Indian Government fears revolt by army

Press, 11 July 1979, Page 7

Indian Government fears revolt by army

By

SUNDANDA DATTARAY

Calcutta Rebellious sepoys of India’s Central Reserve Police, who recently marched on barracks and training centres calling on comrades to join the nation-wide insurrection in defence of human rights, were unconsciously reenacting (he drama of the Great Itclian Mutiny, of 1857, yhen recalcitrant troops of the East India Company’s army stormed military depots to preach revolution.

The parallel with the events that shook the foundations of the Biritsh Raj md are today often exailtd as “the first war of jhdian independence’’ seeped even more apposite when 40 C.R.P. soldiers taken from Hyderabad to Trivandrum to help pd down the rising pjbmptly tried to join the rrptineers.

.The crisis continues, Respite last week’s military intervention at Prime I ’inister’ Morarji Desai’s uequest. Public support for the mutineers from the Communist Party of India, as 1 well as opposition demands that the Home Minister (Mr H. M. Patel) be sacked, and the mood of sullen defiance that prevails in the C.R.P. ranks, all underline the gravity of the danger India faces.

Many Indians openly speculate that, since discipline in the police and para-military forces has already collapsed, it cannot be long before the army too succumbs to anarchy. It is recalled

that, at a conference of State chief ministers last September Janata leaders from Punjab and Haryana — which supply most of India’s army of nearly a million soldiers — warned that discontent in the ranks could easily imperil parliamentary government. The Congress Party leader and former Home Minister (Mr Yashwantrao Chavan, drew attention to this fear when he outlined the danger of using the army to suppress the C.R.P.

The present troubles began in early May when about half of India’s 900,000 policemen — who are answerable to State governments — went on strike for higher wages, liberal housing and other allowances, overtime payments, shorter working hours, longer holidays and, most important of all, the right to form trade unions.

The agitation was sparked off by an incident in Punjab when a sick traffic constable who had neglected to salute a local legislator was accused of. being drunk on duty and physically assaulted. Protest spread to six other states, with angry policemen holding public rallies with banners, loudspeakers and slogans, and demanding improved working conditions. While some of the economic demands were conceded, New Delhi used the Central Reserve Police to suppress the police rising and to disarm its leaders. The C.R.P., which has its own list of grievances, now insists on the wages of co-operation.

It is difficult to see how New Delhi can refuse these demands and still keep an effective peacekeeping force not subject to the fluctuations of State politics. Known before 1947 as the Crown Representative’s Police, the C.R.P. then comprised a single battalion which took its orders from the Viceroy, and stood by for emergency duties in the princely states where the ordinary Indian police had no jurisidiction. The British were anxious to liquidate the force when handing over power; but Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru’s tough Home Minister at once realised the potential of what amounted to a private army. Not only was the C.R.P. kept under the central Government’s exclusive authority, but its strength was gradually raised to a formidable 58 battalions or 75,000 Sepoys. It was also modernised and given special urban fighting training.

But the force’s basic character was unchanged. It is still at the disposal of the ruling party in New Delhi. State police forces are no longer regarded as either impartial or ■ sufficiently iOyal to the capital, while it is still not thought desirable to involve the army too frequently to impose law and order.

India has about 300,000

men in six national paramilitary police forces. The C.R.P. is possibly the most important, but it is not the only ohe with trouble in the ranks. The 40,000 men of the Central Industrial Security Force are involved. They are deployed in power plants, nuclear installations, ports and mines. Last week they fought a pitched battle with the army in the‘'So-viet-built steel mill township of Bokaro in Bihar. Twenty-four people were killed and the C.I.S.F. is. believed to have • been secretly stockpiling weapons for months. The military says it has seized “huge dumps of illegal, dims, ammunition, cocktail bombs, non-ser-vice guns and bomb-mak-ing materials.” In Bokaro nearly 2000 C.I.S.F. men either surrendered or were captured after the four-hour battle. Many will be tried for hoarding illicit weapons and for murder. Overt expressions of discontent may havfe been suppressed for the time being. C.R.P. armouries and treasuries have been taken over by the army; five battalions are being disbanded; nearly 500 men have been summarily dismissed; many have been deprived of their arms and ammunition and confined to barracks.

But thousands of sepoys are still on strike in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala and Orissa States. Hundreds of C.I.S.F. men are either in hiding or refusing to attend parades. Like the police, the C.I.S.F. and C.R.P. complain of inadequate Wages. The average C.R.P. sepoy is paid about $25 a month, while an officer with the seemingly grand title of assistant commissioner starts on just double that. C.I.S.F. rates are even lower.

In contrast, the police force has managed to wring relatively generous increments from State

rulers anxious to’ be conciliatory. Inclusive of his free rations and housing, a West Bengal constable officially earns mre than $5O a month. But the real point of envy is that, while policemen all over the country supplement their incomes with “gifts” and bribes, C.R.P. and C.I.S.F. men have few such opportunities. Fears are being expressed that the traditional paternalistic relationship between army officers and the troops may also be in danger of being eroded. The weakening of discipline is traced to a breakdown of confidence. Sepoys are conscious of the influence commanded by their clan representatives in the higher echelons of the Janata Party. This awareness may in time damage the army’s British, traditions. There are already complaints that the institution of the regimental “burra Khana” (big feast) at which the men were encouraged to ask questions and voice grievances in *’ an atmosphere of relaxed informality without any question of official reprisal, has lost something of its uninhibited candour. India’s army is still a well-disciplined fighting force; but repeated incursions into civilian life could one day suggest a new outlet for restiveness. One cause of the latest unrest may be the diligence with which the Janata Party’s spiritual mentor, Jayaprakash Narayan, used to advise soldiers and policemen to reject orders they did not like so long as the Congress was in power.

This constant incitement to indiscipline was one of the reasons advanced by Mrs Gandhi for clamping emergency rules on the country in 1975. There may be some comfort for

her in the knowledge that Janata’s pigeons are coming home to roost. — O.F.N.S. Copyright.