BUILD BRAND ARMY

I was invited to a seminar organized in 2009, under the auspices of HQ Southern Command, Pune on a subject of popular interest in these trying times, when shortage in the officer cadre of the Indian Army has put its spin doctors in an overdrive mode---but in vain. My course mates, Lt Gen V K Chaturvedi , Director General Manpower & Planning, Adjutant General’s Branch, Army HQ and Air Marshal Tejinder Randhawa, Commandant, National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla were the speakers and panelists, respectively. The subject for deliberation was “How Can We Build Brand Army”?.

The audience comprised very eminent and senior ranking personalities from the Armed Forces and Civil Services alike, including retired officers of distinction and merit. The focus and one point agenda of the seminar was to present, discuss, debate and agree upon a real time methodology to popularize the Forces in general and the Army in particular, as a career option for the youth of the country. This, essentially because of the persistent indifference of the ‘demographic dividend’ within India, towards a career in the Services and the Army, especially. A shortage of approximately 12000 officers in an Organization which has an authorized strength of 44,000 officers, is a matter of serious concern for the mandarins occupying offices in South Block.

Borrowing from the lexicon of Corporate Houses, which have sprouted in the aftermath of a liberalized economy ushered in during the Narasimha Rao Government in the decade of the 90s, “Brand Army” was coined in keeping with the prevalent mood of ‘India Shining’ and a double digit growth in the country. The Indian Army has years of history and traditions behind it, which give it the defining character of its name and fame. To be carried away by the attraction and popularity of material affluence and capitulate to its glossary is, to my mind, vacuous.

 The grasp of the audio visual medium to hard sell and publicize the espoused cause, by reiterating a life of honor, guts, glory and glamour has become passé and delivers no more. Reaching out to the school and college children through personal interactions, motivation and presentations about the Army, has not yielded the desired effect and deficiencies remain as hither to fore. Military and Sainik Schools, National Cadet Corps and the Ranks continue to remain the only regular feeders into the pre commission training establishments. Efforts to increase and improve the yield from the available catchment areas, for the purpose, has not been commensurate to the endeavor.

Notwithstanding all else, the spate of scams and scandals involving the Army’s senior leadership in the past and  recent decade has not served our cause. The one Unique Selling Property (USP) which the Services and the Army were proud of, amongst all the discriminatory and belittling innuendos heaped upon its status, precedence and service conditions by the colluding politicians and bureaucrats, was its perception of a clean, honest and upright service. It enjoyed an exclusive reputation amongst a generally corrupt and mediocre environment of governance. Now, that too has been badly eroded and compromised. It is the consistency in our exemplary deportment and conduct, which should have been leveraged to our best advantage and publicly pronounced for the desired affect. This to my mind , even though I detest using the corporate analogy, would have built the “Brand Army” and served the cause of  the Army.

Will all those who belong(ed) to this Army and serve(d) in its rank and file, stand up for a noble and proud cause by joining together and declaring in a single and selfless voice, which resonates in the corridors of Sena Bhawan and South Block, that the scamsters involved in the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society must be brought to book and given exemplary punishment, to partially redeem the Army’s Pride and Reputation. This may herald the beginning of a new era of probity and rectitude in Service life and  establish the credibility of ‘Brand Army”.

Brigadier (retd) S D Dangwal

15 B Shubash Road

Dehra Dun-248001

Tele No 07895131861