By Sudha Ramachandran
A string of violent incidents reveals some festering problems in India’s military.
A string of incidents involving indiscipline and insubordination in the Indian armed forces has set off alarm bells in India’s defense establishment. Since May last year, there have been at least four violent clashes between officers and jawans (soldiers) of the Indian army. Two of these occurred over a span of five days last month.
On October 10, jawans of an infantry battalion in Meerut near New Delhi beat up officers after an altercation over a boxing match. The officers had reportedly “roughed up” a jawan for losing the match. Four days later, the commanding officer (CO) of a battalion in Batala in Punjab was assaulted when he took disciplinary action against a jawan for reporting late to work.
In May last year, the army witnessed one of its most serious cases of indiscipline when officers and jawans of an artillery regiment in Nyoma in eastern Ladakh were involved in a brawl. The unit was training at a firing range some 20 km from India’s disputed border with China when its soldiers, enraged at officers who had bashed their colleague and then denied him medical treatment, went on a rampage, even occupying the armory.
The incident was described variously in the Indian media as a “brawl,” “a free for all,” “a mutiny,” and even “a revolt.”
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