Await the Judgement. There are no winners only survivors

WE NEED TO CHANGE. ITS WRONG TO BLAME ANYONE ELSE FOR OUR WOES.

Having lived life on my terms and that, which elevates the spirit; it interests me to muse on the happenings which have occupied media time and space and emerged into the public domain, in the intervening years since my superannuation. Everything else apart; the huge moral and ethical deficit in the demeanor of some senior officers in the Army, has absorbed my undivided attention and made me to second guess, the cause thereof. Why, has the responsible leadership in the Army succumbed to such perverse conduct? Is it a recent phenomenon only or else, has the recent pro active and ubiquitous media expounded the festering malaise of corruption into an embellishing reality. Which, was always there but kept veiled from the prying eyes of the public? For lack of intrusive investigation into the goings on behind the fig leaf of an over trusting Chetwodian Credo; of ‘Country first, Men second and Self last, Always and Every Time’. Or, the noble minded motto of the National Defense Academy, ‘Service before Self ’. My personal sagacity however precludes me from making a sweeping and unilateral observation into these assumptions. But, nonetheless convinces me that changing times have yielded to the gratifying market trend of ends justifying means, which impinge upon values, morals, ethics and character. Therefore, it should be fair to assume that probity and rectitude should not be perceived in absolute terms. But, its relative absence in the behavior of the present generation of senior ranking officers has proliferated and hence caught media attention in a rather exaggerated manner, with an agenda to sensationalize.

 Be that as it may, history is witness to a progressive and enduring change coming about in a Society, Culture, Creed, Organization etc only when the yearning for it has come from within and not without. Similarly, if there is such a growing aversion to the moral down slide which has besieged the Army in the recent past, among the majority of serving officers and the veterans who constitute its brotherhood. Then, I am afraid the answer to arrest this phenomenon has to come from within the rank and file of the Organization, alone. It is a travesty of our Army’s History that, we do not learn from the past and most often prepare for the last war we had fought. Likewise, it is most unfortunate that success alone, which gets equated with rank in the career growth of an officer, gets pedestalised in the tight and closed hierarchy of our Army. Many a good officers in particular, who provide the mainstay to the calibrated demand of character driven leadership in the Army, are more often than not superseded. Uprightness gets punished and ‘vice paying homage to virtue’ gets rewarded. Hypocrisy and Sycophancy thrive to upstage core values, leaving the Army poorer by the absence of those officers who could well have become the genuine guardians of its heart and soul. It provides an ideal environment for mediocrity and corruption to breed and proliferate. And, we thus land up into a most undesirable situation of ‘missing the wood for the trees’. Where from will this demand of providing good officers, who show spine and abide by the courage of their convictions, to give the desired leadership to units / formations / head quarters,

 materialize. This will continue to remain the chronic problem which haunts the Army’s reputation, on matters concerning probity and rectitude in its officers.

Conceding that, thoughts have within them the power to influence and bring about a change. The bottom line for this to happen will forever remain the credibility which accompanies the proclamation. A captive, obsequious or enforced audience can never afford a genuine response to a planted thought for a value based demand. This has to come from example and not words, because principle driven actions come from an abiding sense of selflessness. Unfortunately, in an environment bereft of such perceivable reality among the majority of its senior leadership, the espoused belief gets progressively eroded and compromised. The yawning gap between practice and precept continues to make the situation, still worse. A hybrid moral culture of convenience, rather than values and principles is conceived, which propagates the contemptuous art of Situational Ethics. When the consequences of being discovered exist and punitive action is inevitable, be moral. However, when this is not so, do whatever one wishes to, and without any moral compunction. This gets endorsed and validated by a subterfuge of redefining this trait as Tact, an indispensable quality of higher leadership. The situation could not be more absurd from what it is and begs some real serious answers for its redemption.

Most contemporary writings on leadership by Indian Army Officers are not inspiring enough, for the young and upcoming officers to either emulate or else validate their beliefs from. Hence, it falls short of creating the requisite impulse and momentum to reinforce that which is enduring and truthful. The moral and ethical exhortations / illustrations in these writings are more for pandering to one’s ego and conceit than genuine self examples of righteousness. Such writing can seldom inspire and impact the embedded line of popular and success driven thinking, which engulfs the majority. Even, when this is immoral and unethical. It was in such a reality that I, in my own modest and humble manner, authored a book for exactly the very purpose of establishing by example the virtue of living by the merit of one’s Soul. And still grew and prospered in the very System, which has been vilified by most for being callous towards those who are of character, competence and also courageous. Not satisfied to be a Columbus to my soul, I tilted at the windmills for what I perceived as right and faced disciplinary and administrative consequences, including an attempt to trial by a General Court Martial. And, all these punitive actions were unleashed upon me by the organization, for standing up for truth. This brief context is not for self praise or else acknowledgement, but instead to make my contribution to the future leadership of the Army, which has not as yet been sullied by the deviousness that consumes the good officer in his transition to a successful officer. I consider these years of living as a veteran, pay back time for all that the Army has given me to enrich my Spirit with and live a life of gratitude towards all. I, titled this book ‘PASSION FOR COURAGE – A WINNER’S CREED’, in the hope that through its pages a discerning reader can reinforce the sentiment that, ‘The Officer Corps is The Heart And Soul of Any Military Organization’.

In these unfortunate days, in the history of the Indian Army, the question which begs an answer from each one of us veterans, is not what the Politician or the Bureaucrat has done to the Army? But instead what we have done to ourselves? Imagine what reputation is being bequeathed to the future generations and to the future Chief. It is not as if the Honor Roll of the Chiefs will end with Generals NC Vij, JJ Singh, Deepak Kapoor and VK Singh, who all have in some measure or the other brought discredit to the Institutions of the Army and its Chief. All the raving and ranting about either the politicians or else the bureaucrats will not achieve anything substantial,but instead only invite further opprobrium. The only thing which one can change is HIMSELF and non else.This is what should set us thinking on the measures, which the Army must adopt to resurrect its battered public perception. 

Brigadier (retd) S D Dangwal,VSM

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