Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Acts of Desperation by Soldiers: Humiliation is Invariably the Trigger

Acts of Desperation by Soldiers: Humiliation is Invariably the Trigger

Major General Mrinal Suman

The news of the initiation of disciplinary action against 168 personnel (4 officers including the Commanding Officer, 17 Junior Commissioned Officers and 147 Other Ranks) of 226 Field Regiment was received with a sense of deep anguish by all the well wishers of the Indian army. Increasing incidents of collective indiscipline do not portend well for a military; in fact, they are ominous.
In a written reply on 26 November 2013, Defence Minister A K Antony informed the Parliament that 394 army troops had committed suicide and more than 25,063 personnel had opted for pre-mature retirement in the preceding three years. In addition, over 80 soldiers had reportedly lost their lives due to fratricide during the last decade.
Acts of collective insubordination, suicides, fratricides, court cases and applications for pre-mature release are commonly considered as reflective of the health of a military organisation. What are the disquieting reasons that are compelling Indian soldiers to resort to such desperate acts? Why have they become so edgy? Where have the things gone wrong?
Significantly, a recent study on the high suicide rate in the army by the Defence Institute of Psychological Research held that ‘perceived humiliation and harassment’ at the hands of superiors often served as the final ‘trigger’ for jawans to resort to extreme acts.
Humiliation: a Complex Psychological Trauma
Humiliation is a vicious psychological experience that impacts a man’s self-esteem, hurts his ego and abases his sense of pride. It invariably results in the emotion of shame. Many socio-psychologists consider humiliation to be an extreme form of psychological abuse. It hits at the core of an individual’s sense of worth. It generates the feeling of being put down or made to feel less than one feels oneself to be.

As humiliation is an intricate and multi-dimensional human perception, different humans react differently when subjected to humiliation. Some view their experience rather gravely. They feel emotionally battered, ill-treated, shamed, dishonored and degraded. For them, it becomes an issue of wounded pride and dehumanisation.

Others may take humiliation as a humbling experience. Yet, a small minority may accept humiliation as a corrective chastisement and consider it to be justified to an extent. Thus, impact and severity of humiliation is dependent on the discernment and sensitiveness of the humiliated. Some withdraw into their shells and suffer from apathy and depression. Others seek revenge by inflicting injuries on others and themselves. 

Perilous effects of humiliation can manifest themselves through various symptoms – cognitive (indecisiveness, anxiety, worrying and fearfulness), emotional (moodiness, irritability, edginess, hypersensitivity, short temper and depression), physical (headache, muscle tension, nausea and insomnia) and behavioural (procrastination, excessive use of alcohol, nervousness and overreaction). Both interpersonal and group dynamics are impacted.   

Unlike shame, humiliation is always public, involving the humiliator, the humiliated and the viewers. Humiliation meted out in comparative privacy is generally less upsetting: severity depends on the extent of community exposure. The worst part of humiliation is that it is almost impossible to retract it. It leaves an indelible scar on the psyche of the victim. It bruises his ego and questions his basic worth.

Soldiers and Humiliation
As seen above, humiliation by itself is pathogenic enough to cause irreversible damage to the human psyche. Its toxicity increases multifold when humiliation is inflicted on a person who is already struggling to weather stresses.  It is an accepted fact that humiliation and stress make a lethal combination, resulting in a ‘pressure cooker effect’. In the case of soldiers, it blows the safety valve that unit cohesion and military training provide, thereby threatening emotional and psychological equilibrium of soldiers.
Stress is a euphemism for describing the consequences of the failure of a human being to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined. Failure to cope up with the challenges results in extreme pressures which generate stress. When stress surpasses ability to handle, it becomes a threat to an individual’s well-being and generates a state of alarm and adrenaline production.
Challenges in military life are different than those faced by civilians, both in terms of threat of physical harm and emotional security. In the case of the Indian army, these stresses acquire heightened severity due to prolonged deployment in challenging environment. With an increase in the education level of soldiers’ wives, many are highly qualified and gainfully employed. They prefer to stay at one place for the sake of their career and children’s education. Resultantly, soldiers are deprived of family support in times of emotional disturbances. Resultantly, stress tends to become distress.

In a command oriented and hierarchical organisation like the army, status-consciousness is an essential trait of every soldier’s persona. He takes pride in his rank and appointment.  When his sense of pride and dignity are abused through humiliation, the already over-stressed and distressed soldier loses his balance and resorts to acts of desperation. The resultant ‘fight-or-flight’ response results in acts of extreme violence – a humiliated soldier runs amok, kills innocent comrades and pumps a bullet in his own head to put an end to the perceived agony.

Humiliation can be verbal or physical or circumstantial. In the army, it can be inflicted in a number of ways – demotion (reduction in rank or responsibility), denial of promotion, public punishment/censure and neglect through the silent treatment.

Need for Reforms

Times have changed. Earlier, rural youth with little education and limited demands joined the Indian army. They were hardy and accepted the privations of the environment without questioning them. The army of today is more ubiquitous. It draws manpower from all segments of the society. The current generation of soldiers is much better educated. Having being exposed to the electronic media, their awareness level is of a much higher order. They are quick to spot iniquitous and deviant conduct of their seniors.

Consequently, there has been a phenomenal rise in the expectations and aspirations of soldiers. They have become very conscious of their position and sensitive to any threat, real or perceived, to their self-respect. Like the rest of the society, their value system is also undergoing major changes. They question various policies and practices.  
 
Worse, regular contact with the families through modern telecom keeps soldiers embroiled in day to day problems faced by the families – children falling sick or not studying or ill-health of parents or troubles caused by unruly neighbours. Earlier joint family system took care of many such exigencies.

Inability to be with parents and family in times of domestic emergencies makes many soldiers suffer from guilt complex. They feel that they have failed their parents/families. They feel helpless and become fretful. Their threshold of tolerance goes down. In such a state, humiliation acts a trigger. They lose their mental balance and act in an irrational manner. In extreme cases, humiliation generates a feeling of revenge and violent retaliation.

The army can no longer ignore the realities of the changing environment. It must appreciate the fact that a modern soldier is highly conscious of his self-esteem and resents humiliation. Whereas job related stresses cannot be fully eliminated, measures must be initiated to ensure that a soldier’s sensibilities are not unduly offended. For that, both the organisation and the leaders have to undertake reformative steps.

The army as an organisation must review its work culture. Status of soldiers must be improved. They should be made to feel wanted and respected. No soldier should ever be asked to perform jobs which he considers to be ‘unsoldierlike’ and demeaning. To start with, the much discussed institution of sahayaks (orderlies) should be discarded. No sahayaks should be allowed in the stations where families are allowed to stay. Most soldiers abhor sahayak duties and consider them to be degrading. They have to be coerced or threatened. It is a major issue with most troops and a key cause for much disaffection.

Similarly, soldiers resent being detailed to cut grass or sweep roads or maintain golf courses and other facilities. It is a most unbecoming sight for the public to see soldiers employed on such duties. All tasks related to maintenance of cantonment facilities should be outsourced to civilian agencies. This single step will not only spare troops for training but also improve their level of job satisfaction considerably.

As regards the leaders, they have to be sensitive to the psychosomatic make-up of their troops as humiliation is a victim-based phenomenon. Troops from some areas are more sensitive to the treatment meted out to them than the others.  For example, whereas an inadvertent use of the word ‘bloody’ by an officer can be misconstrued by some soldiers to be highly abusive and demeaning, others may view it with nonchalance.

In addition, changed environment demands a change in leadership technique. Leaders have to learn to handle the soldiers with empathy and due concern for their sensitivities. At times, even harmless looking episodes may get misconstrued and feelings of humiliation may arise simply because of misapprehension or the state of mind of the victim. Close and regular interaction helps sort out such perceived misunderstandings and grievances. The leaders should also be trained to read symptoms of stress building up in a soldier and initiate corrective action in time.

Soldiers are very sensitive to the way their wives are treated. There is a need to sensitise the wives of the senior leaders regarding this aspect. Many cases of indiscipline owe their origin to cases of mistreatment (real or perceived) in Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA) meetings. Soldiers’ wives find AWWA meets to be a humiliating experience and have to be coaxed and cajoled to attend. AWWA is considered by many to be the breeding ground for dissentions in the army and a major contributory factor in generating disaffection in many units.
The system of redressal of grievances must be made more responsive and compassionate. Troops must be convinced that their genuine concerns would be attended to in a just, fair and time-bound manner.
Finally          
As the above discussion shows, for soldiers, a clearly defined identity based on self-esteem is of paramount importance and a key motivator. Soldiers draw strength from the standing that they enjoy amongst their peers and the immediate group (sub-unit/unit). They continuously strive for recognition as it gives them a sense of accomplishment. Humiliation strikes at the core of their soldierly pride, makes them feel small and debases their sense of own worth. Humiliation of a soldier amounts to denting his military honour, the very source of his sustenance.

Public reprimand and employment on unsoldierlike duties must be avoided. Punishments carried out to ‘make an example’ of a person and present a deterrent to others can prove to be grievous for the psyche of the humiliated soldier. No offence in day to day unit functioning can be serious enough to warrant such a treatment.

In the case of soldiers who are already stressed and are on short fuse, humiliation acts as a trigger to emotional implosion with disastrous consequences. Evelin Lindner, the eminent trans-disciplinary scholar in humanities calls humiliation as the ‘nuclear bomb of the emotions’. Military leaders will do well to keep this term in mind and deal with the soldiers with due compassion and consideration for their sense of pride.

It must be clarified here that compassion does not mean dilution of discipline. On the contrary, a compassionate leader acquires moral authority and psychological ascendency over his command. Troops respect him and trust him. Willing obedience and discipline are the natural corollary.*****









Need for Defence and Aerospace Commission


Need for Defence and Aerospace Commission
(FORCE August 2012)

Major General Mrinal Suman, AVSM, VSM, PhD

Quite unabashedly, Indian leaders take pride in claiming that India is the largest buyer of weapons in the world, whereas it is a matter of national shame that even after 65 years of Independence, India continues to remain wholly dependent on imported defence systems. It was in 1995 that Abdul Kalam declared that the ratio of defence imports would be reduced from the then prevailing 70 percent to 30 percent by 2005. It was a laudable aim but was not accompanied by necessary structural and policy changes. Thus it was doomed to fail. 

India’s defence industry is in a pitiable state solely due to the gross inefficiency of the public sector. Instead of mastering imported technology and using it as a spring board to develop newer technologies, it has found the easiest way of making money by acting as pure traders – assemble imported subsystems and sell them to the captive military at unethically exorbitant profits. 

On the other hand, every effort is made to inhibit the entry of private companies in the defence sector, lest they provide competition to the sloppy public sector. Despite repeated assertions to the contrary, enormous potential of India’s vibrant private sector remains untapped. Resultantly, not a single state-of-the-art weapon system has been developed or produced indigenously so far.

Since the inception of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) in 2002, India has been revising it biennially and the much touted reforms have been limited to rationalisation of its various policy provisions. Neither any holistic study of all facets of the defence procurement regime has been undertaken nor has any serious thought ever been given to providing an impetus to indigenous production.

All expert committees constituted to suggest reforms have also limited themselves to minor procedural changes. They have lacked courage to suggest radical overhaul of the system, fearing its outright rejection by the decision makers. They are also wary of earning the displeasure of various interest groups. In any case, most committee reports gather dust in the shelves of official apathy.

In the absence of a strong will to transform, India continues to flounder in the labyrinths of bureaucratic indecision while the country suffers – the armed forces are not getting the required equipment in time and the indigenous defence production is languishing. The current dispensation has been an unqualified failure. 
  
Need to Accept Failure

It is commonly said that a failure is not as bad as persisting with it. Failures should force introspection and drive reforms. Failures are opportunities to learn and improve.

The above is true for national policies and efforts as well. However, there are two key provisos. First, after mustering courage to accept the failure of the existing arrangement, the leadership should carry out an objective analysis of the reasons for failure to identify areas that need corrective treatment. Secondly, the leadership should possess the will and strength to resist well-entrenched status-quoists to usher in sweeping reforms. Half-hearted approach with compromises to accommodate different interest groups will always be a futile and self-defeating exercise.

Additionally, the following three basic realities must be understood and accepted before undertaking reforms:-

a)    Acquisition of defence systems is intrinsically interlinked with the development of indigenous defence industry. Therefore, there has to be a single agency to oversee the complete gamut of related activities. The present system of the Acquisition Wing and the Department of Defence Production (DDP) handling acquisition and production functions respectively can never deliver.

b)   India’s long-preferred route of ‘Buy and Make’ has been appallingly counterproductive and harmful. Under this route, a limited quantity is purchased in fully built up condition from a foreign vendor while the balance bulk quantity is manufactured in India under licence. India has not benefited in terms of technology infusion. On the contrary, such an arrangement has contributed directly to the perpetuation of India’s unhealthy dependence on foreign sub-assemblies.

c)       Management of defence acquisitions and promotion of indigenous defence industrial capability are highly specialised functions, well beyond the competence of generalist bureaucrats and service officers. 

Need for Restructuring

To start with, it must be appreciated that planning and implementation functions are distinctly different. They demand dissimilar but highly focused treatment. Therefore, they must be segregated.

Planning functions should primarily be performed by officials and military leaders who possess necessary understanding of the national security concerns. On the other hand, implementation functions must be entrusted to professionals who are fully conversant with modern technologies and are aware of the latest management techniques to administer multi-faceted and multi-agency programmes.  

A Defence Perspective Planning Council (DPPC) should be constituted as the highest policy making body to handle all planning functions. As national defence is a multi-disciplinary issue, DPPC should be a broad-based body by including representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the Home Ministry and the National Security Advisor. Its role should include identification of capability gaps, approval of 15-years Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan and 5-years Services Capital Acquisition Plan. It should be empowered to approve changes in acquisition procedures, grant deviations from the laid down policies and accord approval to invoke the Fast Track Procedure. See Illustration 1.





Illustration 1: Segregation of Planning and Implementation Functions

India’s experience with the successes achieved by the Atomic Energy Commission and the Space Commission has been highly encouraging. It is time a similar setup is adopted for the defence sector as well.
 
A Defence and Aerospace Commission (referred to as the Commission hereafter) should be established to carry out all execution functions to implement perspective plans approved by DPPC. It should be the nodal agency to oversee the complete defence acquisition process and the development of the indigenous defence industry.

The primary responsibility of the Commission should be to ensure that all approved equipment proposals are implemented within the specified timelines, satisfying all performance parameters and obtaining best value-for-money for the country. At the same time, it should promote development of the indigenous defence industry and facilitate export of defence goods. In other words, it should handle all activities pertaining to armament production, acquisition and export. However, technical evaluation and field trials should continue to be held under the aegis of respective SHQ as hitherto fore.

It should be for the Commission to analyse, debate and determine the route that should be followed for each procurement proposal – outright import or indigenous development or a combination of the both. Factors like quantity, economic viability, urgency, criticality, indigenous capability and acceptable timelines will be the key deciding factors.

Suggested Structure of the Defence and Aerospace Commission

DAC must be headed by a distinguished person who is known to possess competence to synergise, harmonise and administer complex programmes involving multiple agencies. In France, the head of General Directorate for Armament (Direction générale de l’armement) is hand-picked by the Minister of Defence and reports directly to him. He is not answerable to any bureaucrat or service chief. This autonomy allows him to function without any extraneous pressures. India should follow the French example. Chairman of the Commission should be given the rank of Minister of State to authenticate his status.

Suggested structure of the proposed Commission is shown at Illustration 2. It will be seen that the span of responsibility of the Commission straddles across many areas, albeit in mutually related disciplines. Suggested constituents of the Commission are given hereunder.

a)   Acquisition Wing
Being the main acquisition arm of the Commission, it should undertake all functions relating to outright purchases and finalisation of cases wherein indigenous manufacture under licence is planned. Like the current set-up, it should continue to be an integrated set-up to include officials from the Department of Defence, the Finance Division and the Service HQ.

b)   Land Systems Industry Wing
Its primary responsibility should be to oversee indigenous production of land systems, both under licence and through local development. For focused supervision, it should adopt the practice of constituting Integrated Project Management Teams for each project. Another important function of the Wing should be to act as an interface between the government and the industry (both public and private sectors). The Wing should maintain a data bank of proficient Indian producers with their respective domain competence. It should maintain regular liaison with industrial associations and provide guidance to promising entrepreneurs.   

c)   Aerospace Industry Wing
Its role will be akin to that of the Land Systems Industry Wing, as stated above. As aerospace is a niche segment, it requires specialised treatment. Additionally, with the burgeoning array of airborne platforms, both manned and unmanned, aerospace industry merits highly committed attention.   

d)   Maritime Industry Wing
India’s Navy and the Coast Guard are in urgent need of a large number of naval crafts. All the four public sector shipyards are overloaded with orders. Of late, a number of modern shipyards have been established by the private sector as well. Therefore, it is necessary to have a central authority to coordinate the complete gamut of shipbuilding activities to make certain that the available potential is optimally harnessed.  
   
e)   SME Wing
It is a well recognised fact that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the engines that spearhead technological advancement. Their importance in the defence sector gets further enhanced due to the fact that defence industry is highly technology-intensive. As they operate in niche segments, they acquire exceptional expertise; gain specialised knowledge; and master manufacturing processes. However, they lack resources to be able to compete with bigger players. They need hand-holding to thrive and deliver. For example, formation of dedicated clusters can help them to venture into defence market without incurring unaffordable expenses. SME Wing should act as an umbrella agency to interact with SMEs and provide support to them so that they retain their technological lead through continuous innovations.




   
  Illustration 2: Suggested Structure of Defence and Aerospace Commission


f)    Defence R&D Wing
It should be headed by a military-technologist and its primary responsibility should be to keep a watch over the performance of DRDO, thereby making them accountable to an oversight authority. Additionally, the Wing should help identify technologies for import. Their selection should be need-based and not availability-based. Such technologies must fill critical gaps in indigenous knowledge and help accelerate the process of achieving self reliance. Further, technologies should be of the latest genre with multiple applications. The Wing should also help in the selection of the technology provider and the nomination of the Indian recipient. To ensure proper technology absorption, it should seek periodic reports.

g)   Defence Offset Authority
It should be an independent and empowered authority with decision making powers for efficient management of the complete gamut of offset related activities in a predictable, efficient and transparent manner. In other words, it should act as a single window for approving, validating, discharging and measuring offset programmes. In addition to approving draft offset contracts, it should provide guidance to all offset players in an open, fair and transparent manner. Furthermore, it should oversee successful implementation of all offset programmes through timely intervention to resolve contentious issues that impede progress.

h)   Exports and Cooperation Wing
Promotion of exports and international armament cooperation will be the primary responsibility of this Wing. Export of defence systems is considered to be a potent tool of a nation’s foreign policy. It also brings in financial gains and reduces production costs due economies of scale. Further, due to the prohibitive costs involved in the development of new weapon systems, the Wing should encourage formation of multi-national consortia for the purpose.

i)     Defence Technology Advisory Board
It should be headed by an eminent scientist. Members should be drawn from MoD, the services, DRDO, the academia and the private sector. It should formulate policies and oversee their implementation to promote development of Indian defence industry in well-delineated phases. After identifying niche technologies that need focused attention, it should formulate research, design and development roadmaps, with duly spelt out key milestones. The Board should also be responsible for providing guidance for the promotion of research, development and exploitation of mastered technologies. 

j)    Policy Review and Training Committee
Regular appraisal of policies, processes and procedures is essential to identify infirmities and to initiate reforms for corrective action. The Committee should act an internal watchdog and maintain a databank of all successful and unsuccessful programmes to draw necessary lessons from them. The Committee should also be assigned responsibility to organise training programmes for all functionaries involved with acquisition and developmental assignments.
  
The Way Forward

In addition to the above restructuring, MoD should carry out some other long overdue reforms as well. One, the Department of Defence Production must be abolished. It has been the biggest impediment to the growth of the Indian defence industry.

Two, it is incongruous for MoD to be involved in industrial production activities. At present, there are 9 defence public sector companies and 39 ordnance factories under the control of MoD. Despite decades of preferential treatment through assured flow of orders, they have failed the nation. They are responsible for saddling the armed forces with mediocre weaponry. Therefore, MoD must shed control of all industrial enterprises to other ministries.

All major powers consider close cooperation between various stake holders – the government, the armed forces and industry – to be of critical importance. According to them, defence acquisitions should act as a catalyst for the growth of defence industry. Acknowledging the importance of the defence industry as an invaluable asset, it is co-opted at all stages from planning, design, and development to manufacture of equipment.
MoD will do well to get rid of its perverse attitude of treating the industrialists as outcasts. Instead, they should be accorded due recognition for their contribution to national economic growth. Regular interaction should be held with them at laid down periodicity.

Working with an open mind, MoD should explore all viable approaches such as formation of consortia, joint ventures and public-private partnerships for optimum results. Similarly, the potential of academia; research and development institutions; and reputed technical and scientific organisations should will also be made use of.  

Most importantly, MoD must rise above parochial turf biases. No appointment should be reserved for any cadre. Functionaries must be selected with due care for their suitability for the task, technical/professional competence, demonstrated flair and impeccable integrity. In other words, merit and suitability should be the criteria. Once appointed, they should be trained for the task and given extended tenures.

MoD should adopt ‘centralised policies and decentralised execution’ model. It entails unambiguous enunciation of guidelines and delegation of decision-making powers with corresponding accountability.

Finally, true test of national leadership is not routine governance but ability to take bold and radical decisions to put a derailed and inefficient system back on track. Requirement of inventive policy initiatives and concrete action plans can never be fulfilled by resorting to semantics and rhetoric.*****