Soldiers warned over airing grievances: Theirs not to reason why?

Prolific Dogri writer Deshbandhu Dogra on Saturday shared an anecdote. “During the Dogra regime, the administration one night ordered bridges in Srinagar closed in the wake of flood warnings. At Amira Kadal bridge, a head constable Shambu Nath was stationed as sentry. Maharaja Hari Singh arrived there in disguise and was about to cross the bridge when the Head Constable stopped him.”

“The Maharaja tried to bribe him and offered two rupees to the constable, infuriating the latter who reportedly yelled, ‘Keep your money and get lost! Hari Singh gives me sufficient money.’ The disguised Maharaja tested him by asking, ‘What would you do if Hari Singh himself comes here and tries to cross the bridge?’ The unsuspecting Head Constable retorted, ‘I’d tell him: you scoundrel! Go back and change your orders first—and then come back!’”

The next morning the Head Constable, recalled the writer in his Facebook post, was led to the royal court. It’s not known how the constable felt when he saw the Maharaja but the king assured him that he had no intention of changing his orders and risk being called a scoundrel!

Deshbandhu Ji lamented that while the Maharaja promoted the Head Constable to a higher rank and saluted him during monarchy, in our democracy today the men in uniform are being warned for grumbling against the Government.

The lament assumes significance in the wake of the explicit warning issued by the Government on Friday to men in uniform uploading photos and videos to air grievances. This has now been followed by the warning of the Chief of the Army Staff General Bipin Rawat on Sunday that airing such grievances in public would be deemed as indiscipline and punished.

This was followed on Sunday evening by at least one TV channel showing a spick and span BSF store and a BSF spokesman explaining how committees were there to supervise procurement, supply etc of provisions. Earlier General Rawat was reported as supporting the tradition of deputing jawans as ‘Sahayaks’ or ‘Batmen’ to officers.

It would be a mistake, however, to treat the half a dozen or more videos that have become viral as stray and isolated grievances aired by a few bad apples. But the response from the BSF, Government and the Army so far is far from encouraging. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has also rejected the claims of BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav and said no substance was found in his complaint related to inadequate and poor quality food served to jawans on the border.

But the MHA’s version immediately invited ridicule among the community of ex-jawans, some of whom recalled a video shot at the border in Kutch two years ago in which the Home Minister Rajnath Singh was seen getting his shoe laces tied by a paramilitary jawan.

Nor has the Army chief’s appeal that grievances should be sent to him directly and that jawans could use the grievance-boxes gone down well with the community. In an interview to BBC (Hindi), a retired Subedar Major of the army scoffed at the suggestion, pointing out that it was not easy to air grievances in even units, leave alone directly to the Army Chief.

In the same interview the ex-serviceman questioned the rationale of trained tank mechanics being deployed as batmen. On postings abroad as part of UN peacekeeping forces, he recalled, Indian jawans would found themselves being laughed at by soldiers from other countries who did not have to do the chores the Indian soldiers were forced to do.

Military sociology of course reflects sociological realities of our country—where class and caste continue to determine dignity of a person. As we have been witness to several class and caste clashes in variant forms taking ugly turns in this country, the resentment of jawans needs to be redressed—and not suppressed.

Bottled up emotions tend to lead to dangerous consequences. Those of us who have family members in armed forces are aware of the deeply entrenched hierarchy of privileges that cuts through the uniformed forces. Attempts to gloss over them are unlikely to soothe ruffled feathers.

Incidents of fratricide are not new to armed forces. As recently as Thursday, a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) jawan gunned down four of his seniors in a fit of rage, outside their barracks in Aurangabad district of Bihar.

In 2011, class tensions in Army had come to a head when jawans of Ladakh-based 226 Field Regiment revolted against officers. Reportedly, armed with rods and knives and seeking to hunt down five Major-rank officers—who allegedly had thrashed a personal valet (sahayak) assigned to an officer, they marched through the town of Nyoma.

What if the Government takes a cue from current unrest among disgruntled jawans and bans colonial practices—believed to be the fountainhead of growing disharmony—in armed forces? For how long will a growing and evolving democracy—such as ours— and a modern army patronise fossils of colonialism? Just a thought.