News and Views

The strains and tension in civil-military relations were visible again last week (9-11 November), surprisingly during the commemoration ceremonies of the centenary of the Armistice Day World War I.

This, even as India’s Vice President Venkaiah Naidu (wish someone had briefed him on formal attire during ceremonial events) returned from France after commemorating Armistice Day and said the Indian youth must know the contribution of our soldiers in the long war (which was not ours).

Prime Minister Modi too tweeted endorsing this sentiment, adding he had been to Haifa and Neuve Chapelle, both World War I memorials to deceased Indians. Yet, our IAS bureaucracy, bereft of strategic culture but beaming with disdain for dignity and decorum of sacred military ceremonials (like their turning the Beating Retreat into a band baja baraat) kept the two planned and sanctioned functions, on tenterhooks: cancelling one and giving the go-ahead for the other at the 11th hour.

On 31 October, India formally protested the proposed launch of a bus service between China and Pakistan because the service would “operate between Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir” under the so-called ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’. The official spokesman noted India held the China-Pakistan boundary agreement of 1963 as “illegal and invalid” and views the service as a violation of India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

If all this sounds tough and uncompromising, it is. But it is hardly consistent and not especially helpful.

I am usually the last one to claim superiority of the military over other services. In fact, I have always maintained that officers serving the defence services and veterans should not be caustic about civil servants all the time, since it not only vitiates the working environment, but also reflects the shallow knowledge of the military community about other professions.

Rajkummar Rao on working on his first audiobook based on Hussain Zaidi's novel 'Mafia Queens of Mumba', his huge box office successes and staying real.

Radhika Apte on her new audiobook for 'Audible', why 'voice' is very important for an actor, and why audiobooks are a new form of recreation for her.

Radhika Apte on working on her first audiobook for 'Audible', why 'voice' is an extremely powerful tool for an actor, and why audiobooks are a new form of recreation for her.

It would be difficult to take issue with any of the themes that National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval took up in his Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture on Thursday, 25 October. The highly cerebral Doval, who has a reputation for operational efficiency, declared:

* India needs a strong, stable and decisive government for the next decade; weak coalitions will not do. 

* India cannot be a soft power because it needs to take hard decisions. 

* India needs to have a big, globally competitive economy and it can be that only if it is technologically ahead. 

* Populism is bad and against the larger national interest. 

* Indian private sector companies should promote India’s strategic interests. 

* Rule of law is extremely important and the temptation to undermine it should be resisted. 

* Hard power and large armies don’t win battles’ technological superiority does.

The killing in Rawalpindi of Maulana Samiul Haq, also known as Mullah Sandwich for his massage preference, is probably significant in its irrelevance.

It isn’t clear as yet whether his killing was a murder or an assassination.

India’s decision to join the second edition of the Moscow format talks on Friday, 9 November, on Afghanistan, where representatives of the Taliban were present, is essentially an acceptance of the inevitable.

New Delhi has had to confront a situation where the principal players are willing to undertake a dialogue with the Taliban and the US; Russia and China have been active in promoting reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Islamist group. The two representatives sent by India are ‘non-officials’.