Social Media Reflections: Alarm Bells for the Indian Armed Forces

As a school going student when I appeared for my Services Selection Board in Bhopal in 1987 for the National Defence Academy in Khadakwasla, we had a word association test and a thematic apperception test (WAT and TAT) among various others designed to check the suitability of a candidate for commission as an Officer in the Indian Armed Forces.

In WAT one had to write a sentence on the word flashed on the screen, and in TAT one had to write a paragraph on a picture flashed on the screen within a stipulated time frame.

WAT and TAT helped the psychologists in the SSB identify the psychological traits of candidates to judge their suitability as officers in the Indian Armed Forces – the underlying principle being that no one can hide their true traits when shown a plethora of words and pictures and asked to write on them in a short span of time.

Social media is exactly one such platform to judge a person's psychological traits, from the type of posts or comments posted by a member in any online fora.

In the various social media fora that I have been on since 2006, I have seen a disturbing trend in which serving Indian Armed Forces Officers have been authoring posts which have a clear political and religious bias.

The Indian Armed Forces have been traditionally apolitical and secular. So when serving officers post content with a religious and political bias on social media, it indeed is a matter of concern – striking a parallel with the WAT and TAT in the SSB. These are the alarm bells that the Indian Armed Forces must heed, as it threatens to rock the apolitical and the secular credentials of the Indian Armed Forces.

While some may argue that it is important for a citizen of the country to be politically and religiously aware, the sharing of such posts does not bode well for the Indian Armed Forces, whose prime task is shared with no other organisation in India – that is, to fight a War to defend the Nation in case the need arises.

And since the Indian Armed Forces have Officers and Soldiers from all religions, the display of religious and political alignments which manifest the inner feelings of a person can be detrimental to the performance of duty. Except for the officially allowed religious parades, discussion on politics or religion is avoided in any formal or casual gatherings in the Indian Armed Forces.

It is indeed surprising to see an Officer seem secular and apolitical until the last day of Service, only to join a religious organisation or political party just a few days or months after his retirement. Such a thing can’t happen overnight, and would be brewing in the Officer’s mind for long, and would have definitely in some way or the other affected his functioning while in Service.

And when such Officers join a political party or a religious organisation immediately after retirement, in total contrast to the secular and apolitical life that they led in Service, it motivates many of those still in uniform to follow their footsteps after retirement.

In my view, no serving Officer of the Indian Armed Forces should join any political party and religious organisation for a period of 10 years after retirement, nor accept any Government position for the same period – if the secular and the apolitical nature of the Indian Armed Forces is to be maintained.

Those who advocate personal freedom in the matter should ask what is more important – retaining the secular and apolitical nature of the Indian Armed Forces, or protecting a person’s individual desire to join a political party or religious organisation after retirement. The Nation needs to take a call on this.

Banning social media in the Indian Armed Forces is no solution. Social media is now an intrinsic part of one’s life. A system change is required to ensure that the secular and the apolitical nature of the Indian Armed Forces is maintained at all costs.

Further, it would be grossly incorrect and unfair to blame any one political party for the various cases of political and religious alignments being seen in the serving Officers of the Indian Armed Forces on social media, which only came to our country in a big way in 2006. For decades, Officers of the Indian Armed Forces have been joining political parties and religious organisations shortly after retirement.

It is time to protect the secular and apolitical fabric of the Indian Armed Forces, and the only way to ensure this is when the Officers of the Indian Armed Forces do not join any political party or religious organisation, nor accept any government appointment, for a period of 10 years after retirement. This can happen only when suitable rules and regulations are framed.

The time to make amends is now, lest the Indian Armed Forces too become like the other paramilitary and police services, where political and religious leanings play a major role.

Lt Col JS Sodhi who retired from the Corps of Engineers is an alumnus of NDA, Khadakwasla and IIT Kanpur. He has an MTech in structures and an MBA and LLB. The views expressed are personal