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The Rediff Special/Admiral J G Nadkarni (Retd)

Only limited conscription can end army's manpower woes

The command chief engineer had a glib answer for everything. Hauled on the mat by the commander-in-chief for the poor maintenance of base buildings, he said, "Well Sir, it's like this. The maintenance money has more or less remained fixed. It is based on an old formula derived many years ago. We have to both pay the maintenance staff as well as the materials out of the total maintenance grant. As you know, the outgo on pay has kept on increasing with doses of allowances and the DA -- today I am paying 90 per cent of the grant in pay and allowances, leaving me little to buy the paint. How can I maintain anything?"

Today India's armed forces are in the same quandary as the chief engineer. The defence budget has more or less stagnated over the past 10 years. In fact, after allowing for inflation and the nosedive in the value of the Indian rupee it has declined steadily. On the other hand manpower and maintenance costs have been escalating. The Fifth Pay Commission has put an additional burden on the services. Today the Indian Army spends nearly 90 per cent of its budget on manpower and maintenance. It leaves less than Rs 10 billion each year for buying and updating equipment of a million-strong force.

To put it more graphically, if the army purchases a new field gun (no, not Bofors) it will require five years of its modernisation budget to pay for it. In such a drastic situation, the army chief recently announced that he intended to carry out a force reduction of 50,000 men to make more money available for buying new equipment. These are only emergency measures. What is indeed required is a totally new approach if one wants to maintain a sizeable force of over a million.

The Indian Army was about 300,000-strong at the time of Independence and remained at that strength until the Chinese border war of 1962. The sudden expansion of the army after that setback saw the army grow steadily to about 800,000. Unfortunately the expansion did not stop there. During the past 20 years the army has continued to grow steadily and today stands at about one and a quarter million.

Add to that the nearly half-a-million-strong paramilitary forces and you have a sizeable chunk of manpower to pay, to feed, to clothe and to house. Fully 60 per cent of the army’s budget of about Rs 160 billion is spent on manpower related costs. Just 20 years ago, this figure was a more manageable 40 per cent. With the constant increase in the cost of paying and feeding this vast manpower, there is little chance of reducing the amount in future. The army has to look for other means to reduce manpower costs. It needs to look at limited conscription as a serious alternative.

Conscription of course is as old as the ages. Every country expects its young citizens to serve in the armed forces in the time of war or emergency. Most western countries including the United States and Britain required its young population to serve in the armed forces until recently. Of course, conscription, being a dirty word, is normally replaced by such euphemisms as 'draft' or 'national service' in these countries. These countries resorted to conscription not for cutting costs but to make up shortfall of manpower during the two World Wars, Korea and Vietnam wars. But the draft always remained unpopular and the United States managed to get rid of it after the Vietnam war by downsizing the army and increasing the pay and incentives. Today it is an all-volunteer force.

If India decides on limited conscription it can hardly follow the American way. It should look eastward for its role model. At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had an army of over three million. China and Vietnam even today have large standing armies. How do these not-so-affluent countries manage to maintain such large forces? By the simple expedient of compulsory military service for its youth. In every socialist country it is drummed into every school child that he owes three years of his life to the nation. Each citizen is required to serve three years between the ages of 18 and 21 in one of the armed forces. This well-educated and surprisingly motivated manpower makes up the vast majority of the armed forces of these countries.

During their three years in the forces, the soldiers are clothed and fed at government expense. In addition they are paid a petty stipend each month as 'pocket money'. They stay in barracks and there is no question of leave. Yet a vast majority undergoes the three-year hardship quite willingly and is proud of their little contribution to the nation. On completion of the three-year stint, they happily resume their civilian life. Apart from the considerable saving on their pay, the state also saves on such items as housing, pension and welfare.

There are, of course, other benefits. A majority of the conscripts are high school graduates and bring to their job a higher educational level than the ordinary soldier. Those who have completed their military service not only provide the country with disciplined manpower but also a well-trained reserve in times of emergency.

The question of limited conscription in India has come up from time to time. In the past, the army leadership has shown extreme reluctance to go in for conscription. Asked about this alternative some ten years ago, an army chief said, "The Indian Army is proud to be an all-volunteer force. The esprit-de-corps, the elan and the fighting tradition all come from an all-volunteer, in-for-life force. We will never allow the fighting ability of the army to be diluted by conscription."

He conveniently forgot to mention that conscripts, the 90-day wonders, whose gallantry, heroism and determination far outstripped the professionals, won both the World Wars. The all-conquering Red Army was mostly made up of conscripts. And so was a vast majority of American and British armies. These everyday school teachers, salesmen, truck drivers and businessmen served their time and then happily went back to their jobs after demobilisation.

Limited conscription will have a number of beneficial fallouts in India. To start with, India is blessed with an embarrassment of manpower and thus can afford to be selective. A three-year tenure in the armed services can be made a prerequisite not only for college entry but even for entry into the civil service. The services will gain from a rich and educated crop of national servicemen each year. Nearly a million men can be inducted each year for a three-year tenure. It will also meet the cherished army goal of keeping the service young.

The nation too will benefit from a million disciplined and well-trained men each year, proud of having served their country, bringing with them in their civilian life ample self-confidence and maturity. The army will take youth and give the country men.

Make no mistake. Conscription is no peaches and cream solution. It is bound to be an unpopular move. In most western countries, it is a solution of last resort to be resorted to only in dire emergency such a war. In India, where the people in power look at the army as a public sector enterprise, open to patronage, nepotism and corruption, conscription is bound to be severely opposed by all political parties. India's populist politicians, unable to take hard or unpopular decisions, are unlikely to support such a move.

There are bound to be other problems too. Where selection is involved, corruption cannot be far behind. Selection boards will no doubt find easy ways to manipulate the selection process to make an easy buck. But compared to the enormous savings that the process will bring these are pinpricks to be suffered for the overall good. Eventually all the teething troubles will be overcome and the processes streamlined.

The army leadership, used to an all-volunteer force for so many years, is unlikely to support any such idea, at least for the present. But then minds can change, especially with a little political pressure. Only eight years ago both the Army and the Air Force opposed vehemently the Indian Navy's proposal of inducting women in the armed forces. Today they are showing off their women recruits with considerable pride.

India's armed forces are fully aware that manpower costs are bleeding them to oblivion. A number of remedial measures in the past, such as reduction in colour service, have in no way reduced the annual bill on manpower. The day is not far away when the Indian Army will find itself in the most ridiculous situation of spending its entire budget on maintaining its manpower. However unpalatable or unpopular the measure may seem, limited conscription appears to be the only solution to the army's manpower problems.

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