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Last Modified: Sat, May 02 2015. 12 47 AM IST
Siddharth Singh
army to notify the ministry of defence. It was the closest India came to the C
word.
The controversy generated by that story did not die for a long time. There
was considerable disbelief at the suggestion. Then army chief V.K. Singh,
now a Union minister of state, denied the report strongly. Whatever the truth,
it is unlikely that India will see a coup. Even before independence was
gained, Indias leaders took care to put in place a series of coup-proofing
strategies that made any adventurism by the army difficult, if not impossible.
In Army And Nation: The Military And Indian Democracy Since Independence,
Yale University political scientist Steven I. Wilkinson casts a careful look at
what these strategies were and why they have been so effective. He
compares India with its neighbour Pakistan, which has been a coup country
par excellence for most of its existence. It is an important comparison.
From the advent of British rule in the late 18th century until 1947, India had
a single army. The partitioned army had the same customs and habits, and
similar recruitment patterns. Barely a decade later, Pakistans army took
over the countrys reins; the Indian Army, in contrast, remained securely
within the barracks, with its reputation as an effective and apolitical
organization intact.
Wilkinson argues that Pakistan never undertook the steps that Indian leaders
did after 1947. Jawaharlal Nehrus hostility to the army is well-known. In
1955, the army chief was redesignated from commander-in-chief to chief of
army staff. This was not a symbolic change.