Without declassification,we can only have uninformed debates about the past
Anit Mukherjee
India is an insecure state, a former police officerturned-chief information commissioner (CIC) said.We have many enemies and cannot show everything. I was used to the classic but misleading national security argument and so countered instantly,Precisely because we have enemies,we must learn from the past which currently we are unable to. I was referring toIndias
A few months later,the CIC concerned delivered a sympathetic slap-on-the-wrist judgment on my case against the defence ministry and the three armed forces headquarters.It was a frustrating end to ones efforts but confirmed an initial hunch: the government of India likes to keep its citizens ignorant and uninformed so that most debates are opinion-driven instead of being factual.And,in a land of a billion opinions with which we are bombarded every evening on TV,opinions are simply that easy to shrug and deny.
I had filed the RTI around two years ago,requesting six documents of historical interest relating to the military.The most contemporary one was a pathbreaking report called the Committee on Defence Expenditure written in 1990.The request was in connection with my dissertation research and as a preliminary trial balloon.What unfolded was an exposure to Indias Byzantine bureaucracy and some alarming if ridiculous insights.For the first year,i got letters from 30 departments in the defence ministry all informing me that they did not have the reports.The first insight: nobody knows where the documents are kept as there is no recordkeeping in the ministry or the three service headquarters.
Eventually the request for the documents was denied but,when i appealed to the CIC,there was an even more alarming development.The ministry claimed that it could not locate five of the six documents including the critical 1990 Committee on Defence Expenditure report.In other words,documents that were not declassified on account of national security could not be found!
The second insight was not new.Most informed commentators know India does not follow a declassification policy,with disastrous if less widely known consequences.It is not an exaggeration to claim that there is not a single book on the post-Independence Indian military,paramilitary,police or even diplomacy that relies on official documents.All we have are either autobiographies or hagiographies,both an unreliable medium.The history department of the ministry of defence and the Indian Navy have written official histories but the sources they rely on are unavailable to other researchers.
The significance is twofold.Current and future generations are unaware about their past and,more crucially,existing bureaucracies are unable to selfanalyse.The latter is a particularly debilitating flaw as even correctives to existing bureaucracies are personality-based and opinion-driven.It is not surprising therefore that,with every change of service chief,we have new ideas and opinions on what ails the system.As all policy change is opinion-driven,the system lacks stability.
The lack of documentary access also results in the absence of serious academic studies of these bureaucracies.As a result,universities in India teach grand theoretical meta-narratives with little comprehension of how policies are formulated and implemented.In some ways,this suits academics.With rare exceptions,most of them have metaphorically seceded from the Indian state and are comfortable in their gated campuses.The tragedy,however,is visited upon students condemned to regurgitating theoretical literature with little policy relevance.
The final consequence stemming from a lack of declassification is visited upon members of the armed forces.Without scholarly and neutral accounts,most Indians are unaware of the tremendous sacrifices made by the men and women in uniform.Thus uniquely India does not have a national war museum and its national war memorial was one built by the British to honour those who died for the empire.Simply put,there is a distance between Indian society and its soldiers.
Indias case is not unique among developing countries.But it indicates a truism missed by most political scientists.Declassification helps bridge the gap between civilians and the military and,more importantly,enhances civilian control.Hence,studies of the military based on official documents will enable a more informed civil-military dialogue and not allow senior military officers to maintain a monopoly on policy with claims of special expertise.While this is a chicken-and-egg problem,one way to consolidate civilian control in countries with this problem think Pakistan and Egypt,for instance is to insist upon this procedure.
Problems stemming from an absence of declassification have been flagged by many including vice-president Hamid Ansari,but the bureaucracies are famously unresponsive.Military officials claim they are willing to declassify but need instructions from the defence ministry.Defence ministry officials,on the other hand,argue that only a classifying agency can declassify ! The conclusion is that this policy can only change when the Oxbridge-educated prime minister realises the value of scholarly knowledge of the past in preparing for the future and calls his officials for a meeting.
The writer is a research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses,New Delhi
Anit Mukherjee
India is an insecure state, a former police officerturned-chief information commissioner (CIC) said.We have many enemies and cannot show everything. I was used to the classic but misleading national security argument and so countered instantly,Precisely because we have enemies,we must learn from the past which currently we are unable to. I was referring to
A few months later,the CIC concerned delivered a sympathetic slap-on-the-wrist judgment on my case against the defence ministry and the three armed forces headquarters.It was a frustrating end to ones efforts but confirmed an initial hunch: the government of India likes to keep its citizens ignorant and uninformed so that most debates are opinion-driven instead of being factual.And,in a land of a billion opinions with which we are bombarded every evening on TV,opinions are simply that easy to shrug and deny.
I had filed the RTI around two years ago,requesting six documents of historical interest relating to the military.The most contemporary one was a pathbreaking report called the Committee on Defence Expenditure written in 1990.The request was in connection with my dissertation research and as a preliminary trial balloon.What unfolded was an exposure to Indias Byzantine bureaucracy and some alarming if ridiculous insights.For the first year,i got letters from 30 departments in the defence ministry all informing me that they did not have the reports.The first insight: nobody knows where the documents are kept as there is no recordkeeping in the ministry or the three service headquarters.
Eventually the request for the documents was denied but,when i appealed to the CIC,there was an even more alarming development.The ministry claimed that it could not locate five of the six documents including the critical 1990 Committee on Defence Expenditure report.In other words,documents that were not declassified on account of national security could not be found!
The second insight was not new.Most informed commentators know India does not follow a declassification policy,with disastrous if less widely known consequences.It is not an exaggeration to claim that there is not a single book on the post-Independence Indian military,paramilitary,police or even diplomacy that relies on official documents.All we have are either autobiographies or hagiographies,both an unreliable medium.The history department of the ministry of defence and the Indian Navy have written official histories but the sources they rely on are unavailable to other researchers.
The significance is twofold.Current and future generations are unaware about their past and,more crucially,existing bureaucracies are unable to selfanalyse.The latter is a particularly debilitating flaw as even correctives to existing bureaucracies are personality-based and opinion-driven.It is not surprising therefore that,with every change of service chief,we have new ideas and opinions on what ails the system.As all policy change is opinion-driven,the system lacks stability.
The lack of documentary access also results in the absence of serious academic studies of these bureaucracies.As a result,universities in India teach grand theoretical meta-narratives with little comprehension of how policies are formulated and implemented.In some ways,this suits academics.With rare exceptions,most of them have metaphorically seceded from the Indian state and are comfortable in their gated campuses.The tragedy,however,is visited upon students condemned to regurgitating theoretical literature with little policy relevance.
The final consequence stemming from a lack of declassification is visited upon members of the armed forces.Without scholarly and neutral accounts,most Indians are unaware of the tremendous sacrifices made by the men and women in uniform.Thus uniquely India does not have a national war museum and its national war memorial was one built by the British to honour those who died for the empire.Simply put,there is a distance between Indian society and its soldiers.
Indias case is not unique among developing countries.But it indicates a truism missed by most political scientists.Declassification helps bridge the gap between civilians and the military and,more importantly,enhances civilian control.Hence,studies of the military based on official documents will enable a more informed civil-military dialogue and not allow senior military officers to maintain a monopoly on policy with claims of special expertise.While this is a chicken-and-egg problem,one way to consolidate civilian control in countries with this problem think Pakistan and Egypt,for instance is to insist upon this procedure.
Problems stemming from an absence of declassification have been flagged by many including vice-president Hamid Ansari,but the bureaucracies are famously unresponsive.Military officials claim they are willing to declassify but need instructions from the defence ministry.Defence ministry officials,on the other hand,argue that only a classifying agency can declassify ! The conclusion is that this policy can only change when the Oxbridge-educated prime minister realises the value of scholarly knowledge of the past in preparing for the future and calls his officials for a meeting.
The writer is a research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses,
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