Generals and Politicians in India

Abstract

INDIA HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED from the leading exponent of peaceful initiatives to a nation vitally concerned with military security.' Her military defeat by China has led to large increases in defense spending and substantial projected expansion of the military services. In new states, the modern professionalism of the military with its apparent promise of order and efficiencyand the ineffectiveness of nationalist political classes-has often led to military take-overs. This has not been the case in India, but will it be so in the future? How is it that the Indian military services have played a limited professional role when in neighboring Pakistan, also part of the old British Raj, the present regime is headed by a military man, General Ayub Khan? Both military and political leaders in India agree that the variable is not the army itself. Senior Indian officers who attended Sandhurst with their Pakistan counterparts remember a shared military past and see little difference between themselves and Pakistani generals. Prime Minister Nehru and Defense Minister Chavan concur. They agree it was not inordinate ambition or a special taste for politics but the failure of the political classes to govern effectively that persuaded the Pakistani army under Ayub Khan to seize power. It took power, Mr. Nehru believes, naturally, automatically, when politics failed. It seems reasonable to senior Indian officers that when politicians play ducks and drakes, as they did in Pakistan, rather than shoulder their responsibilities, the army should step in to put things right. But in the absence of a serious failure of politics Indian army men will adhere to a standard learned under the British, to know their place.