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Chinks in India’s armour
This above all |
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TOUCHSTONE On the record by PROFILE
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Chinks in India’s armour In his letter dated March 12, the Army chief has asked the Prime Minister to “pass suitable directions to enhance the preparedness of the Army”, while describing the state of artillery, air defence and infantry as “alarming”. Specifically, he has pointed to how the Army’s tanks are “devoid of critical ammunition to defeat enemy tanks”, the air defence is 97 per cent obsolete and does not give the deemed confidence to protect from the air”, the infantry lacks night-fighting capabilities and the elite Special Forces are woefully short of essential weapons. Equally significant, General Singh has also pointed out that the “hollowness” in the system is a manifestation of the procedures and processing time for procurements as well as legal impediments created by vendors. Besides, he has said, the work quality is poor and there is a “lack of urgency at all levels” on matters of national security. He concludes by stating that such shortcomings are eroding the Army’s preparedness, considering the two “inimical neighbours” (China and Pakistan) and the “reality of large land borders”.
These are serious observations and should make the government take notice. Yet, the fact is this is not the first time (and likely not the last) that a Service chief has written such a letter to or delivered a presentation on these lines to the Prime Minister (and the Defence Minister), listing deficiencies in the defence preparedness. But we need not depend on a leaked letter alone for such information. Successive reports prepared by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence (ever since it came into existence two decades ago) and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), along with answers to questions asked and tabled in Parliament, continue to detail deficiencies in military preparedness. All these reports are posted on the Internet. One example of a critical deficiency should suffice. It is widely known in defence circles that the Army’s artillery is horribly vintage. The last time the Army acquired a major artillery gun was in the mid-1980s, when the government bought the 155 mm Bofors Howitzer that got mired in controversy over allegations of kickback. But this Howitzer, the only 155 mm gun in the inventory, forms only one portion of the artillery. All other artillery, such as the 130 mm and 105 mm guns, date back to the 1970s. In other words, the bulk of the artillery is three-four decades old! Kargil War is one recent example of the importance of artillery, more specifically the Bofors 155 mm Howitzer, which played a pivotal role in softening the Pakistani Army’s Northern Light Infantry that had set up bunkers on peaks and ridge lines on the Indian side of the LoC in the mountainous Dras, Kaksar and Batalik subsectors of Ladakh.
The deficiencies in India’s defence preparedness are far too many to list here. But the most disconcerting is that the world’s fourth largest armed force is continuing to struggle for basics, that too weapons that are critical for defensive (rather than offensive) deployment — ammunition, artillery guns and air defence systems, to name a few. The state of affairs continues despite the Indian armed forces’ long history of military engagement, both internal and external. In 1999, the Indian Army managed to vacate the Pakistani Army’s intrusion in the Kargil sector after two long months of fighting and at considerable human and material cost. The sordid state of affairs at the time was reflected in then Army chief Gen V.P. Malik’s declaration at a news conference in the midst of the war that “if war is thrust upon us, we will fight with whatever we have”. Such was the state that both during and immediately after the war, India signed 129 contracts worth Rs 2,175 crore for the purchase of several basic items for the Army, including special mountain clothing, bulletproof jackets and ammunition. Following the tabling of the report prepared by the Kargil Review Committee chaired by K. Subrahmanyam, the government set up a Group of Ministers Committee in 2000, which recommended significant reforms on issues related to India’s higher defence management system, intelligence apparatus and the border management system. Yet, these recommended reforms were clearly insufficient. For, the Army’s large-scale mobilisation aimed at attacking Pakistan immediately after the terror attack on Indian Parliament in December 2001, two and a half years after the Kargil War, revealed further deficiencies. One would have thought that 11 years on, the situation would have improved. Yet, we are still struggling with the basics that include sufficient quantities of ammunition, notwithstanding purchase or agreements for big-ticket items. These include Scorpene submarines from France; an aircraft carrier; scores of more Su-30 long-range multi-role fighters; T-90 main battle tanks; IL-78 air-to-air refuelling aircraft from Russia; airborne warning and control system (AWACS) from Israel mounted on Russian-made IL-76 aircraft; P8i maritime multi-mission aircraft; a warship (ex-USS Trenton); and C-130J Hercules aircraft from the US. Deficiencies persist The continued deficiencies in equipping the defence forces beg the question ‘why?’ The answer comprises a complicated set of reasons. One, there are basic flaws in India’s higher defence management system. Two, India has a severely limited military-industrial complex that necessitates buying defence equipment from abroad. Three, procurement continues to be a long and cumbersome process. Unlike advanced western democracies, the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) is not integrated. The Service headquarters are regarded to be mere departments that have the powers to recommend, while generalist (and many times ignorant) bureaucrats with no prior understanding of the Services form the superior second-tier in the decision-making process. This often results in misgivings, turf wars, and in an “us versus them” situation that serves as an impediment to national security. This is not to say that the armed forces know it all. Or, that a civilian bureaucracy has no place in the MoD. The ministry without bureaucrats is unthinkable in a democracy where civilian supremacy is and must always remain paramount. Rather, what is required is the Clausewitzian dictum “of the need for overlap of knowledge and understanding between the civilian rulers (in this case the bureaucracy and politicians) and military commanders to create a near semblance execution of their aggregate responsibilities”. Instead, what we find is that the insular armed forces have little understanding of the functioning of the government and procedures, in which bureaucrats have a longstanding experience. On the other hand, a generalist and often ignorant but attitude-laden bureaucracy has little domain knowledge of the armed forces and sometimes fails to understand the urgency and importance of the demands and requirements. In 1997, when George Fernandes was Defence Minister, a group of bureaucrats kept delaying the purchase of much needed snow scooters for troops posted in the Siachen Glacier. An angry Fernandes despatched the bureaucrats to the Siachen base camp to get them to understand the ground realities faced by Army soldiers in the hostile high-altitude terrain. It might help if there were to be an institutionalised system whereby bureaucrats holding key positions in the MoD spent some time with armed forces formations for orientation. Likewise, defence officers need to be educated on the government’s decision-making processes. Import reliance Considering that India is severely limited in self-reliance, we have no option but to import. India, which has been ranking among the world’s top three importers of defence equipment for the past several years, gets 70 per cent of its weapon systems from overseas due to serious drawbacks in the country’s military-industrial complex. India’s indigenisation capability in high-end technologies is mostly based on licensed production and technology transfer. Indigenisation efforts have mostly been confined to components and subsystems fitted on various equipments. The drawback continues despite major decisions such as permitting 100 per cent participation to the Indian private sector in the traditionally state-controlled military-industrial complex and permitting 26 per cent foreign direct investment, subject to licensing. Procurement process Much of the delays, which have often led to the MoD annually surrendering large sums of its capital budget (between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000 crore), arise from the cumbersome procurement process. The MoD has been consistently improving on the Defence Procurement Procedures (DPP), yet just how cumbersome is the process is gauged from the fact that 13 different agencies reporting to different functional heads are involved. There are, by turn, eight stages of processing, each consisting of nine to 10 approval points, with each approval point having at least three submission points. Even for post contract management, four different agencies are involved with very little coordination among them. Yet, the fact remains that defence acquisition is a cross-disciplinary exercise requiring expertise in technology, military, finance, quality assurance, market research, contract management, project management, administration and policy making. Often, people involved do not have adequate training or exposure to project, procurement or contract management. Then again, technical processing in the Army’s War Establishment, which is a key procurement activity, is done by Service officers on a tenure posting that does not last more than three years. This prevents specialisation. Advanced countries have a separate integrated defence acquisition organisation within the Defence Ministry, which brings the Service, technical, finance, quality assurance and administration elements under one accountability centre. Big aspirations Can a country India’s size and importance with a disputed land border stretching across hundreds of kilometres (about 4,000 km with China and about 1,000 km with Pakistan) and having aspirations of being a player in world politics afford to perennially suffer from basics like ammunition shortage? Over the next decade, India will spend some US$ 50 billion, buying big ticket items to develop major capabilities aimed at power projection and deterrence. Yet, we have been unable to put in place certain basics — a faster and more efficient decision making process, a healthier and realistic higher defence management system, and more serious efforts at building self-reliance. Instead, what we continue to specialise in is petty politicking arising out of turf wars and bruised egos. Is this the sum total of the wisdom of a country that prides in Chanakya’s “Arthashastra”, written long before Niccolo Machivelli’s “Prince” and perhaps even before Sun Tze’s “Art of War”?
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This above all
Geeti Sen is currently Director of the Indian Cultural Centre in Kathmandu. She specialises in modern Indian Art and has published several books on the subject. Her latest offering is “Your History Gets in the Way of My Memory: Essays on Indian Artists” (Collins). It deals with the works of Ganesh Pyne, Maqbool Fida Husain, Anupam Sud, Nilima Sheikh, Manjit Bawa, Sayeed Haider Raza, Meera Mukherjee and Zarina Hashmi.
“Far away was a house with Four Walls/ On rainy nights the ghost stopped by the pillar/ The black snake came in the house/ On long summer afternoons everyone slept/ I run outside to play and burn my feet/ One night we heard the owl in the tree/ The one-eyed maid said we would have to move far away.” Last month there was an invasion of visitors from Pak. I do not use its full name Pakistan or the derogatory Paki, but Pak because it was pure and full of warmth. I welcomed them with open arms, particularly Asma Jehangir, who is Pakistan’s loudest voice clamouring for closer relations with India. I am of the opinion that instead of requiring visas, both countries should have entry permits which can be filled at entry points, stating purpose and length of the visit. And the visitor allowed free entry. I put this suggestion to Asma and she fully endorsed my suggestion. Relations between us and Pakistanis should be most cordial and exemplary for neighbouring countries. If Canada and the United States can live as good neighbours, so can Indians and Pakistanis as brothers with no misunderstandings. ARAB AND THE CAMEL There was a time when/ Men and women on earth/ Went about naked, as at birth./ To make cloth, man took ages;/ Then came clothes, tell history’s pages/ And then quietly sneaked in Fashion,/ The grace of clothes to heighten./ But it proved the Arab’s camel,/ Who first solicited for his snout/ And finally pushed The Arab Out./ So now we see little of cloth or clothes/ Naked Fashion struts on ramp and roads. (Contributed by J.C. Mehta, Delhi) SKIRTING AROUND I was travelling by air from Amritsar to Delhi. Due to fog, the plane was unable to land and kept roaming around Delhi. And the public address system kept saying that the plane was on the outskirts of Delhi and would land shortly. Fed up with repeated announcements, my fellow (Sardarji) passenger called the airhostess and shouted: “When would we enter the ‘inskirts’?” The lady was stunned and speechless. OBC BANK Interview Board Chairman: “Give the full form of OBC Bank”? Candidate: “Other Backward Classes” Bank. (Contributed by KJS
Ahluwalia, Amritsar)
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TOUCHSTONE IRA PANDE
Growing up in small towns in the Fifties and Sixties, local cinema was one of our greatest delights. ‘Going to the pictures’ was a treat we savoured because it was offered so rarely by our strict and parsimonious parents.
Nainital’s cinema halls functioned only during the ‘season’ (roughly March to November) and we happily made the journey up and down steep hillsides to see the occasional Hollywood film with our parents.
In Lucknow, where we moved later, the posh Mayfair in Hazratgunj screened children’s films on Sunday mornings, and how we begged to be allowed to see some. We had to choose between a small packet of potato chips or a bar of chocolate and my brother and I tactically chose one each. Later we shared it to the last potato chip and crumb of chocolate. I have such a clear memory of the ads that preceded the actual film (Vicks with its magical bronchiole-clearing fumes) because we did not want to miss even a single moment of this sacred ritual. The Films’ Division newsreel followed: scenes of villages devastated by floods or drought, jolly shots of visiting dignitaries (mostly rotund figures from the USSR and East European countries, if I remember correctly), and Chacha Nehru dedicating another dam or steel works to the nation. The deep sonorous voice-overs by Melville de Mello ring in my ears even now. If this nostalgic requiem seems over the top, it is because going to the movies is now a completely different experience. For one, the old cinema halls have been nudged out by the multiplexes that dot the urban landscape of all our cities: big or small. The price of a single trip can set one back by a tidy sum and no one stops at just that, for there are hideously overpriced cold drinks and beverages, junk food trays and cartons of popcorn sold at many times their actual cost. And as for the junk that is shown on the screens, the less said the better. This is why some recent films one saw were such a rewarding experience. Two of these, “Kahani” and “Paan Singh Tomar” were made on modest budgets and have been huge successes. Significantly, other recent releases made across two continents and on mindboggling budgets with superstars and hi-tech action scenes, songs and lewd dances, have failed quite miserably. Some lessons need to be stressed here, and the first is that no matter what your ancestry and how much money you can pump in, a strong script has no alternative. The second is that no amount of glamour or good looks can ever trump good acting. Irrfan Khan is no pretty chocolate-box boy or hunky beefcake, nor is he all that young. Vidya Balan is also not a size zero bimbo and is mostly seen in saris, not designer wear. Both she and Irrfan are intelligent enough to choose the roles that require intense emotive skill but they underplay rather than overact. I think it is time that our producers and directors acknowledge that language and a facility with dialogue is essential while choosing actors. “Paan Singh Tomar” is set in the Chambal ravines and the characters speak Bundelkhandi, a dialect that even Hindi-speakers may find difficult to handle. But in choosing to keep the local patois, the director has brought a rare authenticity to the screen. People of my generation will remember the lyrical Bhojpuri dialect of Bimal Roy’s Ganga-Jamuna, another film that celebrated the life of a “baghi (rebel)”. “Mother India” and “Bandini” are two other films that have retained their appeal even after decades, because they are a reminder of the true rural India. They offer to us India-walas, a taste of “asli” Bharat. No foreign locale can quite rival the perennial appeal of a rooted and authentic terrain, for it creates an organic relationship between character, narrative and viewer. Studio-sets that simulate a pretty ‘village’ with pert lasses and thatched huts created by set designers who have never set foot in a village will never be able to bring alive the raw appeal of a real village. The more I think back, the more I realise that the best lyrics ever produced were by Hindi-Urdu writers who were poets and comrades. Poets such as Shailendra, Kaifi Azmi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Rahi Masoom Raza, Javed Akhtar’s father Jan Nissar Akhtar and Javed himself, came to Bombay from small towns and brought with them memories that poured out as memorable lines. The music that breathed life into their lyrics was either based on classical ragas or on folk traditions such as Thumri, Dadra or Biraha. The Bombay film industry of the Fifties and Sixties was in the hands of those who had a progressive streak and those who looked for serious themes rather than entertainment when making films. This is probably why our films had an uncanny ability to apprehend social reality and portray it realistically. Song and dance were freely used, but again they had a resonance that dinned the tunes into our heads. So while new numbers may be the rage for a week or month, the old golden numbers stay with you for a lifetime. There is scope for all kinds of films and indeed variety keeps the wheels of life moving. But of late, it had begun to seem as if all that worked was the formula film, with item numbers and sexy locations. Thank God, the wheel seems to be turning and what was once called the New Wave cinema is slowly re-emerging from this welter of sex and violence. |
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On the record by
Dr Carl W. Ernst, an authority on Sufism, is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Islamic studies at the Department of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina. He is also the director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations. Dr Ernst received his PhD from Harvard University in 1981. He has written several books on Islam such as “Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World”; “Sufi Martyrs of Love: Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond” (co-authored with Bruce Lawrence); “Teachings of Sufism”, How to Read the Qur'an: A New Guide, with Select Translations”, which have received several international awards for his contribution to understanding Islam in the non-Islamic world. Jalaluddin Rumi remained forgotten for centuries. Then he was re-discovered. Does that mean poetry needs the right time to be understood? Actually, Rumi was not forgotten in Persia, Turkey, or India. But his works were discovered by Europeans in the late 18th century, and the interest has increased significantly in recent years. But we still have relatively little of his poetry available in decent English translations. The six-volume Masnavi is indeed available in Nicholson’s painfully literal translation, but recent superior verse translations by Javid Mojaddedi and Alan Williams have only completed one or two of those volumes, and we really only have a fraction of Rumi’s 30,000 lines of lyrical poetry (ghazals). So I think there is still quite a bit to be done in terms of understanding his work. Has there been an attempt to de-contextualise Islam from popular Sufi poetry to suit certain tastes? European Orientalists were very enthusiastic about Sufism, but since they didn’t like Islam very much, they often decided that Sufism must come from somewhere else — although there is very little historical evidence to support such a theory. Rumi indeed was a Muslim who prayed and practised Shari'a, and his first name was Muhammad. He is often presented as an ecumenical figure who transcends any religion, but this has more to do with modern cultural politics than his actual situation. It is impossible to understand Rumi's poetry without connecting it to the context of early Sufism. Rumi is considered to be one of the most popular poets in the US. How did that come to be? The scholarly translations of Rumi’s ghazals by A. J. Arberry were deliberately written “with no concession to readability”. The American poet Robert Bly handed a volume of these translations to another poet, Coleman Barks, and told him, “Free these birds from their cages!” Barks worked from these existing English translations rather than the original Persian, often reciting them with musical accompaniment, and his work was highlighted by the television interview programme of Bill Moyers. Although these attractive new versions were somewhat selective (highlighting the humorous and the erotic and downplaying Islamic religious references), they clearly addressed contemporary concerns and became immensely popular. Is the Sufism practised in West Asia different from the Sufi traditions of South Asia, particularly India? Sufism everywhere is local in the sense that it is articulated through particular lineages of masters and disciples, which often cluster around local shrines where Sufi saints are buried. This always gives a particularly local flavour to Sufism, which is also expressed through local languages and customs. While there are still major Sufi pilgrimage sites in the Arab world, reverence for Saints is much more widespread in South Asia. You have studied the Chishti sect of Sufism. How do you look at Islamisation of dargahs post 9/11? For example, women are not allowed in some dargahs. Gender restrictions in Sufi shrines are not necessarily general Islamic proscriptions. In Pakistan, for instance, the Suhrawardi shrines in Multan do not restrict women, whereas the Chishti shrines regularly prevent women from entering (except for the occasional shrine of a woman Sufi, where the reverse rule may apply). Nevertheless, it may be said that some Sufi traditions that were previously considered nonconformist in terms of Islamic practice, such as the Madaris who were founded in the 15th century by the unconventional qalandar-style dervish Shah Madar, now express themselves in a much more Islamic language and identity. This is not so much a post-9/11 phenomenon as it is a reflection of the spread of Islamic discourses on the Internet. You wrote “How to Read the Quran”. Is it for non-Muslims, or followers of the faith? This book is definitely for non-Muslims, and it proposes a literary and historical way of reading the text without declaring any theological agenda. Such an approach is definitely needed, because of the immense contemporary anxiety over the mere existence of the Qur’an — an anxiety that comes both from religious conservatives and from non-religious people. You said that poetry of Hafiz is often not authentic. Who are the authentic translators of Hafiz and Rumi? There are some translators of Hafiz and Rumi who come close to complete fabrication, producing “translations” that have no demonstrable relationship with anything actually written by the Persian poets. Readers who are concerned about this issue of ultra-postmodern “translations” should look into the preface and see whether the translator actually refers to any particular original Persian text or not. For Hafiz, I still like the extremely subtle translations produced by Gertrude Bell. There is also a nice Hafiz collaboration between Robert Bly and a scholar of Persian, Leonard Lewisohn. For Rumi, people should take a look at the work of Franklin Lewis, Annemarie Schimmel, Javid Mojaddedi, and Alan Williams. Which Indian Sufi poets do you like? Among the Indian Sufi poets I admire are the Chishtis, Mas`ud Bakk and Gisu Daraz, plus Jamali and Sarmad. |
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PROFILE Dr Mohan’s father himself was a pioneer in the field of diabetes. He had to quit as a professor in Madras Medical College because of certain problems. A devoted doctor, but Prof Vishwanathan had not built a private practice. He told his son he wanted to set up a clinic, but it would be difficult for him to set up a diabetics centre alone. “If you join me, I can do something,” he said. Though more devoted to poetry and literature, Dr Mohan could not say “no”. He thought, if not poetry, he could write “medical literature”. Dr Mohan thus joined Madras Medical College. Subsequently, he received Dr R.V. Rajam Gold Medal for standing first in Madras University in the MD examination and Nageswara Pantulu Gold Medal for original research by a post-graduate student. Thus was born a medical prodigy. The father-son team set up the first private diabetics clinic in India in 1971. Dr Mohan developed a passion for research early, starting work on diabetes as a second-year student. During his pharmacology posting, Dr Mohan received a lucky break. Prof Lalitha Kameswara, Professor of Pharmacology at Madras Medical College, allowed him to conduct research involving animal experiments during the summer vacation. Working on guinea pigs and dogs, he tried to find out the effects of various anti-diabetes drugs. This was when Dr Mohan also met Dr Rema, whom he married after completing his House Surgeon’s stint. After MD in 1981, he joined his father to work fulltime at MV College for Diabetes and Diabetes Research Centre. In 1985, the couple left for the UK for higher studies. While Dr Rema underwent training in diabetes retinopathy under the world famous Dr Eva Kohner, Dr Mohan worked as a Welcome Research fellow. After returning to India in 1986, the two rejoined the Diabetes Research Centre for five years, when Dr Mohan also completed his PhD. Meanwhile, they also started a separate centre for diabetic eye diseases. This was the beginning of their entrepreneurial skills. By 1991, they started their own centre, then called MV Diabetes Specialist Centre, and later Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialty Centre (DMDSC). Starting from a humble beginning in a rented building at Royapettah, the centre today has wings in several parts of India, serving more than 2.7 lakh registered patients. Devotees of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the couple started holding frequent diabetes camps as charity. Tragedy stuck Dr Mohan last year, when Dr Rema passed away, not living to see her illustrious husband receive the Padma Shri last week. His daughter and son-in-law also specialise in diabetes. |
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