Nine penalties may safeguard one discipline
Maswood Alam Khan | Sunday, 1 March 2009
LEGEND has it that brute commanders used to test loyalties of their soldiers by ordering them to embrace suicidal death in peacetime. Hitler, to boast about his command on his fanatically loyal soldiers, as the rumor goes, used to invite his guests of honour on a railing-less flat roof of a high-rise building to show his soldiers' march past. 'March on!' Hitler would command and the soldiers without any vacillation would march ahead knowing full well they were stepping to death. One soldier after another had thus fallen from the rooftop and died instantly. The soldier who stopped moving after Hitler had shouted 'halt!' was the lucky one to survive as were the rest of his fellow soldiers queued up behind him.
The chain of command in any organization is the key to success. In civil administration, any temporary deviation in the chain of command is not so fatal and is always amenable to correction. But, in military organization 'the chain of command' is not only the master key to success but also the very lifeline during both wartime and peacetime. A chain of command, once broken, in a military organization can also be corrected, but at a huge cost in terms of casualties, time, money and morale. A little discontent at any stage down the line which may spark a little hesitation on the part of a subordinate soldier to obey the order from his immediate higher command means something mortally dangerous.
So, a soldier cannot think of disobeying his commanding officer's order, right or wrong. To a soldier the commanding officer is his god, an equation that is very vital in a disciplined force where one has to command thousands of strong soldiers equipped with lethal arms. Positive reinforcement and negative punishment, simply speaking 'reward' and 'punishment' are two tools a trainer uses to train his soldiers. Discipline, motivation, loyalty and leadership are the means on which a powerful trainee can be trained by a less powerful trainer. Without such training tools an 80-kilogram man could never tame and command a 6000-kilogram elephant to dance at the movement of a small baton!
It is unwise on the part of civilians to judge any wrongdoing of any armed personnel. Wrongdoing of a soldier has to be judged in a military court by a set of codes and laws which are different from those followed in civil courts of law. Armed personnel live in a different world; they follow a strict regimen in accordance with what is prescribed in military science. There is no democracy in army barracks; there is no trade unionism through which soldiers can ventilate their opinions or frustrations. And such strictness, though it sounds a little brutal, is essential for the greater interest of a disciplined force who are indoctrinated only to obey commands. Disobeying blatantly a command in a battlefield is deemed a treason and is punishable in most cases by death sentences in a court marshal.
It is the onus of the highest command to decide who should command whom. It is the responsibility of the commanding officers at different echelons to empathize with each and every soldier under their command and to bring to every soldier the best succour well before a soldier even asks for a little relief. A commanding officer who waits for a soldier to ask for something he needs is a bad commanding officer. The very commanding structure of a disciplined force obviates the necessity of trade unionism in armed forces. Because, what a commanding officer is to a soldier in a cantonment is a trade union leader to a worker in a factory. If professionalism is not allowed to be compromised, the commander-in-chief of a disciplined armed force rarely commits a mistake in choosing the right person in the right place behind the right cannon and in bringing the right succor to the right soldier in the right possible time.
A commanding officer, however, cannot command his subordinates on a whim because he has a command responsibility not only for his own command that is passed as an order, written or spoken, but also for any crime committed by his subordinates, if he fails to presage a subordinate's bad motive through his intelligence mechanism and prevent or punish those subordinates committing crimes like mutiny, thuggery, adultery, torture etc.
We heartily congratulate our honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her timely intervention in quelling the explosive situation inside the Pilkhana BDR Camp. She has granted general amnesty to the BDR mutineers, because she had no other alternative at that moment to save the innocent who were held hostage inside the BDR camp. Her emotional appeal to the BDR 'jawans' to cool down their temper and surrender their arms and at the same time her steely determination to take stern measures against those who would not obey her command brought the uproar to a peaceful end and prevented an unimaginable bloodbath.
The leader of 160 million people of Bangladesh has shown to the world how a civilian prime minister, in her statesmanlike handling of a grave crisis, could melt the revolt away through her trusting words broadcast through a national hookup. We are happy to note that our opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia too urged both sides to exercise restraint. This is the beauty of democracy many leaders of the so-called great democracies like the former President Bush of the United States lamentably could not pursue in dousing flames of wars.
We also salute the BDR 'jawans' that they could bring themselves to believe the words of our Prime Minister and went back to their barracks surrendering their arms before dusk. If the mutineers would have adopted delaying tactics, the army would undoubtedly have adopted their familiar 'Shock and Awe' strategy to seize control of the BDR camp in a blitz paralyzing and overloading the mutineers' perception, thereby incapacitating their resistance. Such a 'Shock and Awe' styled blitzkrieg could also be disastrous, if the mutineers made up their mind to kill the hostages in revenge in case the army intervened.
Mutiny is a culmination of frustrations among soldiers. It is the intelligence agencies who have to garner discreetly why the soldiers were fulminating against their commanding authority. A corrective measure in time, which may not necessarily be very costly, can easily extinguish the volatility of the anguished soldiers. The February 25 BDR mutiny was the culmination of the soldiers' frustration with the commanders deputed from the Army. There could be other minor reasons too behind their frustrations. History suggests that trivial reasons were also behind great mutinies that caused deaths of thousands of people.
The Vellore Mutiny on July 10, 1806 against East India Company was sparked by Indian soldiers' resentment against changes in dress codes and against a way the soldiers were ordered to keep their faces and hairs. Hindus were prohibited from wearing religious marks on their foreheads and Muslims were required to shave their beard and trim their moustache.
Similarly, the final spark of the Sepoy Mutiny on May 10, 1857, a great rebellion which historians call as India's First War of Independence, was provided by the way a sepoy (soldier) was asked to load a new type of rifle. To load the new rifle, the sepoys had to bite the cartridge open.
It was believed that the paper cartridges that were standard issue with the new rifle were greased with lard (pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by Muslims, or tallow (beef fat), regarded as sacred to Hindus. In Calcutta, a low-caste labourer, in an altercation with a high-caste sepoy, had taunted the sepoy that by biting the cartridge the sepoy himself had lost his high caste. That altercation gradually rippled a wave of frustrations among the sepoys, ultimately detonating the Sepoy mutiny.
General amnesty granted to mutineers by our Prime Minister must be honored. But, our legal experts and the experienced jurists in military law must now sit together to determine the coverage of the general amnesty. Will all the mutineers be pardoned and allowed to join their duties as usual, as if nothing had happened on the 25th February inside the Pilkhana BDR camp? No, in no way! Because, such wholesale pardon will create a bad precedence and encourage mutinies in other armed disciplines like the army, the navy, the air force, the ansars, the police, the armed guards of banks, the private security forces, or any other forces or guards who are equipped with arms.
We hope members of the high-powered committee headed by our Home Minister will first determine who those officers were who did not or could not comply with the terms of their command responsibilities that fueled unrest among the soldiers. They should also unearth why the intelligence agencies did fail to warn the authority beforehand for taking up pre-emptive measures.
Our Prime Minster's action on the 26th February was 'a stitch in time that saved nine'. Now, by bringing into books all the culprits, including those responsible for brewing up the mutiny and the mutineers who would be adjudged responsible for killing the innocent officers, our Prime Minister may prove to the nation that she doesn't pardon the killers -- killers who killed unarmed civilians during our liberation war, killers who killed the unarmed members of her own family, killers who killed leaders inside a prison, killers who killed the unarmed officers inside the BDR camp on the 25th or the 26th February, 2009.
For the sake of upholding one single code of military discipline nine or even nine hundred undisciplined soldiers and officers may be executed with a view to sending loud and correct messages to the future errant. "Nine necessary executions now in time may thus safeguard one vital military discipline that in future may save nine thousand innocent lives".
......................................................
The writer is a banker who may be reached at [email protected]
The chain of command in any organization is the key to success. In civil administration, any temporary deviation in the chain of command is not so fatal and is always amenable to correction. But, in military organization 'the chain of command' is not only the master key to success but also the very lifeline during both wartime and peacetime. A chain of command, once broken, in a military organization can also be corrected, but at a huge cost in terms of casualties, time, money and morale. A little discontent at any stage down the line which may spark a little hesitation on the part of a subordinate soldier to obey the order from his immediate higher command means something mortally dangerous.
So, a soldier cannot think of disobeying his commanding officer's order, right or wrong. To a soldier the commanding officer is his god, an equation that is very vital in a disciplined force where one has to command thousands of strong soldiers equipped with lethal arms. Positive reinforcement and negative punishment, simply speaking 'reward' and 'punishment' are two tools a trainer uses to train his soldiers. Discipline, motivation, loyalty and leadership are the means on which a powerful trainee can be trained by a less powerful trainer. Without such training tools an 80-kilogram man could never tame and command a 6000-kilogram elephant to dance at the movement of a small baton!
It is unwise on the part of civilians to judge any wrongdoing of any armed personnel. Wrongdoing of a soldier has to be judged in a military court by a set of codes and laws which are different from those followed in civil courts of law. Armed personnel live in a different world; they follow a strict regimen in accordance with what is prescribed in military science. There is no democracy in army barracks; there is no trade unionism through which soldiers can ventilate their opinions or frustrations. And such strictness, though it sounds a little brutal, is essential for the greater interest of a disciplined force who are indoctrinated only to obey commands. Disobeying blatantly a command in a battlefield is deemed a treason and is punishable in most cases by death sentences in a court marshal.
It is the onus of the highest command to decide who should command whom. It is the responsibility of the commanding officers at different echelons to empathize with each and every soldier under their command and to bring to every soldier the best succour well before a soldier even asks for a little relief. A commanding officer who waits for a soldier to ask for something he needs is a bad commanding officer. The very commanding structure of a disciplined force obviates the necessity of trade unionism in armed forces. Because, what a commanding officer is to a soldier in a cantonment is a trade union leader to a worker in a factory. If professionalism is not allowed to be compromised, the commander-in-chief of a disciplined armed force rarely commits a mistake in choosing the right person in the right place behind the right cannon and in bringing the right succor to the right soldier in the right possible time.
A commanding officer, however, cannot command his subordinates on a whim because he has a command responsibility not only for his own command that is passed as an order, written or spoken, but also for any crime committed by his subordinates, if he fails to presage a subordinate's bad motive through his intelligence mechanism and prevent or punish those subordinates committing crimes like mutiny, thuggery, adultery, torture etc.
We heartily congratulate our honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her timely intervention in quelling the explosive situation inside the Pilkhana BDR Camp. She has granted general amnesty to the BDR mutineers, because she had no other alternative at that moment to save the innocent who were held hostage inside the BDR camp. Her emotional appeal to the BDR 'jawans' to cool down their temper and surrender their arms and at the same time her steely determination to take stern measures against those who would not obey her command brought the uproar to a peaceful end and prevented an unimaginable bloodbath.
The leader of 160 million people of Bangladesh has shown to the world how a civilian prime minister, in her statesmanlike handling of a grave crisis, could melt the revolt away through her trusting words broadcast through a national hookup. We are happy to note that our opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia too urged both sides to exercise restraint. This is the beauty of democracy many leaders of the so-called great democracies like the former President Bush of the United States lamentably could not pursue in dousing flames of wars.
We also salute the BDR 'jawans' that they could bring themselves to believe the words of our Prime Minister and went back to their barracks surrendering their arms before dusk. If the mutineers would have adopted delaying tactics, the army would undoubtedly have adopted their familiar 'Shock and Awe' strategy to seize control of the BDR camp in a blitz paralyzing and overloading the mutineers' perception, thereby incapacitating their resistance. Such a 'Shock and Awe' styled blitzkrieg could also be disastrous, if the mutineers made up their mind to kill the hostages in revenge in case the army intervened.
Mutiny is a culmination of frustrations among soldiers. It is the intelligence agencies who have to garner discreetly why the soldiers were fulminating against their commanding authority. A corrective measure in time, which may not necessarily be very costly, can easily extinguish the volatility of the anguished soldiers. The February 25 BDR mutiny was the culmination of the soldiers' frustration with the commanders deputed from the Army. There could be other minor reasons too behind their frustrations. History suggests that trivial reasons were also behind great mutinies that caused deaths of thousands of people.
The Vellore Mutiny on July 10, 1806 against East India Company was sparked by Indian soldiers' resentment against changes in dress codes and against a way the soldiers were ordered to keep their faces and hairs. Hindus were prohibited from wearing religious marks on their foreheads and Muslims were required to shave their beard and trim their moustache.
Similarly, the final spark of the Sepoy Mutiny on May 10, 1857, a great rebellion which historians call as India's First War of Independence, was provided by the way a sepoy (soldier) was asked to load a new type of rifle. To load the new rifle, the sepoys had to bite the cartridge open.
It was believed that the paper cartridges that were standard issue with the new rifle were greased with lard (pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by Muslims, or tallow (beef fat), regarded as sacred to Hindus. In Calcutta, a low-caste labourer, in an altercation with a high-caste sepoy, had taunted the sepoy that by biting the cartridge the sepoy himself had lost his high caste. That altercation gradually rippled a wave of frustrations among the sepoys, ultimately detonating the Sepoy mutiny.
General amnesty granted to mutineers by our Prime Minister must be honored. But, our legal experts and the experienced jurists in military law must now sit together to determine the coverage of the general amnesty. Will all the mutineers be pardoned and allowed to join their duties as usual, as if nothing had happened on the 25th February inside the Pilkhana BDR camp? No, in no way! Because, such wholesale pardon will create a bad precedence and encourage mutinies in other armed disciplines like the army, the navy, the air force, the ansars, the police, the armed guards of banks, the private security forces, or any other forces or guards who are equipped with arms.
We hope members of the high-powered committee headed by our Home Minister will first determine who those officers were who did not or could not comply with the terms of their command responsibilities that fueled unrest among the soldiers. They should also unearth why the intelligence agencies did fail to warn the authority beforehand for taking up pre-emptive measures.
Our Prime Minster's action on the 26th February was 'a stitch in time that saved nine'. Now, by bringing into books all the culprits, including those responsible for brewing up the mutiny and the mutineers who would be adjudged responsible for killing the innocent officers, our Prime Minister may prove to the nation that she doesn't pardon the killers -- killers who killed unarmed civilians during our liberation war, killers who killed the unarmed members of her own family, killers who killed leaders inside a prison, killers who killed the unarmed officers inside the BDR camp on the 25th or the 26th February, 2009.
For the sake of upholding one single code of military discipline nine or even nine hundred undisciplined soldiers and officers may be executed with a view to sending loud and correct messages to the future errant. "Nine necessary executions now in time may thus safeguard one vital military discipline that in future may save nine thousand innocent lives".
......................................................
The writer is a banker who may be reached at [email protected]