are these not the ills of the CWG as well?

Second, integration of the ministry with the armed forces by placing uniformed professionals at appropriate desks of the ministry is a successful model practised by other democracies. Similar structures were recommended by the Committee on Defence Management after the Kargil war. Cosmetic changes in nomenclature with no corresponding powers were the only action taken to show compliance.

Thirdly, the Kargil Review Committee did recommend the creation of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) as a single-point adviser to the defence minister on all matters of planning, acquisition etc. This has been stalled by status quo-ists within and without the armed forces. The result is the continuation of a toothless Chiefs of Staff Committee, which was first recommended in 1924 and which is still in existence only in India. Almost all armed forces of countries that matter have opted for a fully integrated structure with accountability, while we continue to live in denial of a serious structural infirmity.

The CWG 2010 has brought disrepute to the country due to delays in implementation despite seven years to prepare. We can live with it, for soon it will be forgotten. However, continued denial of structural weaknesses in the defence department has the potential to lay our country in the dust. Until then, incapability to modernise, lack of timely decision coupled with conflicting demands of the three services can only be offset by the ability of our officers and soldiers to lay down their lives — even if it is to achieve a pyrrhic victory.

The author is a retired vice admiral of the Indian Navy

Hope, Grit, Determination

ON a summer afternoon in 1967, I went to swim at the army club in Pune (then known as Poona ). I found a powerful swimmer doing quite a few lengths in a methodical crawl and could not match his stamina. But, when he climbed out of the pool, I got the shock of my life – both his legs were missing!

That was the first time I saw Pankaj Shivram Joshi, who recently passed away. A graduate of the National Defence Academy, Joshi was commissioned in 8 Gurkha Rifles. He retired as Lieutenant General and was decorated a number of times. The honours included PVSM, AVSM and VSM. His is a saga of courage and determination to overcome adversity. He lost both his legs at barely 24, stepping on a land mine in an operational area in Sikkim.

In 1967, the newly formed Artificial Limb Centre (ALC) at Pune provided a glimmer of hope for Armymen who had lost their limbs. There were many such cases in the 1965 India-Pakistan war. I would see them limping across to our unit canteen, trying out their newly acquired legs. One of my most poignant memories is of meeting my drill instructor from my cadet days – Kartar Singh, a JCO from the Jat Regiment. On seeing me, Kartar broke down. “Saabji, I was good only as a drill instructor. Without my leg, my life is finished,” he said. I had no words to console him because in those days Army personnel who lost their limbs were sent home with a disability pension.

But Joshi, who too was fitted with artificial limbs at the ALC, was of different mettle. From day one, he never gave up. He fought every inch to overcome his handicap. He came to the swimming pool riding a bicycle. His friends said he was on the dance floor within a month of getting the artificial legs. Fortunately for him, the Army changed its medical categorization rules in 1978. Physical capability rather than physical condition became the determining factor for retention of physically handicapped personnel. Joshi’s grit and willpower enabled him to achieve what was seemingly impossible when a special medical board examined him.

His physical capability was found to be on a par with any officer’s. Years later, when I attended the Senior Command course, I saw Joshi as an instructor at the War College, Mhow. Nobody spoke of his handicap as we saw him climbing high ground with us. I heard a number of stories of his achievements: his participation in the Himalayan Car Rally as part of the Army team and his cycling 40 km in a cycle expedition. There was no stopping him as he went on to command a battalion, brigade and corps. So we were not surprised when he was made Commander of the Central Command with Lt General rank.

Joshi’s life is reminiscent of Britain’s World War II hero – Group Captain Douglas Robert Steuart Bader of the Royal Air Force. He was commissioned in 1931. A flamboyant personality, he lost both legs in an air crash while attempting a low-level slow roll in response to a dare. He was retired on medical grounds in 1933, but relentlessly overcame his limitations and showed the RAF he could still fly a fighter aircraft. When World War II broke out, the RAF took him back. He flew many fighter missions and took part in the operations in Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain. He made 22 “kills” of German aircraft. Bader was taken prisoner when he baled out after his aircraft was shot down during a mission over occupied France in 1941. He escaped in August 1942 only to be recaptured and sent to Colditz Castle, a prisoner of war camp for those who made repeated attempts to escape. He impressed even the German ace pilot, Adolf Galland, who became his friend. When the war ended, the RAF refused his request for continued service and he retired in early 1946.

The legend of Bader still lives in British memory. He remains a visible manifestation of the nation’s proud “never say die” attitude. Like Bader, Gen Joshi was an ideal role model for young people. Unfortunately, he was born in a nation that lauds only filmstars or cricket players as role models. The others who hog media headlines are politicians who kindle the worst divisive instincts among the public. Little wonder that Joshi’s passing away went unnoticed by the mainstream media.

YET the armed forces will continue to produce more Joshis. Recently, there came heart warming news of the Army deciding to promote Brigadier SK Razdan, a paratrooper paralysed from the waist down, to Major General. Fifteen years ago, Razdan suffered a spinal injury in a fire fight in Kashmir where he saved the lives of 14 women. He has been confined to a wheelchair since. He won the Kirti Chakra, the second highest award for peacetime gallantry.

The media report of Razdan’s promotion said, “Razdan would often tell his friends about how he had cheated death, but sometimes he regretted not being a martyr.” There must be many more Razdans in other walks of life who are not as lucky. They push on but their grit and leadership qualities go unrecognized. The nation is the loser as the flock has no role models worth the name.
Courtesy:GFiles Magazine, May 2010
URL:http://gfilesindia.com/title.aspx?title_id=117