Use the armed forces in dealing with the crisis
It has the personnel and equipment, but has not been optimally used to fight Covid-19 and aid migrant workers
and deployable formations in peacetime.
Should the armed forces have been deployed? The answer is a resounding yes. The country is confronted with an unprecedented human security challenge. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made saving lives and livelihoods, in that order, the national objective. In 2003, at an international security conference at Berlin, then deputy national security adviser, Satish Chandra, presented an elaborate paper on pandemics. Some contingency planning was done in the National Security Council and operational directorates of the armed forces. According to statistics with the defence archives, after Partition, India has faced 529 national disasters till 2017 with 200,000 deaths. The military played a key role in rescue and relief operations.
The spotlight, so far, has been on the director-general of the Armed Forces Medical Services who dedicated large portions of his medical resources and services to civilian administration across the country, including establishing quarantine camps and coronavirus disease (Covid-19)-only hospitals. Ordnance factories have belatedly been ordered to produce medical equipment, including ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) kits and other material. Naval warships have evacuated diaspora from the neighbourhood and for the first time charged $40 — certainly bad optics for civil-military relations. The Indian Air Force has flown medical teams and stores to many foreign countries.
The armed forces in the neighbourhood are involved in helping State authorities in dealing with the pandemic. In Sri Lanka, the National Operations Centre for Management of the Covid Outbreak is under the CDS. In south and southeast Asia, the military is assisting the State in handling the pandemic.
Has the military become a holy cow in India? Especially when, for the first time, the military response mechanism has been catalysed with the appointment of a CDS and a powerful department of military affairs. The armed forces have the capacity, staying power and discipline to assist the State in weathering this storm in several ways. In mobilising national and state capacities, the military will act as a force multiplier. People, including the CDS, were hoping the first lockdown would contain the virus but uncertainty prevails. The pandemic is expected to peak in June-july with the likelihood of a second and third spike. The Army should be immediately directed to establish a task force for Organisation and Management of Safe and Secure Movement of Migrants and remain on standby for emergency missions.
Every state is networked with Army formations in a location with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS) on aid to the civilian authority. While remaining sanitised, the military must be more optimally utilised in this national humanitarian crisis. That will be reason enough to ring bells and shower petals.