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Introduction:-
Indian army provides employment to more than 1 million people.
There are no reservations for SC/ST’s in the Indian. Also here I
shall point out the duty of Indian Government to protect the
fundamental right of its citizens guaranteed under Art. 15 (4) of
the constitution of India introduced by the first Constitutional
Amendment Act of 1951. The Government claims Indian Army to be
truly secular, but there are regiments like the Rajput regiment,
Sikh regiment, Gorkha regiment, Naga, Jat, and Maratha etc. in the
Army even today.
What is
notable here is that all sections of society do not have special
regiments, and only the so called fighter classes have special
regiments in their name. These caste and sect based regiments
create a feeling of pride in those members of the Army who are
privileged and honored by having regiments in the name of their
community or caste or sect, on the other hand a feeling of
inferiority for those who do not belong to these castes and sects.
The government should abolish the regional and caste based
regimentation in the Army. The troups in these regiments are
mandatorily from the same caste as the regiment example only
rajputs can go into the Rajput Regiment, the Gorkhas into the
Gorkha and so on, while the officers can be from any caste or
sect. But the effect of such a classification is that the troups
tend to have greater faithfulness towards the officers of their
own sect and caste, which is obvious human behavior. The
consequence is a divsion among the officers which is of dire
consequence for the Army as an institution.
The officers
from other communities are exposed to the risk of feeling secluded
in these regiments as most of the other officers are from the same
caste or sect as that of the regiment. Mostly the officers
belonging to the same caste and sect opt to go for such caste
based regiments, hence reducing the scope of option for those who
do not belong to these privileged classes.
In July 1941
Dr. B.R Ambedhkar was appointed to the Defense Advisory Committee
of the Viceroys executive council. He used this appointment to
exert pressure within the military establishment for creation of a
‘Mahar regiment’. He also appealed to the Mahar’s to join the Army
in large numbers in order to raise their self esteem and with the
hope to bring them at par with others. But today this regiment
does not belong only to the Mahar’s, it is composed of troups from
all communities and regions of India. Mahar’s is a Scheduled Caste
of Maharashtra. The irony is that the ill effect of having a caste
and sect based regimentation is evident even with this regiment
even though it was created with the object to higher the esteem of
this backward class in the society the effect that is seen today
is opposite, because the soldiers of Indian Army come from a
society which is full of prejudices against the Dalits, it is
unreasonable to expect them to be un touched by these inhibitions.
Hence the result that can be apprehended is discrimination against
the soldiers of the Mahar Regiment by those belonging to other
regiments as they are considered inferior.
Its’ high time
the Indian government looked into these matters and abolishes
division of the Indian Army based on sect and caste which the
Britishers had adopted for their own benefit because they felt
that such regimentation shall give better out put as the people of
the same caste and creed (All figther classes) shall be inspired
to show valor in order to bring honour to their creed and
community. This was sheer exploitation of the divisions (caste
feeling) which had prevailed in India to their benifit.
On 9 March 2005, the PMO had issued the Notification for
constitution of the High Level Committee for preparation of Report
on the Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim
Community in India. The committee submitted its report on 30th
Nov. 2006 but the government has apparently forgotten about it and
is sleeping over it. It has been alleged that the government had
been prompted on this course by an article in Pacific Affairs in
Winter 2001/02 titled Ethnic-based recruitment into the Indian
Army:
The contrasting cases of Sikhs, Muslims, Gorkhas and others by an
MIT-based researcher, Omar Khalidi. The scholar had - in his Khaki
and Ethnic Violence in India - expressed his views on the
under-representation of Muslims. He has marshalled his thesis to
reveal that ‘The Indian Armed Forces’, as composed today, do not
mirror the social diversity of the Indian population. This gap
between the declared policy of the state to make the armed forces
representative of the national demography and its actual
implementation' deserves serious consideration by the government.
The government made lots of hue and cry over the position of
Muslims in the Indian Army without doing much about it and
apparently forgot about mentioning this caste based segregation in
the Army and making a similar hue and cry over it. The position of Dalits in this country has been worse than that of Muslims in the
History. The Muslims faced oppression only after independence
while the Dalits have suffered since time immemorial. The
government rather than taking political mileage out of raising
such issues should work for better position and representation of
Dalits and other communities in the Army.
For years the
Indian government found itself attacked from opposite directions
with regard to the caste and regional groups' composition of the
Army. Almost every debate in Lok Sabha over Defense Ministry
budget presentations produces demands for and against the creation
of new, homogeneous regiments. The government of India by
reuniting Indian Army should set an example for the outside world
that united we stand again. Unfortunately our leaders today are
also exploiting the caste based divisions in our country for their
political interests.
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The
author can be reached at: shilpabhadoria@legalserviceindia.com /
