The Last Straw?

Involvement of a serving officer in terrorist activities has generated a lot of consteration within the services as well as amongst the people at large. Is it the begining of the end? The last straw? Crumbling of the citadel? While these are extreme views, the fact is that there is need for introspection.

The British had a policy, right or wrong, of keeping the armed forces insulated from the populace, at the same time treating them well enough in terms of emolutments and 'izzat'. Over the years, the insulation has vanished, and the armed forces no longer enjoy the pre-eminence in the society it once did. These, I feel are the two major contributing factors to the radical changes that are coming about in the thinking. Of course, the present incident is very obviously an aberration - a one in a lakh case I would put it. But I would also view is as a magnification of the changes that are coming about microscopically.

Management of change is a key command responsibility, which I am afraid has not got due credence as of now. When change is a fact of life, there is a need to firstly acknowledge that it is occuring, secondly to analyse it in all its dimensions, and lastly to take appropriate steps to mould the system and organisation to ensure that it continues to function optimally after due corrections to cater for the change. Change may be good or bad - either ways, the system has to make allowances to either benefit from it, or to restrict its impact. Our approach to either deny that a change is taking place at all, or to castigate it and persist with a rigid system promoting status quoism, is self defeating.