Last week, the Indian Express, a leading national newspaper, reported that a routine military drill in January meant to test Indian army units’ mobility in fog conditions instead exposed the depth of distrust between India’s military and civilian leaders.
According to the article, two Indian army units advanced on the Indian capital, New Delhi, as part of the drill. But because the military had not notified the Defense Ministry of the troop movements, as protocol requires, civilian authorities reacted by raising an alert before ordering the military to return the troops to their bases.
“It is really good that all of this is coming out, because these issues have been under the surface for far too long, and now hopefully we will have a discussion,” Anit Mukherjee, a doctoral candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies whose dissertation focuses on civil-military relations in India, told Trend Lines.