New Delhi, May 21
Reports that the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sushil Kumar, has decided to “opt out of the race” for the first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of the country has again thrown up the issue that the armed forces are getting increasingly politicised.

The letter of the Chief of Naval Staff to the Defence Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, where he expressed his desire to “opt out of the race” has had the experts here worried that the Indian armed forces were now getting more and more involved in the messy affair of appointments rather than guarding the frontiers of the country.

They have expressed concern over the fact that why should the armed forces or any of its wings get so blatantly involved in a issue, which ostensibly was the concern of the civil administration. Why should there be a “race”, if there was a race, between the armed forces over a post for which the deciding authority was the government?

It is a known fact that there are strong differences prevailing between the Indian Air Force and the Navy over who should be the CDS with the Army keeping out of the issue. While the Navy has been hankering for the post, the IAF is of the opinion that there should not be such a post as it would dilute its role as the CDS is likely to be given charge of the nuclear command and control structure. The IAF has most of the delivery systems for the nuclear weapons.

Experts point out that the letter from the Chief of Naval Staff not only portrays the armed forces in bad light but also sends a wrong signal down the ranks. Why should a message go down that one has to be “in a race” to get appointed to a post?

Admiral Sushil Kumar last week expressed his desire to pull out of the race for the CDS. In a letter written to the Defence Minister, which was marked private and confidential, which incidentally was leaked to the media by a senior naval officer known to be close to the Chief of Naval Staff, he said since he was preparing the groundwork for the CDS, he would prefer to remain out of the race.

The opinion is that the very fact that Admiral Sushil Kumar has written that he was pulling out of the race reflected that he was somehow involved in a tussle for the post. What is more reflective of this is the fact that on May 11 when the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) was meeting to take a decision on the issue and actually put it off as the government sought to get a consensus by involving the other political parties, the Naval Headquarters was ready with a two-page communiqué announcing the appointment of Admiral Sushil Kumar as the first CDS of the country.