If anything, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh’s call on August 3 for greater “military-civil integration” to create “a robust defense ecosystem to tackle emerging challenges” implies that there is still a structural mismatch between generalist bureaucrats (critically called Babus) and uniformed personnel within the Ministry of Defense (MoD).
In other words, in India’s higher defense reforms, integration between the military and civil components of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) is being seen as important as greater jointness among the three armed services (army, air force, and navy).
For decades, the relationship between civilian staff and military personnel within the MoD has been described by experts as both a strength and a fault line, particularly at the level of defense management.
Therefore, as India moves toward theatre commands, self-reliance under the “Atmanirbhar Bharat” (Self-reliant India) scheme, and faster procurement of defense components, the question is: how has this synergy worked in retrospect, and what should it look like in the future?
Addressing the 85th Armed Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) Civilian Services Day celebrations in New Delhi on Monday, Singh emphasised that both the uniformed and civil services cannot proceed along separate paths, adding that, as joint and integrated structures develop, there will be a need for continuity and expertise across all areas – policy, administration, human resource management, financial processes, logistics, and institutional knowledge.
He highlighted the importance of further enhancing structured cross-exposure between civilian and military officers, suggesting joint training programs and developmental assignments for both sides to learn from each other’s experiences.
“Military officers bring operational experience, a command perspective, and an understanding of warfare, while civilian officers contribute through administrative continuity, policy experience, an understanding of government processes, and institutional memory. When these strengths combine, decision-making becomes more informed, balanced, and effective,” stated the Defense Minister.
As things stand today, there are nine major participating groups dealing with India’s defence – three military services, and the non-military six – Department of Defence(DoD), the Department of Military Affairs(DMA), the Department of Defence Production ( DDP), the Department of Defence Research and Development (DDR&D), the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare (DESW), and Defence Finance.
While these nine groups are — three military services, and the non-military six – inside the MoD, there are three others outside the domain having considerable influence on defense matters – the Ministry of Finance (controlling the defense spending), the Cabinet Secretariat (policy matters that have implications for other ministries) and the Prime Minister’s Office (which can always intervene or arbitrate selectively).
However, we will focus here only on the MoD, particularly on the integration of the military services with the non-military ones.
To begin with, one is reminded of what late Vice Admiral Verghese Koithara had said: each of the major participating groups in Indian defense is known for “jealously guarding its turf and mistrustful of the others”.
Incidentally, the Admiral was talking of eight groups, because the DMA was a later creation. But the spirit behind his comment remains intact.
It may be noted that the total workforce under the MoD stands at approximately 2.92 million (29.2 lakh) personnel, making it the largest employer in the world. Expenditure on salaries and pensions for both civilian and non-civilian personnel is fully integrated into the official MoD budget.
The total strength encompasses active military personnel, reservists, and defense civilians. Approximately 1.43 million active-duty personnel serving across the Army, Navy, and Air Force are complemented by roughly 1 million reserve personnel.
Approximately 400,000 defense civilians are distributed across administrative services. They come mainly from the Indian Defense Accounts Service, Indian Ordnance Factories Service, Defense Research & Development Organization scientists, and the Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service, the Defense Accounts Department (DAD), Border Roads Organization (BRO), DRDO, and top bureaucracy.
The apex bureaucratic positions like the Defense Secretary, Secretary (Defense Production), and Secretary (Ex-Servicemen Welfare) are often held by IAS officers.
The last 5 years have seen some important defense reforms in India. For the first time, a serving 4-star General became Secretary in MoD as Chief of Defense Staff. DMA handles procurement, tri-service matters, and jointness. This is said to have broken the wall between the civilian secretariat and the military.
Service HQs have been integrated with the HQ of MoD. Joint Secretaries from the military now sit in the MoD and sign files. This means operational officers are now part of the procurement and policy process.
Before this reform, the MoD was entirely dominated by generalist civilian bureaucrats under the Department of Defense (DoD), led by the Defense Secretary. The Army, Navy, and Air Force headquarters operated merely as “attached offices,” meaning military files had to be routed through junior civilian desk officers for approval.
However, there are still well-documented latent and reported mutual resentment between military and civilian personnel in the MoD, which analysts and scholars refer to as “civil-military dissonance”.
The friction does not stem from opposition to the constitutional principle of political/democratic civilian control, which the military fully accepts. Instead, the resentment focuses on “bureaucratic control,” where career civil servants are perceived to act as a barrier between the uniformed leadership and the political executive.
A primary driver of public friction involves rank parity and protocol equivalence between military officers and civilian cadres. As Admiral Arun Prakash points out, the three Chiefs have been accorded “no locus standi in the structure of the GoI, so much so that the Secretary of the Department of Defense is deemed to represent the three Services in most forums”.
According to the “Government of India Allocation of Business Rules” (AoB Rules) and the “Government of India Transaction of Business Rules” (ToB Rules), the Secretary of DoD (a IAS officer) is allocated the responsibilities of “(a) Defence of India and every part thereof including preparation for defence and all such acts as may be conducive in times of war to its prosecution and after its termination to effective Demobilisation; (b) The Armed Forces of the Union, namely, Army, Navy and Air Force; (c) Integrated Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence comprising of Army Headquarters, Naval Headquarters, Air Headquarters and Defence Staff Headquarters”.
This looks particularly strange as, in terms of protocol, the Defense Secretary ranks at 23 in the order of preference, along with “Army Commanders/ Vice-Chief of the Army Staff or equivalent in other services”. In contrast, a Service Chief of Staff holding the rank of full General or equivalent rank is at number 12.
Even at 16, Officiating Chiefs of Staff holding the rank of Lieutenant General or equivalent rank are higher in protocol than the Defense Secretary.
Similarly, the Military officers are said to have resented the equation of lower-tier civilian administrative posts of Joint Secretary with senior military ranks like Major Generals. It is argued that a Major General has significantly more operational responsibility and seniority (often over 32 years of service) compared to an IAS officer reaching Joint Secretary level in roughly 18 years.
Military officials often point out that allowances, non-functional financial upgrades, and pension structures have favored civilian bureaucracies over the unique hazards of military service. Successive Central Pay Commission awards have frequently triggered military dissatisfaction.
In other words, there is an underlying perception of hierarchical degradation that persists within the armed forces.
Secondly, there are gaps between the military and civilian officials over what is called “Policies vs Operations”. While civilians are accused of lacking operational understanding, the military is accused of not understanding procurement rules. This really leads to delays in equipment purchase.
Perhaps, realizing these deep-seated systemic silos, Defense Minister Singh said on Monday that the military and civilian wings can no longer afford to operate in isolated silos to build an effective national defense ecosystem.
As he underscored, the civilian officials should read Indian military history, examining it from a civilian perspective, thereby fostering fresh ideas and new perspectives. He called upon the Civilian Services to evolve into the “strategic brain” of India’s defence management architecture by developing a comprehensive understanding of the defence sector, functioning effectively in a joint environment, and continuously enhancing its expertise to face the emerging challenges.
Notably, when one talks of dissonance between the military and civilian officers, it is perhaps more to do with purely civilians like IAS and other central services within the MoD rather than the non-military technical and scientific personnel.
There has been relatively smoother synergy in areas like defense production and infrastructure building. For instance, Defence Public Sector Undertakings like the HAL, BEL, BDL and OFB, which are run with a mix of civilian managers, engineers, scientists and military users, have produced platforms and ammunition like Tejas, Arjun, BrahMos. succeeded because civilian scientists in DRDO worked with military feedback loops.
Similarly, the BRO, a civilian-led organization with military engineers, has built highly acclaimed critical roads in the country’s northern and north-eastern border (Line of Actual Control) with China.
However, it is with the civilian officials working within the MoD that military officials have some issues, such as policy decisions, pay, and ranks.
But then, it is also to be noted that while services may all agree on their fight against the civilians, when it comes to “promoting jointness” in military matters, they do not have the same ideas. There is an intense rivalry amongst them. Although the situation has improved of late, there are differences over whether the country should have theater commands, and if it will have them, then how those will be operated.
In other words, there are, overall, challenges in building better “Civil-Military Synergy”. There seem to be merits when some experts argue that National Defense College (NDC) and the College of Defense Management (CDM) could bridge strategic and administrative silos, fostering deeper synergy, mutual understanding, and coordinated policy-making between senior civilian bureaucrats and military leadership.
There are also ideas like extending the DMA model to have military officers in all key procurement and policy wings, and civilian officers in Integrated Theatre Commands. Defense civilians should have tenures in field formations and military officers in MoD finance and policy.
Another interesting suggestion is to extend the synergy beyond the MoD and involve the private sector, startups, academia and state governments. Of course, in a way this is happening with projects like defence corridors, and through collaboration in the space, cyber and AI sectors.
Viewed thus, the core challenge to the synergy that the Defense Minister has talked about is removing what is said to be the “Trust Deficit” between the civilian and military wings within the MoD, due to decades of suspicion.
The synergy does not mean the dilution of civilian supremacy at the policy-making level, be it the MoD, or the Union cabinet, or the Parliament. But it means the military’s voice is heard in policy-making. The military does not grudge civilian control; it opposes “the bureaucratic control”.
Synergy does not imply that civilians are made into soldiers, or soldiers into ‘babus’. Its goal is to make both into “defense managers”
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
