The increasing dichotomy and lack of understanding, as well as a yawning gap in communications between the civil and military administrations of the country, was once again highlighted by what happened in West Kameng, Bomdila, on November 02 when the civil administration, during an ongoing festival, detained two boys of 2 Arunachal Scout Battalion on the specious charges of drunken behavior.

 

Arunachal Scout is a specialized force - like Ladakh Scout that played a critical role in winning the Kargil battle.

 

Even if it's admitted for the argument sake that the Scout boys were drunk and acted inappropriately, it was incumbent upon civil administration to call up the Commanding Officer (CO) of 2nd Arunachal Scout and seek the assistance of Military Police (MP) to handle the situation. Instead, the district administration took the law into its own hand and its police personnel reportedly misbehaved with the detained boys.

 

After their release, once the boys returned to their camp, the story spread of what had transpired. In a situation like this, the CO had two options: either to do nothing and lose the respect of boys under his command or to do what happened, and what he reportedly did - warning the civil administration against touching his boys.

 

On the basis of the information provided to him, President of the Indian Civil and Administrative Services (Central) Association (IC&AS) Rakesh Srivastava (IAS:1981:RJ) might have felt aggrieved to write the letter he did to Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra in support of District Magistrate and Deputy Commissioner, Dr. Sonal Swaroop.

 

Secretary Srivastava is absolutely justified in stating that what happened to Dr. Swaroop should not have happened at all. In the same spirit, he should also appreciate the stand of the 2nd Arunachal CO and his officers in defense of their boys. Earlier, in the spirit of Arunachal Scout CO, senior officials of IB too registered their resentment with the concerned top authorities after PSOs of CBI chief Alok Verma manhandled their agents for allegedly snooping on Verma.

 

Such measure is always taken by senior officials to maintain the morale of their cadres and justify the respect their positions command.

 

It goes without saying that India's civil administration needs to unlearn what it has been taught about the half-baked concept of civil supremacy in the affairs of the country. What it needs to learn to make itself more effective and thus worthy of respect is the philosophy of military ethos - like the colonial Indian (Imperial) Civil Service did.

 

As the Bomdila incident reveals, the problem is the civil administration is trying to blow up the issue that apparently arose out of the civil administration's, particularly police's, pathological tendency to take the law into its own hand.

 

The reality is that ugly incident, such as the one that happened in Bomdila and keeps happening quite frequently, can be to a large extent prevented by setting right the hierarchical gap in the Order of Precedence between military and civil services. This will help generate mutual respect and better coordination. If it doesn't, better mechanisms may have to be explored - including the practices followed by British colonial rulers and other matured democracies like the US and France.