There has been an unstated and finely drawn line that politicians and others in the civil society will not criticise the armed forces and the armed forces on their part will maintain strict and discreet silence on civil society issues. The arrangement seems to have worked pretty well.
The armed forces have remained above and beyond politics. But there are some unsettling moments in this sanitised situation. For example, instances of corruption and wrong doing, including the rare cases of spying, in the armed forces have caused much hand-wringing all around. There is a general expectation that the armed forces can do no wrong and they should not be seen to be doing so.
It is also part of this puritanical picture that men and women in uniform should not air political views. It is for this reason that the stated views of Indian Air Force’s vice chief air marshal PK Barbora on the induction of women as fighter pilots and his criticism of the political class for playing petty politics with regard to defence purchases have raised more than eyebrows. They have caused consternation.
There is however a need not to be rattled by Barbora’s comments. His comments on women fighter pilots are indeed out of sync with the temper of the times and it is a view not shared by the key decision-makers in the force. There is more to the induction of women into the fighter pilot stream than idealistic notions, quite laudable in their own right, than of gender equality. There is an absolute need for women to be part of the fighter squad as part of a country’s war preparedness. Barbora missed the big picture in strategic terms.
He has taken a greater risk in hitting out against the internal squabbling of the political class over defence purchases. He had also stuck his neck out arguing for the participation of the private sector in defence production and for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the sector. In any other country, especially in India’s neighbourhood, a statement of this kind from a top-ranking man in uniform would have been ominous but not so in India. Barbora’s comments will be dismissed as that of a simple-minded and well-intentioned windbag.
It is quite certain that a man like Barbora has no clue about the dark Byzantine networks of the arms bazaar. But his concern that the modernisation of the forces is getting bogged down is an absolute fact, something which should be a matter of worry for everyone in the country. An intervention of the Barbora kind might become more common in the future and the country will have to get used to it because it does not really pose any grave danger to civil society.
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