Nehru files document moves for compulsory military training

MUMBAI: Did Jawaharlal Nehru want to introduce compulsory military service in India after the disastrous war with China in 1962? How did the government resolve to deal with the defeat? And did it follow through on the action plan? Who collected Nehru’s last pay as prime minister after he died on May 27, 1964?

Answers to some of these questions are now available from declassified documents of the prime minister’s office (PMO) in the Nehru era. The documents, numbering around 50, were moved to the National Archives in Delhi over the past two years, but were not compiled and made available for public research until DNA took the initiative. Many writers on the Nehru era and the early years of independence have also completely missed out on these files.

DNA will be publishing several interesting stories based on information culled from these documents, with the first instalment appearing in tUESDAY’s edition.

The humiliating military defeat in the hands of China in 1962 had obviously left Nehru a very shaken man. Soon after this, his government seriously toyed with the idea of introducing compulsory military training for India’s youth. Before the shock defeat, the government was contemplating the introduction of compulsory national service, but after 1962, the priorities changed. Nehru agreed with education minister KL Shrimali that compulsory national social service should be linked “wherever possible, with something useful for defence.”

The proposal to have “intensive military training” for up to a year originated from a discussion on introducing compulsory social service for the youth. Sadly, neither compulsory military service nor compulsory social service took off as a humiliated nation’s anger was consumed in no time by the overbearing lethargy and inertia of the political and bureaucratic leadership.

This dilution of commitment is visible in other proposals made in the wake of the 1962 crisis. A simple decision to observe a National Solidarity Day every year on Oct 20 – the day the Chinese invaded — was forgotten in the years that followed.  

Less than two months after China declared a unilateral ceasefire, education minister Shrimali wrote about the military training proposal to Nehru on January 15, 1963 (letter no 18563-EM).

 “In view of the present emergency, it is obvious that the (social service) scheme will have to undergo some modification and the emphasis will have to shift from social service to intensive military training for one year,” Shrimali said. He added that legislation would be needed to make military training compulsory.

Nehru replied back on the same day – within hours. “I do feel that some productive work for our students is desirable from every point of view. This work may be connected wherever possible with something useful for defence.” Nehru felt that military training may be useful, even if only indirectly. He then went on to ask Shrimali to prepare a note “on the subject and have it considered by the various persons you mention.”

Shrimali had said that if Nehru agreed to the proposal, his ministry would prepare a note “which may first be considered by a committee” in which both the finance and defence ministers were members. “We could then place the matter before the cabinet,” Shrimali wrote.

Shrimali’s suggestion for year-long intensive military training came about on the basis another note recommending “compulsory social service for the youth of the country.” The issue was discussed at a conference of education ministers from states and vice-chancellors of universities. It had also “been examined by the government at various levels.”

Even before 1962, a National Service Committee had been was set up under CD Deshmukh to examine the issue of compulsory social service. (Deshmukh was finance minister during 1950-56, and the first Indian governor of the Reserve Bank of India).

The committee supported the idea of instituting social and labour service for students in colleges and had worked out the details. But the China war changed the situation and Shrimali suggested military training as an added feature.

What finally happened to the proposal is not available on the files – as yet. But it’s obvious that Nehru had some form of military discipline, if not training, in mind well before the China war.

In June, 1958, Nehru, during a short holiday in Manali, wrote to Anil K Chanda, then deputy minister for works, housing and supply, saying that the concept of compulsory national service should first be introduced for graduates and separately for others. He believed that this service would also improve interactions between the classes. “As a matter of fact, if we have this kind of compulsory service, many of our students and youth league camps, etc, on which we spend a good deal of money, could be incorporated with it,” Nehru said.

In 1960, the committee under CD Deshmukh wrote a detailed report for introducing compulsory social service for all the youths of India. Nehru wrote his own detailed comments to it in a letter to education minister Shrimali on January 24, 1960. Nehru agreed with the committee that it should have “military discipline.”

According to him, “It is not possible to have such discipline except under a military commandant. None of us civilians can maintain a standard of military discipline. I know that some people in our country are opposed to this type of discipline and think that it is adequate for teachers and professors to be put in charge for a camp. I do not agree with this. Of course, so far as the actual study work is concerned, teachers will be in charge.”

Nehru asked the cabinet secretary to send the committee’s draft report to all the chief ministers and cabinet ministers. According the detailed file, a state education ministers’ conference in August, 1959, was “unanimous that there was an urgent need for trying out a workable scheme for national service,” but wanted pilot projects to be tried out on a voluntary basis for some time before introducing compulsion.

It was this conference that appointed the National Service Committee under Deshmukh.
Shrimali wrote to the prime minister that the committee had concluded that “if national service has to be effective in making a real impact” on developing the character of the nation’s youth, “it must be compulsory and of a sufficiently long duration of about nine months to a year.” The committee felt that pilot projects on a voluntary basis and of short duration “would not be able to serve these purposes.”