Chandigarh: Two of the Indian Navy’s (IN’s) recent initiatives aimed at furthering the BJP-led government’s political agenda of “decolonising” the services in the ongoing “Amrit Kaal era” and fostering indigenous military traditions, have made little or no headway.
One of these proposals that pertained to ‘Indianising’ ranks of 65,000-odd naval personnel below officer rank (PBOR) is believed to have been shelved, due to legal complexities involved in the proposed switchover.
The other proposal of officially incorporating kurta-pyjamas into the Navy’s dress code is observed more in abeyance than practice, as a wide cross-section of senior veterans and some serving officers consider it somewhat de rigueur, and have simply ignored it.
Proposals were strongly endorsed by then IN Chief of Staff
Both proposals were strongly endorsed by then IN Chief of Staff Admiral R Hari Kumar in pursuance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “panch pran”, or five resolves, advocated in his 2022 Independence Day speech to advance India socially and on multiple other fronts. One of these “prans” or resolutions included “ghulami ki mansikta se mukti”, or freedom from slavery and colonial mindsets.
Taking this to heart, the former Naval Chief declared in his annual presser later the same year that in pursuance of the Prime Minister’s goal, the IN would continue to “proactively identify redundant or archaic practises or symbols that could either he discontinued or modified in consonance with modern day realities.”
Subsequently, in 2023 he validated the Modi’s proposal of re-designating PBORs like Master Chief Petty Officer’s 1st class, Master Chief Petty Officer’s 2nd class, Chief Petty Officer’s, Petty Officer’s, Leading Seamen, Seamen 1st class and Seamen 2nd class, with Indian equivalents.
And in early 2024 he issued a directive officially inducting kurta-pyjama into the IN’s officers dress code in a move aimed at obtaining ‘mukti’ or liberation from multiple hoary Royal Navy (RN) couture traditions which the IN had inherited from its progenitor, the Royal Indian Navy (RIN).
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Official sources told The Wire that the PBOR re-naming proposal has come a cropper following a detailed review by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which included legal inputs from the Law Ministry. These counsels had reportedly cautioned the IN against effecting such a makeover, as it anticipated that the innumerable changes involved were likely to trigger legal challenges for the MoD to manage.
And, since it was already fielding an assortment of some 7,000-odd military-related cases in courts across India, it advised the IN against its move to re-title its PBOR.
Admiral Kumar’s kurta-pyjama declaration early last year followed detailed discussion on this sartorial combine in the bi-annual IN commanders conference in New Delhi. Despite serious operational matters which then prevailed, the IN top brass deliberated at length on approving the hitherto proscribed kurta-pyjama’s as an accepted dress form in naval messes, wardrooms and on formal occasions, and also drew up detailed specifications for the garb.
‘Entire kurta-pyjama episode was ludicrous, made the IN the butt of numerous jokes’
A mannequin was in attendance, exhibiting the recommended patterns. And, after much debate, a knee-length kurta of “solid tone” colours and buttoned-up cuffs, or alternately, with provisions for cufflinks was approved. The narrow, matching pyjama, on the other hand, needed to be ‘trouser-like’, featuring an elastic waistband and side pockets.
“The entire kurta-pyjama episode was ludicrous and made the IN the butt of numerous jokes,” said a senior veteran, declining to be named. And though Admiral Kumar’s edict approving it remains on record, it’s rarely, if at all, been operationalised or even discussed, he shamefacedly stated. The IN’s entire Pyjama-issue, he added, had quietly died.
Other service officers too were critical of the IN over its kurta-pyjama order. Retired Brigadier Rahul Bhonsle of the Security Risks consultancy in New Delhi said that the IN may have gone overboard to please the hierarchy, by blindly adopting the pyjama-kurta dress code in its officers’ messes.
All service personnel, the one-star Indian Army (IA) officer said, were forever on parade, and even their mess dress was supposed to enable quick mobilisation and shift from the dining table to the combat frontline. And though the kurta-pyjama qualified as ‘smart Indian attire’, it certainly did not fit the military’s professional requirements, he said. Brig Bhonsle also reproached the IN for putting the stately kurta pyjama into an unnecessary controversy, by adopting it where it was inappropriate, keeping professional norms and the ethos of the prevailing service in mind.
The IN spokesman in Delhi was unavailable for comment on both issues.
Meanwhile, over the past three years, the IN has, at the government’s behest, taken the lead over the two other services in racing to shed its colonial moorings which, fundamentally were a natural consequence of its founding antecedents as the RIN in 1934.
Veteran navalists conceded that because of its forerunners, the IN had many commonalities with Britain’s Royal Navy (RN), not only in operational, logistic and doctrinal procedures but also in its maritime mores, outlook and even superstitions. The veterans agreed that all such traditions and mores collectively constituted the bedrock of most of the world’s militaries, which they gradually naturalised, but without political prodding.
The “transformed navy of Amrit Kaal”
In 2023, for instance, the IN discontinued the RN-origin practice of its senior officers carrying batons because it was ill-suited to the “transformed navy of Amrit Kaal”, shortly after its ensign, while the flag was indigenised and shorn of its colonial antecedents that had featured the blood-red Cross of St George for decades.
Whilst unveiling the new ensign in September 2022 PM Modi declared that the new flag had shed India’s past-colonial- burden of slavery. Till now, he declared at the Cochin Shipyard, the ‘identity of slavery’ had remained on the IN’s flag, but the new ensign, inspired by Chhatrapati Shivaji would shed these shackles and fly proudly in the sea and in the sky.
And in December 2023 Modi also announced that the epaulettes, or ornamental shoulder pieces of senior IN ranks would include the 17th century Hindu Maratha warrior’s octagonal Rajmudra (royal stamp) in place of the Nelson ring in rank badges inherited from the RN.
“It was not for the PM to make pronouncements on revamping naval epaullets, which is exclusively the responsibility of the IN’s Controller of Personnel Services” a retired two-star naval officer had declared at the time. It is also obvious, he regretfully added, that the INs top brass were complicit in this undertaking, and in all likelihood connived and even encouraged it to earn government approval.
Interestingly, in 2001 Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s BJP-led federal coalition too had changed the IN ensign to divest it from its colonial past, substituting George’s Cross with the INs crest featuring an Ashoka Lion atop an elaborate anchor at its centre. But three years later, in 2004, the naval ensign reverted to its original design with the George Cross, following complaints that its blue colour was indistinguishable from that of the sky and the ocean.
The only difference was that the Ashoka Lion emblem was inserted into the centre of the George Cross, but the tri-colour continued where it had always lain on the ensign.
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In the meantime, taking its cue from BJP leaders, the IA, founded by the East India Company in the 18th century, too had embarked in recent years on ending ‘archaic and antiquated’ colonial traditions, dress codes, pipe and drum bands, colour presentations and investiture ceremonies.
Affiliation of units with those in foreign armies it had fought alongside in the two World Wars, caste and ethnically specific regiments raised by the British like Sikh, Gurkha, Jat and Rajput, amongst a myriad others, were likely to be discontinued soon for their perceived colonial overhang, despite having functioned effectively in numerous wars and counter-insurgency operations.
Furthermore, the army’s eight-odd regulation officers uniforms too were likely to undergo an “atamnirbharta or indigenous revision”, with the more fancy and colourful ones with English overtones, either being done away with or localised. These included the dashing Blue Patrols, the ceremonial winter uniform that comprises a black ‘bandgala’ coat with gleaming silver-coloured buttons, and with each wearers rank elaborately embroidered on the shoulders, and similarly coloured trousers.
The Indian Air Force (IAF), on the other hand, founded as the Royal IAF in 1932, inherited much less in ritual, norm and form from its Royal Air Force (RAF) precursors and consequently carries limited colonial baggage compared with the IN and the IA.
Flying squadrons still retain foreign names
However, one facet that has surprisingly escaped the governments atamnirbharta tsunami and remained truly foreign in its entirety, were the nicknames of fighter, transport and helicopter squadrons of all three services. These monikers smacked of undiluted colonial influence and consequently were ripe targets for either being rechristened with indigenous names, or subjected to direct, but complex translations into Sanskrit, much like the IAF’s dense squadron mottos.
Nicknames for IAF squadrons, for instance, included Tigers and Wolfpack (Mirage-2000Hs), Winged Arrows (Su-30MKIs), First Supersonics (MiG-29Ms), Flaming Arrows (SEPECAT Jaguars), Flying Daggers (LCA Tejas), Skylords (Boeing Globemaster C-17 IIIs), Veiled Vipers (C-130J-30s) and Armoured Kestrels ( Mi-17V5 helicopters), to mention just a few.
The IN, for its part, had White Tigers and Black Panthers (MiG-29k/KUBs), the Condors (P-8Is), Winged Stallions (Il-38s), and Kestrels (Dhruv MkIII Advanced Light Helicopters), amongst others, while the Army Aviation Corps had Night Raiders, Blazing Falcons and Soaring Gideons (Dhruv ALHs) alongside The Destroyers (Rudra-ALH Weapons Systems Integrated).
In conclusion, several veterans declared that though shedding India’s colonial baggage was inevitable, ‘brutally and tactlessly’ purging historical ties in the military, for whom tradition was a sacrosanct lifeline, was counter-productive. Such arbitrary endeavours, many said, also prompted a backlash, especially amongst veterans who too comprised the backbone of the services, and needed listening to.
