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There is one thing good about George Fernandes. He misses no chance to show his solidarity with the troops.
In fact, he is the only Defence Minister in the world who makes it a point to visit troops at far flung border posts, not to cut ribbons or unfurl flags but to sup with them, most of all to be with them.
He has a special love for Siachen. Mind you it is a place which cannot be on anyone s list of holiday spots. It is a killing ice and snow field where soldiers have to fight not only the human enemy but the weather too, both equally vicious.
More than 11,000 men have fallen victim to Siachen, a few hundred of them fatally, in the past 16 years. Siachen is a place which leaves a scar on a soldier s mind. That is the reason why Defence Minister George Fernandes makes it his duty to visit the highest battleground in the world as many times his busy schedule could permit.
When he initially began flying to Siachen, I felt he was doing it for publicity. He is after all a politician. There was this famous send-bureaucrats-to-Siachen campaign announced with such aplomb which petered out within months. It was not for the want of inclination on the part of George but mainly because of his ignorance about the clout a bureaucrat wielded in our system. There were quite a few other Georgesque announcements which made headlines and nothing else.
I have travelled with him several times, since then, and one thing which struck me was his genuine concern for the soldier. Be it Bhuj or Dras, he went out of his way to touch base with the troops. His warmth and concern evoked immediate response from the troops. He would sit with them, have tea from the steel tumbler, taste a few pakoras prepared so lovingly by the soldiers and you could see them happy in his company. Unlike other ministers, he knew what to ask and when to. There was this marked difference in the way he talked to a soldier and the manner in which he handled the media. He was rarely comfortable with the latter, always wary of being misquoted. He has been a victim of such colossal blunders in the past.
One thing is sure, George Fernandes has set such exacting standards as a Defence Minister that it will be hard to emulate. Although pilloried for various acts of omission and commission in the past two years, George has brought about a factor called transparency into the functioning of the Defence Ministry. I have covered the functioning of the ministry for the past several years. It was such a secretive ministry that it was difficult to get even a denial. The Defence Ministers were either ignorant about matters of security, except perhaps crying out Jai Hind at the end of every speech they made or too busy flying to and fro to their constituencies, aboard military helicopters and aircraft.
George changed all that. He is an intelligent Defence Minister; he knows the subject, he does his homework well and holds independent opinion on several matters. He doesn't need some one to prompt the right answers as his predecessor was known to. He is not an easy man to be brow beaten and on several occasions has held on his own. The troops like him, the top brass may not.
Unwittingly, George has set some standards for the top brass too. His frequent visits to Siachen is a case in point. If a minister can get out of the comforts of Delhi to the troops posted on icy heights, it will be difficult for the top brass to remain ensconced in their Headquarters for long. The Service Chiefs often do but not their subordinates with as much frequency. The middle- rung officers of the armed forces too need to get out of their offices and visit forward positions. Same goes for the bureaucrats who take decisions which could be matters of life and death for the soldiers.
George,however, needs to do more. First and the foremost is to bring transparency into the functioning of his ministry. No doubt, his record has been better than his predecessors. Barring a few occasions, he has been quite forthcoming on issues of defence and security. But the frequency has to be more. Whether he likes it or not, he has to get the media involved in making security and defence a public issue. The first step is simple: Hold a fortnightly background briefing for defence correspondents on issues which need clarification and wider understanding. These briefing sessions could cut down the number of denials issued by the ministry and bring about, at the same time, a sympathetic understanding of the issues by the media. There used to be such briefings earlier which were discontinued for whimsical reasons.
The second is to get the armed forces involved in the decision making process. It is not an easy proposition. It has been attempted once. Last year, George announced setting up of an integrated Ministry of Defence with the same objective.
The idea is still to take off and seems to have been lost in a plethora of similar plans which are currently floating around in the South Block. A second attempt therefore has become an urgent necessity. The armed forces are not exactly happy about the manner in which decisions are taken at the ministry level. Their main grouse is delay and lack of empathy for their requirements. As a Defence Minister, George has cut down a few miles of red tape in the ministry but then there are many more miles of it strangulating the armed forces which too need to be set right.
And only George can do it. One, because he knows it has to be done and second, because he is one of the most articulate and strong- willed ministers who can push an agenda through. The armed forces look up to him for this reason alone. They know that if George fails to bring about the long-awaited reforms in the defence establishment, it might take another half-a-century to find another Defence Minister with similar empathy and understanding.
As an afterthought, I think, George should also make it a point to visit forward locations of the air force and the navy. Both these wings of the armed forces are also doing a fine job under the given constraints of funds and weapons. The navy for instance is managing an area at least 10 times larger than what the 1.1 million strong army is guarding. It is doing no less a great job than what the soldiers are doing at Siachen. A submariner's life, for instance, is rarely less arduous or risky than a soldier in Kashmir.
The men and machines of the Indian Air Force are an equally brave lot. Helicopter pilots flying in and out of battle zones like Siachen face enormous risk to their life and limb several times a day. Fighter pilots at Uttarlai live under trying conditions during the summer and yet remain alert and fit enough to fly on a mission into the enemy territory at a moment's notice. If George can bring the indomitable courage of our soldiers posted at Siachen into the public domain by his visits, he should bring about the same public awareness about the air and naval operations.
It is time, as a nation, we begin
to realise what a soldier does at a death zone called Siachen day after
day, through holidays and festivals.I salute George for his concern for
the ordinary soldier. I salute the soldier for his love for the country.
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