11 BR Kishore Kumar Khera

The Absent Dialogue: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the
Military in India by Anit Mukherjee, New Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 2020, pp. 313, Rs 1,100
Kishore Kumar Khera*
Defence, a subset of national security, is an intricate subject. Primarily,

defence policy and plans of a state emerge from its national security
strategy to achieve its national goals. What happens when a state does
not have a declared national security strategy? All stakeholders interpret
the security scenario in their way and invariably pull defence policy and
plans in multiple directions. Such has been the tale of Indian defence
policy and plans since independence.
There are two important verticals in a state’s defence policy and
plans: the executive represented by the politicians; and the executioner,
the armed forces. Civil bureaucracy links these two and manages the two-
way communication between them, often enmeshing its interpretation.
This makes civil–military relation a lynchpin in defence policy and plans.
Very few understand this complex subject comprehensively and even
fewer attempt to make others understand this. In that, Anit Mukherjee
attempts to decode this important facet of civil–military relations in
defence policy and plans in India in his book, The Absent Dialogue.
The book is divided into eight chapters along with an introduction
and a conclusion. The first chapter titled ‘Civil–Military Relations and
Military Effectiveness’ covers definitional aspects on the subject while
the second chapter deals with the history and evolution of the civil–
military equation in India. The next four chapters deal with specific
*
The reviewer, an independent analyst, was a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force.
ISSN 0976-1004 print

© 2020 Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses
Journal of Defence Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1-2, January–June 2020, pp. 131–135
132 Journal of Defence Studies
issues of weapon procurement, jointness, professional military education

(PME) and officer promotion policies through the prism of civil–military
relations. The last two chapters deal with defence planning in India and
the current state of the civil–military relationship.
Wars, or their absence, are an objective measure of military
effectiveness. However, for an analytical work like this book, Mukherjee
has selected four major strands to measure military effectiveness:
weapons procurement, jointness, PME and officers’ promotion policies.
These issues broadly cover three significant components of application of
kinetic capability—man, machine and environment. However, looking
at these only through a civil–military prism has obvious drawbacks.
For example, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) Report
on capital acquisitions tabled in the Parliament in 2019 clearly brings
out all facets of the process and these go way beyond the civil–military
relationship. Despite this limitation, Mukherjee has linked various
historical events of military significance with civil–military relationship
and analysed its outcome.
Owing to a long gestation period, high value and long life
span, weapons procurement for the armed forces is a critical activity.
Individually, each weapon system contributes to military potential and
therefore military effectiveness. However, in the absence of a coordinated
approach towards capability development, weapon procurement can
result in suboptimal outcomes. Multiple examples of such procurements
are available. Procurement of communication sets in all three services
proves to be a classical example: not only there is incompatibility in an
inter-services scenario but, sometimes, intra-services communications
are disrupted owing to non-compatibility of communication equipment.
Such procurements are not cost-effective. However, attributing such
failures to below par civil–military relationship is stretching the logic
too far. It is a matter of professional incompetence at all levels. Moreover,
India has the dubious distinction of being the largest weapons importer
of the world for the last 50 years, with a 7 per cent share of world weapon
imports,1 almost double of second-placed Saudi Arabia. Such a situation
is a result of a failure of policymakers and policy implementers at all levels
and pinning the blame solely on civil–military relation is too simplistic
a approach. Such a situation can only be achieved by a continuous and
personal dialogue between all stakeholders for vested interests. This, in
effect, belies the title of the book.
Book Review 133
On the next core issue of PME, Mukherjee brings out a major flaw in
the Indian approach to this important facet. This owes to the domination
of armed forces in this domain with little, or mostly superficial, interaction
with the academic world. PME in India is a reflection of the education
system in the country that focuses on cramming data and information
and on its reproduction, rather than the ability to analyse it independently.
With all stakeholders being a product of this education system, it will be
difficult to change a subsystem of PME independently. The analysis that
a weak PME is a result of uncomfortable civil–military relations thus
seems out of place. In fact, education can only be meaningful when there
is a free flow of information and ideas, and military hierarchical structure
is barely suitable for such communication. Therefore, to improve PME,
two significant changes are required. First, a systematic declassification of
records and their free availability for research and analyses is mandatory.
The second step is to interlink PME with academic institutions out of the
purview of the military hierarchical structure. The entire organisation’s
apathy towards the non-establishment of the National Defence University,
even after a recommendation by the Group of Ministers after the Kargil
conflict in 1999, just about sums up the state of PME and its future
trajectory in India.
Jointness or integration of all three services is a necessity for a
comprehensive kinetic response in a crisis. However, each stakeholder
seeing the environment through its own straw pipe often leads to internal
conflict and a reduction in military effectiveness. This situation has been
allowed to prevail in India for far too long. Although, theoretically,
organisational structures exist for integrated operational planning it
must be kept in mind that it is individuals that invariably dominate these
institutional mechanisms. During a crisis, jointness at the operational
level has been visible, like in the 1971 Indo-Pak war that led to the
creation of Bangladesh, Op Cactus in the Maldives (1988), and Kargil
in 1999. However, during peacetime, the differences which are primarily
based on administrative issues come to the fore. A beginning has been
made with the creation of Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff
(HQ IDS) and more recently with the appointment of the first Chief
of Defence Staff (CDS) and the requisite creation of a Department of
Military Affairs (DMA) in the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Hopefully,
within the mandated three-year period, the first CDS will be able to
move decisively towards integration. On his first day in office, he set
134 Journal of Defence Studies
the ball rolling with a time-bound plan for an integrated Air Defence
Command and logistical plan at the station level.
Promotion policies and their outcomes are the most talked about
subject in the armed forces. However, the selection of officers for the
higher ranks (comprising three and four stars) has a major implication on
military effectiveness. Seniority, though an objective criterion, needs to
be bypassed for capability. However, the assessment of capability is very
subjective. Several factors, all of which are not necessarily professional,
play a pivotal role here. Whether the assessor is a politician, a bureaucrat
or from the armed forces, opinions and perceptions, as brought out by
Mukherjee, play a vital role. The selection of a wrong candidate for a
key appointment will invariably lead to failure and the 1962 Sino-Indian
war is a perfect example of this. In the Indian government system, the
role played by the bureaucracy in controlling the narrative practically
gives them the reigns. The situation gets accentuated by a few ambitious
personnel in the military cadre. Here, interpersonal relations between
individuals holding key appointments defines the outcome of interaction
and, often, institutions remain subservient to these individuals. This
aspect needs a serious review to enhance military effectiveness.
Overall, this is a well-researched book, with the depth of research
visible in the citation of a number of primary sources to understand
various phases of evolving civil–military equation in India and its impact
on military effectiveness. Yet, this work suffers on three major accounts.
First, it begins with a presumption that politicians, bureaucrats and
armed forces, though experts in their domains, have very little expertise
in understanding defence policy and plans. Second, the work does
not take into account that all three entities are an integral part of the
same society and have more commonalities than differences owing to
their chosen professions. Third, the civil–military relationship is not
a comprehensive prism to holistically view all major facets of military
effectiveness. Nevertheless, Mukherjee brings out valuable extracts from
multiple sources to support his analysis of the evolution of civil–military
relations in India.
Additionally, this reviewer found that too often in the book the same
logic is repeated, and sometimes on the same page. In case such repetitions
were eliminated, the book would be about 20 per cent thinner and make
for a more interesting read with tighter arguments. Another aspect that
appears as a weakness is the overdependence on inputs from the armed
forces on evaluating the civil–military relationship. A close scrutiny of
Book Review 135
the list of personnel interviewed indicates a major share for the armed
forces (71 per cent), with bureaucrats (18 per cent) and politicians (3
per cent) as minor stakeholders. A more equitable input from all three
elements would have been interesting.
Notwithstanding certain drawbacks about force-fitting four
significant factors of military effectiveness with civil–military relations,
The Absent Dialogue makes for an interesting read. Individually, all four
aspects of military effectiveness dealt in this book are very well covered,
with appropriate linking of historical events. Therefore, besides the
armed forces, it is best suited for politicians, bureaucrats, historians and
academics dealing with national security and defence. Interviews and
quotes from several practitioners make it easy to understand the practical
aspects of civil–military relationship. They also help put forward a point
of view which is otherwise not easily available in the public domain.
Mukherjee’s book helps the reader to understand the basics of development
of civil–military relations in India. Additionally, the book dispels a large
number of myths about the historic evolution of this relationship and
its impact on military effectiveness. Having said that, to fully grasp and
appreciate all aspects highlighted in the book by the author, first-hand
experience of the civil–military equation is desirable.
Note
1. Details are available on the “SIPRI Database”, http://armstrade.sipri.org/
armstrade/page/values.php, accessed on 30 December 2019.

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The Absent Dialogue: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the

Military in India by Anit Mukherjee, New Delhi: Oxford

Kishore Kumar Khera*

Defence, a subset of national security, is an intricate subject. Primarily,

ISSN 0976-1004 print

issues of weapon procurement, jointness, professional military education

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