DEFENCE SERVICES Vs THE CIVIL SERVICES

T.R.Ramaswami IAS.

There can be no debate that this country requires the best Armed Forces, the best police and the best civil services. That is what the British, in their wisdom of Worl Rulers, ensured.

By best one means that a person chooses which Arm/Service he wants as per his desire/capabilities and not based on the vast differential in prospects in them.

In the continuing debate on pay scales for the Armed Forces, vis-a-vis the civil services, there has to be a serious and transparent effort to ensure that the country is not faced with an unnecessary civil-military confrontation. That effort will have to come from the netas, who are the real and true bosses of the Armed Forces and not the civil bureaucracy. A solution may lie in the following paragraphs. 

What differential are we looking at?

Take the State of Maharashtra, which is one of the most parsimonious towards the police ranks in the Country, thus still retaining some merit -

The 1981 IPS batch have become 3-star generals, the 1987 are 2-star and the 1994 1-star.

In the Military, the corresponding years are 1972, 1975, 1979. ie a differential of 10-15 years. While the differential is even more with the IAS, variance with the IPS  is visibly & exasparatedly glaring because both are uniformed services and  identical grades are "prominently visible" on the shoulders, despite a law which stipulates that no one else can wear a uniform, which can be mistaken for that of the Armed Forces.

First some general aspects. 

Only the Armed Forces are a real profession, ie where you rise to the top only by joining at the bottom. On the contrary, 

You can join at any level in the civil service, except Cabinet Secretary. A civil servant can move from Animal Husbandry to Civil Aviation to Fertilisers to Steel to yes, unfortunately, even to Defence. 

We have had professors of economics become Finance Secretaries or even Governors of RBI. We have any number of MBBSs, engineers, MBAs, in the police force, even though it is a moot point what their qualifications lend to their jobs . 

The Defence Forces, never ask for Brigade Commanders or a Commandant of the Army War College or even Director General Military Intelligence, even from RAW or IB. Defence officers can and have moved into organizations like IB and RAW but it is never the other way round. MBBS and Law graduates are only in the Medical or JAG Corps and do nothing beyond their narrow areas. 

Every Army Chief - in any army - has risen from being a commander of a platoon to a company to a battalion to a brigade to a division to a corps to an army. In fact the professionalism is so intense that no non-armoured corps officer ever commands an armoured formation, with the single exception, and possibly the only exception in world military history, of General K. Sunderji. 

Perhaps it is this outstanding professionalism that irks the civil services.

Next, one must note the rigidity and steep pyramid of the army's rank structure. In the civil services any post is fungible with any grade based on political expediency and the desires of the service. For example I know of one case where one department downgraded one post in another state and up-graded one in Mumbai just to enable someone continue in Mumbai after promotion!

You can't fool around like this in the Armed Forces. A very good Brigadier cannot be made a Major-General and continue as brigade commander. There has to be a clear vacancy for a Major General and even then there may be others better than him. Further the top five ranks in the army comprise only 10% of the officer strength. 

Contrast this with the civil services where entire batches become Joint Secretaries.

Even the meaning of the word "merit" is vastly different in the Armed Forces and the civil services. 

Some years back an officer of the Maharashtra cadre claimed that he should be the Chief Secretary as -

he was first in the merit list;

which merit list? 

the Merit List at the time of entry more than 35 years before!!! 

That is how merit is decided in the IAS and IPS. 

Every time a batch gets promoted the inter-se merit is still retained as at the time of entry. In other words if you are first in a batch at the time of entry, then as long as you get promoted, you continue to remain first! 

This is like someone in the army claiming that he should become chief because he got the Sword of Honour at the IMA. Even a Param Vir Chakra does not count for promotion, assuming that you are still alive. In the armed forces, merit is a continuous process - each time a batch is promoted the merit list is redrawn according to your performance in all the previous assignments with additional weightage given not only to the last one but also to your suitability for the next one.

Thus, if you are a Brigade Commander and found fit to become a Major General, even then you may not get a division because others have been found better to head a division. That effectively puts an end to your promotion to Lt. General.

The compensation package must therefore address all the above issues. In each service, anyone must get the same total compensation by the time he reaches the 'mode rank' of his service. "Mode" is a statistical term it is the value where the maximum number of variables fall.

In the IAS normally everyone becomes a Director and in the IPS a DIG. On the other hand in the Armed Forces, given the aforementioned rank and grade rigidities and pyramidical structure, the 'mode rank' will not exceed Colonel or equivalent. 

Thus, a Colonel's gross career earnings (not salary scales alone) must be at par with that of a Director. 

There are other aspect too to be considered. 

A Colonel retires at 54, but every babu from peon to Secretary at 60, regardless of performance. Further, it takes 18-20 years to become a Colonel whereas in that time an IAS officer reaches the next higher grade of Joint Secretary, which is considered equal to a Major General.

There is another aspect to be considered - 

postings in non-family stations;

must be addressed while fixing the overall pay scales of Colonel and below. 

If the above suggestions are implimented - 

a Brigadier will be equivalent to a Joint Secretary; 

a Major-General to an Additional Secretary; and

a Lt. General to a Secretary. 

The Army Commanders deserve a new rank, (Colonel General ?), above a Secretary but below the Cabinet Secretary. 

Equalization should take place at the level of the Cabinet Secretary and COAS.

If this is a problem financially, I have another solution - 

Reduce the scales of the IAS and IPS till they too have 20% shortage.

Dusted & done?

I visualise a sharp decline in India 's corruption index !!!

If the above sugestions are accepted in principle - 

there is a good case to review the number of posts above Colonel; 

senior ranks in the armed forces have become devalued with more and more posts being created; 

but the same pruning exercise is necessary in the IAS and more so in the IPS, where Directors General in some states are re-writing police manuals eg one is doing Volume I and another Volume II!

Further- 

the civil services have such facilities as "compulsory wait" ie basically a picnic at taxpayers cost; and 

if you are not promoted or posted where you don't want to go you seem able to take leave with much ease, even though the CSR clearly states that leave is not a right, only a privilege. 

In the army, proceeding on leave like this will result in court-martial. 

The number of civil services officers on study leave might be an interesting statistics. 

The country cannot afford this.

Let not someone say that the IAS and IPS exams are tougher and hence the quality of the officers better. An exam at the age of 24 -29 has to be tougher than one at the age of 16 - 18. The taxpaying citizen is not interested in your essay/note writing capabilities or whether you know Cleopatra's grandfather.

As a citizen, I always see the Defence Forces being called out to hold the pants of the civil services and the police and never the other way round. 

That's enough proof as to who is really more capable. 

Remember the insensitive statements made by the better capable, (self-proclaimed), IG Meerut in the Aarushi case and the Home Secretary after the blasts. 

Further - 

while the self proclaimed more capable officers of the IAS and IPS are sleeping, eating and pen-pushing/studying in their airconditioned accommodations/offices - 

their school/college mates, who happenned to have joined the Defence Forces, stand vigil on the inhospitable and dangerous borders to make it possible for them to do so. 

The Armed Forces personnel are a hampered lot; 

they cannot even fight for their above the table pay; 

for 'under the table' variety, they cannot even dream to compete with the personnel of the civil services and definitely not of the police forces.

Finally- 

there is only one supreme national necessity - 

The political class; 

not the bureaucracy.