Promotion system in the defence services: Is merit based promotion for the appointment of service chiefs well-founded?

V Mahalingam
28 April 2014, 04:33 PM IST

The incumbent chief of the naval staff has been appointed by the government disregarding the hitherto considered mandatory qualification of command of an operational command besides superseding the senior most candidate. The present incumbent has not even commanded a training command. This has raised a debate as to whether the government should have selected an officer with the required criteria, irrespective of the relative seniority of the eligible candidates? The other questions that is being raised is, since the government has considered and selected an officer for appointment as naval chief with the command experience of a naval fleet only, was it fair for the government to have excluded the others with similar command experience for consideration irrespective of their seniority or present appointment?

Presently, the contenders for selection as Service chiefs are those who have come up the ladder right from the junior most rank with over 40 years of service and have been screened repeatedly at every stage of their promotion right from their promotion to their first selection grade rank which in the case of the Army is Colonel. The promotions are based on their Annual Confidential Reports (ACR) rendered by their immediate superiors, reviewed and moderated by other senior appointments in the chain right up to the level of Army Commanders. However the system has a number of shortcomings which tend to make the ACRs subjective and the review speculative.

Performance appraisal system and its shortcomings

By and far, the defence services in India have the best performance appraisal system within the country's government services. The system caters to assess the personal qualities, professional, administrative and man management capabilities, social conduct and character qualities of the officer reported upon quantitatively. To give shape to the quantitative assessment, provision for a pen picture of the individual highlighting the strong and the weak points is provided for. Based on the assessment, the employability of the officer, his suitability for promotion and recommendations for nomination to professional courses are also made. The system allows the officer reported upon, to see the report initiated by his immediate superior. The counselling points and adverse remarks made by the higher reviewing officers are communicated to him. This is meant to give the individual an opportunity to know his weaknesses and improve upon them.

The system has its flaws. Since, ACRs occupy the predominant position in deciding the fate of one's career; officers tend to become yes men and go by a zero defect philosophy. Free and frank professional debates are avoided and the tendency to moderate discussions to converge on to the higher commanders' opinion often precludes objectivity. Professional dissentions are shunned. To mitigate these adverse effects and to get a fair assessment of individual officers, it may be worthwhile exploring the possibility of getting a feedback from subordinates. This system is followed by international leadership advisory consulting companies when assessing individuals for top posts in multilateral companies and while giving feedback to such officials for their realization.

Despite a fairly objective system of ACRs, owing to limited vacancies and promotional avenues, promotion boards in the services act more like rejection boards, perpetually on the lookout for some excuse to reject the officer. Counselling points and adverse remarks thus serve as a tool in denying the officer any further opportunity for career advancement. For the promotion board, it is a question of selecting the best of the available lot within the constraints of the system. As for the individual, rejection at such an early stage in career leaves him, his family and even the children devastated and sulking. The answer probably lies in providing pay promotion in the form of Non - Functional Upgradation (NFU) to officers of the same course as has already been implemented in the civil and organised Group A services.

In a fighting unit with over 800 men, a grumbling officer rejected or even graded inadequately for promotion for future career advancement could be a menace breeding dissentions, infighting and divisive groupings, the adverse effects of which would permeate to the men, rendering the unit unfit for war. Thus the functional imperative of running an effective and a motivated cohesive team forces unit commanders to willy - nilly grade most of the officers above average and generally at par with each other besides avoiding any counselling points or adverse remarks.

The reviewing officer's report (RO) fails to moderate the initiating officer's (IO) assessment as the number of officers which the officers in the review chain have to handle and the limited contact with them do not provide sufficient inputs to be able to report on them objectively. Yet, the review assessment of the superior officer especially when it is negative carries greater weight than that of the initiating officer.

The other issues which afflict the system which would be common to every service in the country include individual likes, dislikes, biases and opportunities available to individuals to project one. Regimental affiliations are yet another issue applicable exclusively to the Army. In the Armoured Corps, every officer in the chain of reporting were uniformly over assessing their officers which resulted in the Army inventing a quota system based on the cadre strength of individual arms for promotion to general cadre vacancies so as to balance promotions in the system within combat arms.

The system thus fails to separate the good and the best at the early stages of a young officer's career resulting in the promotion boards with limited vacancies for promotion being flooded with huge numbers. The system thus becomes a mute accomplice to some very deserving officers being discarded and some whose comparable merits are debatable being carried forwarded.

The imperatives of providing every officer in the line, the opportunity to command units and formations and earn command reports to be eligible to be considered for promotion to the next higher rank results in short command tenures. Short command tenures have their pitfalls. Besides the system promoting individuals to higher command responsibilities with limited inputs, individual officers in command tend to go overboard to show results within their short tenure. This results in unwarranted strain on troops besides training and other objectives shifting every time commanders change.

In order to give commanders a minimum tenure in important command appointments such as Corps, Army Commands and the chiefs of Services, minimum residual service for appointment to these posts have been laid down. This results in some very deserving candidates missing the boat besides providing an opportunity to the bureaucracy to manipulate the line of succession on the basis of dates of birth of individual contenders by delaying the boards or the results of promotion boards to allow the unwanted to quit the scene. To overcome this, the promotion boards need to be made a regular yearly feature on fixed dates and a time stipulation laid for the Ministry of Defence to approve the board proceedings. A transparent assessment system with clear cut promotion criteria needs to be spelt out for the promotion boards and made known to everyone concerned.

Truncated command experience is a major flaw in the system. Consequently the system fails to produce the best when comes to the appointment of the service chiefs.

The bizarre part of the selection system that has evolved over the years is that though the system is merit based as can be seen, due to management constraints it is yet not capable of sieving out the best out of the lot for selection to higher command appointments.

The system therefore needs to find ways and means to sift officers at the service level of 12 to 15 years of service and second time at the level of Brigadiers. Thus, with limited numbers of officers, the command tenure of officers who are expected to be vested with higher command responsibilities can be increased which automatically will provide better opportunities to those in the chain of command to assess besides the selection of service chiefs becoming more discriminating.

Deep selection for service chiefs

The suggestion to discard the principle of seniority and introduce merit based promotion for the selection of Service chiefs needs examination. In a system where ACRs form the basis for assessment of the individual for career advancement, is there any other input or means available within the system to decide on the merit of individual officers especially on those who have on ground experience for over 40 years?

As brought out earlier, in the Indian Army's promotion system, officers are scrutinized and Confidential Reports are initiated annually right up to Lt Gens. How would the capabilities assessed over a period of 40 years change overnight when he is being considered for promotion to the appointment of chief? If an officer is good enough to be appointed an Army Commander or the Vice chief, would he be otherwise when it comes to his appointment as Service chief?

What does merit in the case of selection of officers for the post of Service chief imply? Who in the system is expected to grade Army Commanders to decide on their relative merits and on what basis? Would it be the political head in the Ministry of Defence with his limited knowledge of military and its functions? Can the process be handled by the know all generalist bureaucracy with its vested interests? Considering the strategic culture and the background of individuals constituting the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) or the Parliamentary Standing Committee, would they be in a position to take appropriate decision? What qualification or capability do they have for assessing a professional with over 40 years of service?

The other suggestion being made is that there is a need to have an informal conversation with the contenders on strategies and policies to determine their views and perspectives as a basis for determining merit. With the type of leadership and the bureaucracy we have in the country and going by past experiences in the appointment to important posts in government services, such interactions will invariably be used as an alibi to eliminate the unpliable as had happened in the case of Sam Manekshaw during his early career.

The moment the discretion to select the service chiefs are given to the politician bureaucracy combine sycophancy in the defence services will reach its peak right from the level of Brigadiers and that will be a sure prescription for the politicization of the defence services. The state police example proves the point. The chief minister holding the power to appoint and shift police officers at his discretion with a file on individual officers has made police officers at all levels to scurry favours and dance to his tunes.

Defence is a vulnerable area for financial misdemeanors with the Official Secrets Act and the national security rhetoric providing adequate cover. The position of service chiefs could thus be misused and exploited for financial gains of individuals and political parties.

Conclusion

Reforms will have to be brought about in the promotion system in the defence services to make it transparent and non-manipulative. There is a need to put an end to ACR and promotion related policies being changed by every chief and government. Screening of officers at 12 to 15 years of service and the level of Brigadiers will make the system more discerning. To cater for those officers who may be left out in the promotion race, there is need to grant NFU to defence officers. The assessment must include inputs from subordinates to make the system more broad based.

Service chiefs have a team to work for him including in matters relating to operational strategy and logistics. These teams constitute the key branches in the service headquarters which collectively are very professional and competent. So long as these officers have to depend on the hierarchy within the services to climb up the career ladder and are sure that the handle for career advancement has not been usurped by the bureaucracy or the politicians, these teams will not let things go wrong or allow any compromise on national interests.

Overall, accepting an officer who is thrown up by the system than going in for merit based promotion which has all the possibilities of building an army of sycophants may be the lesser of the two evils.