'Army Bowing at Modi ji's Feet': Why a Deputy CM's Gaffe Doesn't Bode Well

When the then German president, Paul Von Hindenburg, died in August of 1934, Adolf Hitler combined the posts of president and chancellor.

He thus became Fuhrer, head of both the state and of the armed forces.

Until then, German soldiers were required to take the following oath:

"I swear loyalty to the Constitution and vow that I will protect the German nation and its lawful establishments as a brave soldier at any time and will be obedient to the President and my Superiors."

Hitler now created a new oath:

"I swear by god this sacred oath that I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at any time for this oath."

Never mind that one fall out of this change was that German soldiers often excused whatever atrocities they committed as acts deriving from their oath of loyalty to the Fuhrer.

In our own time, Donald Trump was heard to say during his first term as president of the United States how he would like to have the same kind of loyalty from his Generals as Hitler had from his.

His subsequent denial that he had said so flew rather in the face of the fact on record.

Here at home, flush with the chastisement meted out to a terrorism-spawning Pakistan, the unending cacophony of braggadacio seems now to have culminated in a statement rather potentially ominous.

The honourable deputy chief minister of the BJP-ruled state of Madhya Pradesh, Jagdish Devda, has informed the nation how the armed forces are "bowing at Modi ji's feet".

Once again, subsequent sophistries on behalf of the minister have persuaded few.

To Modi ji's credit there is nothing on record thus far to say that he requires the sort of personal allegiance from the armed forces as has been alluded to by the minister.

Nor, on the other hand, has he taken any cognisance of the unconstitutional and degrading aspersion cast by the erring minister both on the armed forces and on him by default.

One imagines that had Jawaharlal Nehru been in his place, the said sycophant minister would have had his ears pulled pronto in public rebuke and rejection.

We recall that Nehru once wrote an anonymous article in The Modern Review, 1937, castigating himself for his dictatorial predilections.

Modi ji has of course often been heard to refer to himself in the third person, as royals were wont to do. Savour his frequently declared "Modi ki guarantee" as a gold standard of credibility – rather like Caesar's pronouncement in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, "When Caesar says do this, it is done."

Nor has his tenure been above desiring executive sway (inevitably meaning his own) over institutional mechanisms, to the detriment of the Constitutional injunction about the separation of powers.

As to the army, he has in the past used such epithets as “mere jawan (my soldiers)” even if as an expansive paternalistic metaphor.

The question that must worry the law-abiding citizen is whether the fawning deputy minister's hyperbole may go uncorrected.

As of now, India's armed forces swear allegiance to the constitution, not to any person or political authority. It is to be hoped that Modi ji will ensure that such allegiance continues to be the authorising legitimation of the life of our soldiers.

The deputy chief minister's gaffe is too serious a matter to be bypassed.

Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.

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