FAUJI INDIA - January 2020

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As we start the New Year, there is considerable tension within the country, following the public outrage against the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). What is evident is that PM Modi’s government hadn’t quite expected the resistance to the CAA to be as violent. Hopefully, the government’s explanations should calm tempers, though the jury is still out of this one. An added fallout could be the questions that have been raised about the Modi government’s intent, not just amongst the critics of India, with Pakistan in the forefront, but also among observers in the western world. And though the government has contained the diplomatic fallout by MEA’s efforts, the world is still watching.

For the services however, the Cabinet (CCS) approval of the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), is the single biggest step – albeit in a long line of several such hitherto demands towards military reforms – concerning the Armed Forces, to synergise them better for operational efficacy in our changing times, and for more sensible use of our limited resources to modernise for the future. Nations – especially China – have already implemented other complementing reforms like reorganizing their militaries in theatre commands, perfecting their warfighting doctrines through frequent exercises and war games, supported by a staggering level of defence modernization and backed by its rapidly advancing techno-industrial defence manufacturing base soon to be on par with the US and Russia in a few years. India fares poorly here.