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Former Defence Minister Jaswant Singh says the government was unfair in accepting Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral D K Joshi's resignation following a spate of accidents. He tells Aditi Phadnis that the wrong person resigned: it should have been Defence Minister A K Antony. Edited excerpts:
The Chief of Naval Staff, D K Joshi, has resigned owning responsibility for the accidents on ships and submarines in the Indian Navy. As a soldier and a former minister, what do you feel the government should have done?
The way the accident on INS Sindhurakshak and the events after that were handled says a lot in totality about what is happening in the Ministry of Defence (MoD). I am truly appalled by the manner the MoD has handled the situation. I take serious objection to the casual manner in which the resignation of the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) has been treated. The CNS, in the highest tradition of the Indian Navy, has described himself as the Officer on Watch, a phrase which has a special and specific connotation as far as naval traditions go. I do wonder if anyone in the MoD has ever reflected on the seriousness of this event, its criminal consequences and the ramifications it has for the entire apparatus of defence preparedness.
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You don't accept a chief's resignation unless you are convinced that he was in the wrong. Was any enquiry held? On the last occasion, in the case of Sindhurakshak, sabotage could not be ruled out. A lot of casual labour is employed in the Mazagon Docks and much of it is immigrant labour from countries to the east of India. The Defence Security Corps cannot detect all of them. This was an issue that the Navy raised after the Sindhurakshak accident. Did the minister take note of it?
Is the issue about accountability?
In the dreary desert sands of non-acceptance of responsibility, nobody has stood up to be accountable. At least Admiral Joshi did so. It makes me proud that some services man, even of the Indian Navy to which I don't belong, stood up and said: I am accountable. The same cannot, regrettably, be said of the defence minister. It was an admirable step on the part of the CNS but instead of him it should have been A K Antony who should have resigned because he is responsible for so much that has gone wrong with India's defence services.
I spoke to the CNS soon after he stepped down. It was gracious of him to accept my call - I am, after all, a nobody. But I felt strongly that an injustice had been done to him. The prime minister of the country did not have the courtesy to speak to him. And not even 10 minutes had passed after his offer to resign that the government accepted his resignation. He told me: "I have to accept responsibility. If I don't, who will?"
It has been described as a lapse of leadership on Admiral Joshi's part...
Why has the Navy been singled out? The defence minister is described as having been "unhappy" with the CNS. I would like to ask the defence minister if he is satisfied or happy with the way the Indian Air Force or the Army is being led? What about the series of air accidents that we are repeatedly informed about? I don't remember ever being informed about the concern of the MoD about these accidents. Or for that matter, about the various mutinies that have occurred in sensitive areas.
Mutinies? You're using a strong word...
I am deliberately using the word "mutiny" , and it is not just one, it is several mutinies in sensitive areas. Successive transgressions on either the Line of Control or the Line of Actual Control have drawn no similar sense of concern from the good Mr [A K] Antony. I do, therefore, wish to ask him: would he please educate the country on how he interprets his own duties and responsibilities? I hold the minister as derelict in the discharge of his responsibilities because he has failed to take timely decisions on grave deficiencies of manpower and equipment.
For example, I will cite only one instance from each of the three services, of the grave failure of the minister to take decisions.
Many decades have passed but the Indian Navy continues to be without a deep-sea recovery vehicle. Therefore, whenever an accident involving a submarine takes place, we have to lean over backwards to obtain a vessel on loan from the US.
Take the Air Force. I don't want to go into the array of numbers of squadrons that the IAF has to have. Our shortage is critical. The good minister has yet again ordered an enquiry into a procurement order just as it was going to be finalised. The Indian Army is short of howitzers and continues to remain short - not just of weapons like the 155 anti-aircraft guns, but also short of manpower, officers and morale. For all these shortages, I hold the defence minister and the prime minister responsible.
I do wish to assert that they have been derelict in the discharge of their responsibility to the country.
Coming back to the CNS' resignation...
I want to ask the Government of India and the defence minister that the news item put out after the CNS' resignation casually says the defence ministry accepted his resignation. Who did so? An under-secretary? Was it considered by the Union Cabinet at all? It is, after all, the resignation of a chief: was the Union Cabinet consulted? Was the Cabinet Committee on Security [consulted]? If not, then why? Did they not consider it important enough to hold a cabinet meeting? What was the prime minister's role in all this: if at all, he had a role?
Finally, I do wish to ask the prime minister and the defence minister: did they at least have the courtesy to inform the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, the President of India, that this was happening?
Mr Antony's qualities of head and heart make him one of the longest-serving defence ministers India has had. He is described as an unassuming and modest man...
He has much to be modest about.
