by MG
Devasahayam
Ex-IAS officer,
Ex-IAS officer,
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
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This agenda is in vast variance
with the ‘growth aspiration’ the country started with at independence. In the
vision of the Father of the Nation, Independent India would be sui generis, a
society unlike any other, in a class of its own.
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Gandhi’s India would not go for gigantic,
FDI-funded development projects and large-scale industry and mining, typical of
market-led growth under capitalism. Instead, India would pursue an equitable,
participatory, small-is-beautiful, need-based, inclusive, balanced development
while conserving nature and livelihoods. It is to nurture this socio-economic
ethos that IAS was established and covenanted in the constitution.
The present-day neo-liberal agenda is just the
opposite, seeking an India of market-making MNCs, millionaires and
billionaires, a middle class of 300 million providing that market and the rest
of 800 million Indians surviving as barely literate, malnourished multitude.
This agenda is being driven by a new breed of adhocracy within the IAS that has
come about through inbreeding and rank favouritism.
Ever since UPA government under Manmohan Singh
assumed power (2004) two kinds of adhocracy have been shaping up. One was born
of the ‘clan-within-clan’ inbreeding being practiced by a ‘linguistic-parochial’
group that at one point of time occupied almost every top-job in Delhi’s
corridors of power.
The other is the ‘loyalist-core’ put together to
implement the neo-liberal agenda. With the active participation of PMO
patriarchs, spread of ‘clan-within-clan’ adhocracy was fast and furious
capturing several key positions of ‘might and money’. And barring honourable
exceptions, other coveted positions went to agenda-men anointed by the ‘Moneyed
and the Mighty’.
Bureaucracy was meant to administer through laid
down rules. The ICS was called the steel frame, precisely for this reason. ICS
men viewed any deviation from the rules as a misdemeanor. Its successor, the
IAS endeavoured to keep up the standards. Though there were hiccups, the
bureaucratic system by and large ensured that men/women with merit were not
denied their due place in promotions and postings.
Adhocracy on the other hand is being nurtured
through blatant violation of processes and procedures to ensure that the top
positions of Government, Joint Secretaries, Additional Secretaries and
Secretaries, are held only by the clansmen and their agenda-abiding loyalists.
Such adhocracy, which is antonymous to rule-bound bureaucracy, has
substantially skewed and compromised the decision making process and standards.
The result is for all to see; policy failure in almost all fronts, suffocating
corruption and near total collapse of governance.
As if by intent, adhocracy seem to have permeated
the Army Headquarters also as it did in the civil citadel. Sometime in 2005,
out of the blue, the then Chief of the Army Staff (General JJ Singh) initiated
the unique ‘look down policy’ to determine the ‘line of succession’ to the top
position in the Army.
He was not looking for immediate succession but was
looking deep-down to the year 2012 and found one favourite - Brigadier Bikram
Singh. The Chief also realised that events and dates relating to the then Major
General VK Singh, who was sure shot to become Army Chief in 2010, needed to be
manipulated if Bikram Singh was to succeed him in 2012!
Once this sub-agendum was set, things started
moving. Someone in the MS Branch ‘discovered’ VK Singh’s UPSC application form
mentioning 1950 as his year of birth and this was the ‘brahmastra’ to be used
to truncate and restrict VK Singh’s tenure as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) to
a two year period, so that the passage could be cleared for Bikram Singh to
take over in May 2012. The massive documentary proof establishing 1951 as
General’s YoB was ignored. A dismal charade of seeking ‘acceptance’ of 1950
from VK Singh as his YoB was played out.
But there were more hurdles. At that point of time,
this favourite was not a front-runner as there were other officers ahead of
him, who needed to be ‘eliminated’ at the COAS’s level itself with a bit of
deft manoeuvring. A list was prepared, nick-named ‘Op MOSES’ which implied that
the Chief would part the waters like in the ‘Ten Commandments’ for Bikram Singh
to smoothly walk through! Like a family tree in reverse, Op MOSES listed few
potential threats - Brigadiers and Major Generals of higher calibre - who were
dealt with and pushed out one by one either through supersession and
non-empanelment! For this purpose even ‘records of service’ were tinkered and
tampered with and some even made to disappear.
The fallout of this crude manipulation indulged in
by the military adhocracy was the sordid age-row of VK Singh that has rocked
the nation. The actual DoB is a matter of record as rightly observed by the
Supreme Court. But what is of concern is the manner in which the controversy
was first stoked, then fanned and finally, brought into play. This calls for
thorough investigation.
This is all the more urgent because it is alleged
that TKA Nair, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister was behind this brazen
manoeuvring. Well before the age controversy came out in the open, Nair is
reported to have told his confidants that VK Singh had to go in May 2012
because the ‘Prime Minister had assured his wife that General Bikram Singh
would be the next COAS’. Incidentally this gentleman was the chief mentor of
the civil service adhocracy!
We have seen the neo-liberal agenda for creating
and nurturing the civil adhocracy. But what is the agenda for the military
adhocracy? This begs the question. But corruption and carpet bagging could be a
possible answer. It is believed that there are IB reports about massive
kick-backs in the still-born Eurocopter deal and a top Army brass has
reportedly transferred 22 million Euros (Rs. 145 crores) to his relative in
Paris through hawala post. But unfortunately for him the deal fell through and
he had the consternation of returning the moolah! As if to compensate, this man
was rewarded with a coveted civil position with powers to award thousands of
crores worth of construction contracts! Now, with huge weapon/equipment
purchase deals either being processed or pending in the Army HQ a pliable
adhocracy is needed to serve the MNC agenda.
With the state turning into a non-functioning
kleptocracy, corruption is the common denominator between civil and military
adhocracy. Of late we have seen several cases of swindling and misappropriation
in which General Officers have been court-martialed and dismissed from service.
Many more must be lying buried.
Sensing danger the civil-military adhocracy has
combined to hound out General VK Singh who does not fit into the adhocracy
mould. Bulk of the media including ‘reputed’ scribes and defense analysts
partnered with the kleptocrats in this despicable task, which indeed is the
real tragedy!
http://indiamydreamland.blogspot.in/2012/03/age-controversy-of-gen-v-k-singh-may.html
