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Pave the path with good intentions

Cantonment roads in India with regulated access to civilians have often led to discontentment and protests.

Pave the path with good intentions

As most cantonment areas are well-administered, these can emerge as role models for toning up the civic administration in nearby municipal areas. Tribune photo: Mukesh Aggarwal



Bhartendu Kumar Singh

Cantonment roads in India with regulated access to civilians have often led to discontentment and protests. Therefore, the recent decision of opening up these roads is a welcome initiative. Though there are dissenting voices among some veterans, their arguments are contestable. What is more important is the larger schism that exists in India's civil-military relations necessitating political interference and solutions.

There has always been a civil-military competition in India and relations have often been strained. The current polemics affirms this hypothesis though the magnitude is on a lesser scale compared to some other issues (evident in debates on Chief of Defence Staff, One Rank One Pension (OROP), parity with other services, etc). 

Several factors help in understanding the present competition. First, the cantonment system reflects the 'garrison state' mindset of British days when they used to offer safe and secure habitations to the British forces from the restive Indian population. Life in cantonment areas has always been better than the rest of the city and it is this qualitative difference in terms of better civic infrastructure, facilities, greenery, and above all, the sense of 'space' that engenders enviousness for the civilians outside. 

Second, politics of seclusion and separation from the civil society at large is propelling the demands for status quo by the veterans. As Steven Wilkinson says in his book, Army and The Nation: The Military and Indian Democracy since Independence: “The greatest challenge to the civil-military relations is from the difficulty the Army faces in trying to remain a society apart”. This military conservatism and politics of seclusion has often been detested by those who are outside the system. The demand for opening up of cantonment roads has to be seen, therefore, as a clash of values between the competing sides. 

Third, the three-dimensional competition for power in the cantonment boards among the President of the Cantonment Board (usually a Brigadier-level officer), the CEO and elected and nominated military representatives are still biased against the cannons of democracy. The Cantonment Act (2010) still gives more power to the former two against the elected representatives. Also, cantonment boards are unwanted platforms where the military leadership gets exposed to political interface at lower and middle level of their career. Often, this amounts to compromising their professional competence and core values since in Samuel S Huntington's words, they are 'politically sterile and neutral'. Perhaps for this reason, there have often been demands from the civil side for more de-militarisation of cantonment administration and incremental move towards a mayoral type municipal administration. 

The political imperative of opening up of cantonment roads, therefore, offers an opportunity to bridge civil-military relations on several fronts. First, since most cantonment areas are well-administered, these can emerge as role models for toning up the civic administration in nearby municipal areas. Be it roads, buildings, public utilities, schools, etc., the cantonment boards have done a yeoman's job vis-a-vis their civic counterparts. 

Second, most cantonment areas are perhaps the only left over 'green hubs' in and around their respective cities. The opening up of roads would allow better access to the citizenry in terms of pollution-free air, walking space and entertainment parks, apart from addressing their core demand for connectivity to other parts of the city. 

Third, India has never been an anti-military society. Public opinion has been quite emotive and supportive of the military causes. However, cantonment entry check points have often acted as barriers and a source of misperception towards the military. The present decision would certainly boost the image of military as receptive to public opinion! 

The demands and subsequent acceptance for opening up of cantonment roads indicate that transformation of civil-military relationship is still a challenge. More needs to be done like further democratisation of cantonment boards. Therefore, we need to build on the new policy initiative and explore more innovative, acceptable and mutually beneficial public policy postures to bridge the civil and military side. 

— The writer is in the Indian Defence Accounts Service. Views are personal.

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