HVK Archives: Spare the army
Spare the army - The Times of India
Editorial
()
4 August 1997
Title: Spare the army
Author: Editorial
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 4, 1997
Members of Parliament have rightly demanded a probe into the circumstances
in which some officers of the CBI asked for the help of local army
authorities, to execute the warrant of arrest against Mr Laloo Prasad
Yadav. The government and the CBI have initiated action to fix
responsibility for this alleged breach of the well-established demarcation
between civil and military duties, which has been the bedrock of Indian
democracy for the past 50 years. However, regrettable as the episode is, it
was perhaps inevitable considering the increasing politicisation of the
civil administration at all levels in all parts of the country. Instead of
resorting to emotional outbursts and compelling adjournments of the Houses,
parliamentarians should soberly address the deeper malaise of which this
instance is a symptom. The readiness with which our politicians and civil
police forces requisition the Army's help at the slightest pretext may well
have prompted the CBI to do the same in Bihar. Only recently a former
chief minister of Maharashtra, deposing before the Sri Krishna Commission,
complained that the Army did not behave like the police, thereby suggesting
that the former was not politically pliable unlike the latter. If a chief
minister has ideas of this kind about the role of the Army, why blame the
CBI officials? In any case, when the civil administration refuses to
cooperate with a law enforcement agency, as it happened in Mr Yadav's case
where the CBI found itself prevented from arresting him, there was probably
no alternative but to S-o-S the Army.
The upshot of all this was that the Bihar high court had to summon the
chief secretary and the Director-General of Police and express its strong
disapproval of the way the administration of law and order has been carried
on in the state. It bears remembering that the CBI had specifically sought
assurances from the Bihar government through the high court that their
personnel would not be obstructed from performing their duties, not put at
risk if they were to arrest leading political personalities. As is evident
from their objection to the Kerala high court ruling holding bandhs
unconstitutional, the majority of politicians seem to approve of violence
and intimidation as legitimate instruments of dissent. While the action of
the CBI officials in Patna is wholly condemnable, political leaders cannot
escape the responsibility for this development. The CBI officials in Patna
could even make out a plausible, though not justified, case that their
appeal to the Army was made only in a situation where violence had come to
be expected. While most of our politicians with some exceptions and our
administrative and police structures are totally disgraced by this episode,
the Army which threw the book of law at the CBI emerges as the staunchest
pillar of democracy in the country. While giving full marks to the Army,
this state of affairs is not something this country at the 50th year of its
Independence can contemplate with joy and satisfaction.
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