No politics please, the Army is secular & apolitical

This is as a counter to the article, “The country needs more Muslims in armed forces,” by Col Ramesh Davesar (retd.) published in The Tribune. Davesar has touched a very sensitive issue, which has been discussed threadbare a number of times earlier and has been settled with the present arrangement. The Indian Army is the only organisation in the world in which soldiers from all castes, creeds and communities are recruited. There are no reservations for any category. Why should the issue of “more Muslims in the Army” be kindled? The Indian Army is the best example of national integration where all festivals and religious functions are organised, based on the ethnicity of the soldiers. All officers, irrespective of their religion, participate wholeheartedly in all the religious functions organised by the jawans. 

Raising the issue of recruitment of more Muslims in the Army at this juncture is uncalled for as they are recruited according to merit and there is no bar on their recruitment in the armed forces. Muslim officers can join any service of the armed forces they desire, depending on their qualifications and merit. But the eligible and fit Muslims are not coming forward to join this service. It is a tough life, one that entails separation from families and a highly disciplined lifestyle that which only highly motivated people can survive. However, a number of Muslim soldiers have done extremely well during the Indo-Pak wars. The reason for the Muslim under-representation in the Indian Army, or the over-representation of Sikhs is something that lies partly in history. Sikhs form 1.86 per cent of India's population and have a representation of around 8 per cent in the Indian Army. Muslims form 13 per cent of India's population and about 2 per cent of the population is in the Army. 

Just as Muslims are under-represented in the Army, so are the Bengalis, Biharis, Oriyas, South Indians or Gujaratis. And just as Sikhs are over-represented, so are the Jats, Dogras, Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Gurkhas, Marathas, and Punjabis. The Indian Army's recruitment pattern was set 150 years ago by India's 1857 uprising. Traumatised by the rebellion, the British army adopted a recruitment policy that punished the groups which rebelled and rewarded the ones that stayed loyal. Because the Muslims of Awadh, Bihar and West Bengal led the uprising, the British army stopped hiring soldiers from these areas.

Also blacklisted from these places were high-caste Hindus, whose regiments in Bengal had also mutinied. In contrast, the British raised the recruitment of castes that had stood by the British to put down the uprising. These castes were Sikhs, Jats, Dogras, Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Gorkhas, Marathas and Punjabis, both Hindus and Muslims. Honoured as martial races, they received preferential treatment in army recruitment for the next 90 years. Like any institution, the Indian Army is a prisoner of the past. Even today, it favours enlisting men from the martial races. According to the figures of last three years, large numbers came from four “martial” states, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. So these states, which account for 5 per cent of India's population, provided 15 per cent of soldiers in the Indian Army.

In contrast, the fewest recruits came from “non-martial” West Bengal, Bihar and Gujarat. These three states account for 30 per cent of India's population, but they provided only 14 per cent of the Army’s soldiers in this three-year period.  About the Muslim under-representation in the Indian Army, there are three reasons. Firstly, Partition caused this. Before Independence, Muslims were around 25 per cent of the Indian Army and 25 per cent of undivided India. When India broke up and Muslim soldiers were asked to choose between India and Pakistan, they joined Pakistan en masse. So Muslim numbers in the Indian Army dropped so drastically that they were only 2 per cent in 1953. Jawaharlal Nehru himself expressed concern that “hardly any Muslims” were left in the Army. And Muslim numbers never really picked up in the last 67 years for obvious reasons. This discrimination is a natural phenomenon of India and Pakistan's bitter hostility over 67 years. 

In similar situations, the same thing happens all over the world. The Israeli army doesn't trust its Arab soldiers in jobs related to defence security. The Buddhist-Sinhalese army under-recruits it's Hindu Tamils lest their sympathies lie with the Tamil Tigers. After 9/11, US army recruiters would probably screen a Muslim American volunteer more thoroughly than a Christian American one. Despite these reasons, India still has two to three Company's strength of Muslims in Grenadiers, Mahar Regiments and Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry battalions that too are not getting their full quota of Muslims. In all other arms and services, Muslims are not deprived of the recruitment if they are qualified and are fit to serve in the Army. Secondly, the cause of Muslim under-recruitment is their relatively poor education. When they try to enlist as soldiers, they lose out in the competition to better-educated Sikh, Hindu, and Christian youths. Efforts should, therefore, be made by the Muslim leaders to impart proper education to them in schools other than madrassas. 

Thirdly, in life, however, one man's meat is another man's poison. The under-representation of Muslims and other caste or regional groups benefits the over-represented ones. The composition of the Indian Army is totally askew numbers’ wise. West Bengal's population is eight times that of Uttarakhand. But Uttarakhand provides almost the same number of Army recruits as West Bengal. Compare a “martial” Punjab with a non-martial Gujarat. Punjab's population is half that of Gujarat. But it provides four times as many people to the Indian Army as Gujarat. The Indian Army hired far more recruits in Rajasthan than in Tamil Nadu, even though Tamil Nadu's population is higher. Essentially, the Indian Army is dominated numbers’wise by Sikhs and Hindi-speaking Hindus of North India, since they are highly motivated, ready to take challenges, and prepared to sacrifice for the nation. The current status quo suits them perfectly.

The Army has strongly rejected calls for raising new “single-class” units like the Gujarat, Kalinga, Dalit, Ahir, Paswan or Tribal regiments as well as attempts to tinker with its “time-tested” regimental system. The policy since Independence is not to raise any new regiment on the basis of a particular class, creed, community, religion or region but to have a force in which all Indians have representation. This is the well-defined position of both the Defence Ministry and the Army. Politics should not be played with the apolitical armed forces. The Army is an inclusive and secular force open to all. The Sachar Committee for that reason even opposed the religious headcount in the armed forces in 2005-06. 

The writer is a former Professor, International Trade, ICFAI University, Hyderabad.