One day i was just wondering about the top brass of the Army and thinking to how exactly do the upper echelons of the force decide upon who gets to command what formation and who gets staff positions.Well, this was cleared when a person i actually happen to know became a Lt Gen.Well, the person in context is a very able Army officer from the Parachute Regiment of the Indian Army.On hearing the news of his promotion my question to my Dad was to which corps was that Uncle going to get , since i knew that Lt Gen went on to command Corps.To this my Dad replied that he was going on to command an Area.Well, let me explain this a bit,Areas are basically a formation of static units whereas the corps are formation with the Active units like infantry battalions.Recently the Indian Army in order to increase the vacancies of Lt Gen from 39 to 79 has upgraded many Maj Gen Appointments to that of Lt.Gens.Hence, the Areas which were earlier headed by Maj Gen are now headed by Lt.Gen. Now the various commands have both corps and areas commanded by Lt Gens.
From a practical point of view, i would think that those higher up in the merit should be given the command for corps and the ones lower down should be given command of areas since they are the ones who would otherwise wouldn't have picked up the rank of Lt Gen had the vacancies not been increased.But now comes the interesting part, since the army doesn't really have a think tank at the top which is not influenced by regimentation,religion and personal contacts, the Army resorts to a mindless procedure to segregate people as to who gets corps and who gets staff positions like areas, Or as Chief-Of-Staff in formations.
It all comes down to residual service!!.Now this is something that seems outrageously stupid but at the same time considered to be the most impartial way of appointing people.The ones who have 2 years of residual service get areas and CoS appointments while those with 3 or more get the corps.Moreover, as may be seen and noticed, the ones with 4 years and more are the Golden Birds for they are the ones who get the chance at the command level and thereafter, as the chief. This game of age is fun but it certainly ruins a lot of soldiers for higher ranks and appointments.
Things like age aren't seen as hindrance to one's achieving higher ranks in the forces like the US Army where one of it's chief Gen Peter Schoomaker was actually called out of retirement to head the Army since the country's welfare is foremost and a good Army lead by an able General is necessary to achieve that.Gen Schoomaker went on to hold the appointment for Four good years.
All i suggesting through this article is that its high time that the politicians become more subjective in their approach of handling the Army.If they deem themselves as incapable, at least constitute a body to which is comprised of retired officers to choose the top brass.
