Siachen or Tehelka
Can Army afford these scandals?

By Maj Gen V K Madhok (retired)

Two issues which need to be addressed squarely-with great promptitude, and which should raise the heckles of those in authority today or in the future, whether in the Army or in the civil, are: the resurgence of Tehelka type incidents which gave explicit details of sex scandals by Army officers on TV. And now, the reporting of fake incidents and encounters to earn decorations and promotions, at Siachen. Secondly, a study report concerning the management of Army's officer cadre with a view to remove disappointment amongst juniors.

No doubt, dubious methods were employed to tempt officers who fell prey to Tehelka's designs. Yet Tehelka's revelations are unforgivable. But there were no temptations at Siachen except to cook up false evidence of encounters. Surely, this is not the way for anyone who wears the uniform of Indian Army.

Therefore, it is time for deep introspection by the Nation. Because the moral decay has not taken place overnight but over the years. Tehelka was bound to happen when the country has failed to indigenise and purchases 75-85 percent of its military hardware from abroad where all the money is. Therefore with foreign companies vying for contracts, with Indian middleman as their conduits positioned next to the controlling officers, it was only a matter of time before such dirty deals came to public notice. And this would be repeated should India fail to indigenise.

Concurrently, it would be sheer hypocracy, even to think, that a country dubbed as one of the most corrupt in the world, can have an honest army inspite of all the rules, regulations and an Army Act to monitor and punish dishonesty. This is a contradiction in term. Yet, the Army must be honest, guided by the highest ideals and led by leaders with character and integrity. Or the Army will-in the long run, not obey orders or follow leaders who don't have moral strength and will disintegrate. There should be no doubt about it. Fortunately for India, a couple of more years are required for total degeneration. Currently, Army's fighting arms (Infantry and Armed corps) are certainly not contaminated. The scope for corruption with them is minimal. Army's supporting arms (Artillery, Signals and Engineers) are competent.

All the Tehelka type of exposures pertain to the areas of Logistics, of contracts and purchases where there is tremendous scope for corruption. The chief players hail from the polity, bureaucracy, businessmen, foreign companies, arms agents, advertising firms, whose target is the Army officer, uninitiated in the art of business warfare. Finally, it is he who has to project demands for arms and equipment, conduct user trials and finally approve induction of what he needs.

Now all this or what happened at Siachen should have been known to the Army Chief, Raksha Mantri and the Prime Minister. They have all the intelligence resources at their disposal: IB, CBI, RAW, Army's intelligence and so on. It is they who have to be held responsible for such lapses in the first instance instead of throwing the blame on some junior Major commanding a company at Siachen. If this does not happen then the Nation would do well to blame itself.

As regards the management of Army's officer cadre, there are two burning issues. Firstly, besides promotion there are numerous critical areas with problems leading to disappointment. No Army Chief or Raksha Mantri has applied himself to address these with concern. Either they lacked understanding or will? Or these problems would have been put right in a short time. These are also the reason why the youth does not want to join the Army and those serving in it would rather leave for greener pastures in the civil after doing correspondence courses and a minimum tenure to earn pension. Some of these problems are : long waits and even denial of accommodation in peace stations. Some officers spend 50% of their peace tenure waiting for accommodation. Then also, the accommodation may be sub-standard. Further, there is the issue of children's education and to get admission in good schools without donations. Repeated tenures in high altitudes or non-family stations, denial of priority in courts, extra demands on combat fit officers due to shortages, an insensitive society, which looks at a soldier as fit only for security duties. And the struggle to find a job on retirement or on disability and so on.

Secondly, there is a crisis in military leadership. The youth does not want to share the responsibility for national security. Therefore, with 50 percent deficiency in the officer cadre (20,000 against 42,000 or so authorised), Army's 600 or so fighting units (Infantry and Armed corps) have full strength of nearly 50 JCOs each but only 6-7 functional officers against 21-24 authorised. Thus, India has a JCO led army : The JCO, with 22-24 years service is a fine soldier. But he cannot match the vigour, dash and elan of a young officer. While the Nation needs an officer led army with 50 officers and only 5-6 JCOs each in a combat unit.

What needs to be done? Firstly, the Army must review its promotion system to ensure that sub standard material does not reach higher ranks. This system must be debated in the Parliament and not left to the whims of Army chiefs or the Ministry of Defence. In this system, integrity and not only knowledge must become the focus for promotion. And anyone found wanting in integrity must be thrown out.

Secondly, India must get an effective Reservist System going. It is only on paper today. If the Army was to despatch call-up notices to its Reservist officers, it wont get more than a dozen odd fit officers. That is what happened in 1971 during Bangladesh operations. When the Army could muster only half a dozen fit and willing officers for its fighting arms. The question is, why should the Army not have a 100percent Reservist officer corps? In addition, why should the Nation not expand its Territorial Army from its present 40,000 strength to atleast two crores or so and create an officer corps within this army which can make up the deficiency of regular army in an emergency.

Finally, it should be clear, that there can be no army without officer leadership. And unless the moral fibre of army leadership is impeccable, the Army will remain sub-standard. Further, No army means No India. Send the Army away on a day's casual leave and see what happens in India? The Parliament has to institute measures which will bring leaders of character and integrity on top. Also, to retain experienced officers to fulfill their minimum essential tenures instead of easing them out with Golden handshakes or Voluntary Retirement Schemes.

To stop the outflow
By Jayant Muralidharan

Two years ago, adivasi women in Plachimada, a small hamlet in Palghat, Kerala, started a movement against Coca-Cola. Today, the Coca-Cola plant in Plachimada has been shut down. The victory of the Plachimada movement is a major step in reversing the corporate hijack of our precious water resources. It provides both inspiration and lessons for building "water democracy" in other parts of India and in the rest of the world.

The Coca-Cola plant in Plachimada was commissioned in March 2000 to produce 1,224,000 bottles of Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Limca, Thums Up, Kinley Soda and Maaza. The panchayats had issued a conditional licence for installing a motor for drawing water. However, through electric pumps, the company started to illegally extract millions of litres of clean water from more than six bore wells installed by it in order to manufacture soft drinks. The water level started to fall drastically.

Not only did Coca-Cola "steal" the water of the local community, it also polluted what was left. Before pumping the wastewater into dry bore wells within the company premises, it deposited them outside. During the rainy season, the waste spread into paddy fields, canals and wells, causing serious health hazards. Complaints were also received from tribals and farmers that storage of water and sources of water were being adversely affected by the indiscriminate installation of bore wells for tapping ground water. This had serious consequences for cultivation in the area.

When the panchayats asked for details and the company failed to comply, it served a show cause notice and cancelled the licence. Coca-Cola tried to bribe the panchayats president, but without any success. In 2003, the district medical officer informed the people of Plachimada that their water was unfit for drinking. The women already knew the water was toxic and walked miles from home to collect drinking water. Coca-Cola had created water scarcity in a water-abundant region, and the women were not going to allow this "hydro-piracy". They started a dharna at the gates of Coca-Cola. On September 21, 2003 a huge rally was organised to give an ultimatum to Coca-Cola. In January, a World Water Conference brought global activists like Jose Bove and Maude Barlow to Plachimada to support the local activists.

A movement started by local adivasi women had thus unleashed a national and global wave in their support. On February 17, 2004 the Kerala chief minister, under pressure from the growing movement and the aggravation of the water crisis, ordered closure of the Coke plant. The victory of the movement was the result of forging broad alliances and using multiple strategies. The rainbow alliances beginning with local women and activists grew to include the local gram panchayats and its members. The local panchayats used its constitutional rights to serve notice on Coca-Cola. The Perumatty panchayats also filed public interest litigation in the Kerala High Court against Coca-Cola.

The courts supported the women’s demands. In an order on December 16, 2003, Justice Balakrishnana Nair ordered Coca-Cola to stop pirating Plachimada’s water. The order stated: "The Public Trust Doctrine primarily rests on the principle that certain resources like air, sea waters and the forests have such a great importance to the people as a whole that it would be wholly unjustified to make them a subject of private ownership… The doctrine enjoins upon the government to protect the resources for the enjoyment of the general public rather than to permit their use for private ownership or commercial purpose… The State is the trustee of all natural resources, which are by nature meant for public use and enjoyment. Public at large is the beneficiary of the seashore, running waters, airs (sic), forests and ecologically fragile lands".

In view of the above authoritative statement of the court, it can be safely concluded that underground water belongs to the public. The state has a duty to protect ground water against excessive exploitation and its inaction in this regard is tantamount to infringement of the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. So, even in the absence of any law governing ground water, the panchayats and the state are bound to protect ground water from excessive exploitation.

Even if experts were to opine that the present level of consumption by the plant is harmless, it cannot be allowed to do so since the underground water belongs to the people and the company has no right to claim a huge share to it. The government has no power to allow a private party to extract such a huge quantity of ground water, which is a property, held by it in trust. If the company is permitted to draw such a huge quantity of ground water, then similar claims of the other landowners will also have to be allowed, which will result in the drying up of the underground reservoirs.

Accordingly, the company was directed to stop using ground water after a month from the date of the judgment. The time was granted to enable the company to find out alternative sources of water.

The alliance grew to include people like Veerandra Kumar of Mathrubhumi. The January conference co-organised with the local panchayats brought on one platform every political party, especially the leader of the opposition, V.S. Achuthanandan, who kept up the pressure in the Kerala assembly to translate the court decision into executive action. The literary movement provided leadership through Sukumar Azhikode. And global support came through the presence of Jose Bove, Maude Barlow, European parliamentarians and activists from across the world. The women’s protest, which is the heart and soul of the movement, got support through legal action, parliamentary action and scientific research.

This pluralism and diversity in support of local action was the secret of the victory of people against Coke in Plachimada. This is the strength of our multiplicities and complementarities which we have to mobilise in other part so the India where Coke and Pepsi are mining and stealing peoples’ water resources. Coca-Cola has 52 plants in India and Pepsi 38 plants. Each plant will be extracting between 1-1.5 million litres per day. This amounts to more than one trillion or one lakh crore litres. INAV