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By Amjed Jaaved

On March 21, 2019, a jawan Ajit Kumar from 187th Central Reserve police Force Battalion took out his service rifle and shot dead three of his colleagues _ a fratricide, or fragging in military jargon. He later shot himself, too. Similar incidents were reported in February 2019. One jawan commits suicide every third day. A jawan is a junior soldier, especially an infantryman. It covers all ranks below that of a commissioned officer in India.

Some politicians, including Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav has publicly taunted Indian prime minister Narendra Modi (March 21, 2019), `Pulwama attack was a conspiracy’. And ‘jawans were killed for votes’. He revealed that `paramilitary forces are unhappy with the government’. And, they wanted to be provided armoured vehicles to patrol Kashmir streets.

Over the period 2001-19, suicides and fragging remained unabated among forces. Not only India’s defence ministry but also its home ministry lamented the trend. Psychological counseling and compulsory yoga exercise could not check the trend. Even over 40 per cent of women, rarely deputed for combat duty, in paramilitary forces, committed suicide. It was baffling that the women’s suicides took place often at peace stations.

Suicides vis-à-vis `action’ casualties

According to home ministry data, the number of jawan belonging to regular as well as paramilitary forces who committed suicides is more than those killed in action.

Suicides and fragging in three services

According to data compiled by the defence ministry for the period January 1, 2014 to

March 31, 2017, one person on duty from armed forces (army, navy and air force) commits suicide every three days. Data presented indicated 348 regulars committed suicide while on duty. Of these 276 were from the army, 12 from navy and 60 from the air force. India’s defence ministry shrugged off the blame for military suicides. It says the suicides are upshot of family problems and land disputes back at home.

Suicides in para-military forces

No definition

The term “paramilitary forces” in India has not been officially defined in any act or by authority. However, it is currently used to refer to component forces, mentioned heretofore. The Assam Rifles (AR) 63,747 personnel (led by Indian Army officers reporting to home ministry, and Special Frontier Force (SFF) 10,000 personnel (led by Indian-army officers reporting to Indian Intelligence). Following five forces which come under Indian Home Ministry were earlier considered paramilitary forces, but from March 2011 have been reclassified as Central Armed Police Forces (CAP): Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) – 313,678 personnel, Border Security Force (BSF) 257,363, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) 89,432 personnel, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) 144,418, Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) 76,337. Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), is a Hindi phrase which means in English `armed border force’. It is under India’s CAP. Currently, it is under the home ministry’s administrative control. Prior to 2001, the force was known as the Special Service Bureau (SSB). India’s active troops are 1,395,100, reservists 2,142,800, paramilitary forces and CAP 1,403,700. The force deployed within occupied Kashmir for patrolling, cordon-and-search operations is 780,000, lately increased to 800,000.

During the last six years, approximately 700 jawan of the CAP committed suicide and the rate of voluntary retirement was approximately 9,000 jawan per year. The suicides and killed-in-action ratio is highest in SSB (1:8), followed by CISF, (1:63) and ITBP (1:4).

Suicides of jawans

India’s home ministry reported `during the last six years, approximately 700 jawan of the Central Armed Police Forces committed suicide and the rate of voluntary retirement is approximately 9,000 personnel per year’. Elaborating on its findings, the home ministry did not give figures for an exact six-year period but cited varying years _ 2001 for the BSF, 2012 for the CRPF, 2006 for the ITBP, 2013 for the CISF and SSB and 2014 for the AR. According to the ministry, 189 CRPF personnel committed suicide since 2012, while 175 were killed in action in the same period. In the Border Security Force, there were 529 suicides since 2001 while the force lost 491 jawan in action. The ministry also said that 62 ITBP jawan committed suicide since 2006 while just 16 were killed in action during the same period. In the CISF, 63 personnel ended their lives since 2013 and just one jawan died in action. The number of suicides in the SSB, since 2013, is 32 as against four killed in action.

In the case of the AR, since 2014, 27 personnel committed suicide and 33 personnel were killed in action. The suicides and killed in action ratio is the highest in SSB (1:8), followed by CISF (1:63) and ITBP (1:4).

Suicides of para-military women

Over 40 per cent of women in paramilitary forces commit suicide, despite never having to face combat duty. India’s National Crime Records Bureau data shows that women only constitute 2 per cent of all central paramilitary personnel. However, they account for more than 40 per cent of the suicides. The data on accidental deaths and suicides shows that in 2014 there were 175 suicides within the central armed police forces. They included CPRF, BSF, CISF and other paramilitary organisations. As many as 73 of these deaths, 41.7 per cent, were women. Data from Bureau of Police Research and Development shows that of the nearly 9.3 lakh people employed in these forces just a little over 18,000 were women, whereas over 9.1 lakh were men. What makes this data interesting is that women personnel were never deployed for combat duty. The CPRF sent its first batch of women personnel for combat roles in Chhattisgarh as a pilot project. But they were never integrated with any operation.

Suicide rate for women in these forces is 396.9 per lakh compared to just 11.2 per lakh for men. There is clear evidence to suggest that women are more stress-prone than men. India’s army chief publicly taunted women for their unsuitability for quasi-military duty.

Rumpus in parliament over suicides

Indian parliament is aware of sagging morale of Indian forces. Around December 23, 2009, the Indian House of People (lok sabha) witnessed rumpus when then defence minister A. K. Antony informed Parliament that there have been 520 cases of suicides and fratricides in the army since 2006, of which 495 alone were suicides. The 31st Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence noted that there were 635 cases of suicides and 67 fratricides in the armed forces between 2003 and 2007. The minister also noted that 70 per cent of the suicides took place in peace stations and the rest in field areas, a fact that surprised the Parliamentary Committee.

Consensus at conferences

Several conferences were held at army and para-military headquarters to analyse `psychological impact of protracted service’ in so-called `low-intensity conflict operations on armed forces personnel’. The purpose was to ferret out `probable causes of stress’ and hammer out remedies. The participants inter alia reviewed `disturbing phenomena of killing one’s comrades or commanders (`fragging’), committing suicides, misbehaviour with or even maltreatment or killing of the innocent civilian populations, besides the troops’ involvement in rapes, thefts and other criminal activities (confiscation of gold ornaments from a Kashmiri goldsmith by army men at check-post).

It was noticed that the general public did not support the low-intensity operations. There was outrage at custodial killing like that of a teacher Rizwan Pandit, aspiring for a doctoral degree, but dubbed as Pulwama-attack accomplice. He was `picked up’ without a warrant and tortured to death. The soldier was now being viewed by the populace as just another corrupt policeman. Major Leetul Gogoi was awarded commendation certificate by Indian-army chief for shamelessly driving a jeep with a Kashmiri tied to his jeep front. Gogoi was later caught red handed with a teenager girl at a Srinagar hotel. But, he was let off the hook by simply charging him with a slap on the wrist `fraternisation’, instead of `fornication’. Pulwama attacker was radicalised when he was forced to hop around an army jeep while rubbing his nose repeatedly.

The troops harboured muffled resentment against the astronomical standard of living of their superior officers, even while encamped in jungles. The army psychologists identified several `manifestations of stress in troops’ including anxiety and depression, suicidal tendencies, post-traumatic disorder, impaired decision making, fear of invisible enemy, and insubordinate or undisciplined attitude’.

Yerkes-Dodson Stress Model

This model postulates that a certain degree of stress level (optimum stress level) is necessary to make us live active and productive lives. However, a stress level lower than this optimum leads to the decay of psychological system (hypo-stress). The Indian Army took short and long term measures to maintain optimum stress levels among its troops. But, it was of no avail .

Real problems

Discrimination

The real malaise is discrimination between jawan and officers. The segregation prevails not only during service but also after retirement. The forces provide dreary toilets, kitchens and messes to jawan as against exotic facilities for officers. The officers have separate queues for them in all facilities like Canteen Stores Department (CSD), and military hospitals. The officers have exclusive recreational clubs which are out-of-bound for jawan. These clubs, located on defence land, are run out of CSD profits. A famous club `Colaba Mumbai-United Services Club ‘used to display a sign-board at its gate “SAILORS AND DOGS NOT ALLOWED INSIDE”.

Even the officer’s residential areas are ‘OUT OF BOUND’ for the jawans. This colonial attitude caricatures the India’s constitution which treats every citizen, including jawansand officers, as `equal’. The troops want rainbow residential areas where officer-jawan kids could play together. There should be Unified Messes where everyone eats drinks and do merry-making _ same kitchen, same dining, same toilets, no separate queues. Though jawans constitute 97 per cent of armed forces, none of them has ever been awarded VSM, AVSM, PVSM, or civil awards. Discrimination in awarding gallantry or distinguished-service medals should end.

Ex-Servicemen’s protest

They held a sit-in in New Delhi, accompanied with a hunger strike. The security forces baton charged the war veterans to disperse them.

The ex-servicemen blamed `undemocratic’ pay-and-allowance differential between officers and other ranks. Their main demands, as highlighted in a peaceful sit in, are: (a) one rank, one pay as jawan are always in ‘line of fire’. Parity between pay and perks of commissioned officers and non-commissioned ranks. (b) Abolition of the untouchability and ghetto system in armed forces and ancillary services. (c) Elimination of sewadari (batmanship) system. Soldiers are for for combat duty, not for serving as domestic servants to officers. (d) Re-structuring and modernising forces in professional manner by removing colonial discrimination by their roots, akin to American army. (e) Abolition of VVIP racism in armed forces. Providing decent washrooms to jawans unlike present caste-based facility. (f) Providing secure whistle-blower- protection platforms to jawan to complain about officers’ rampant corruption without fear of reprisal.

Popular empathy?

Ex-Servicemen went on strike on the issue of One Rank One Pay and held their sit-in (dharna) at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar chowk (crossing) in 2015. The general public remained listless when the war veterans, including those on hunger strike, were beaten up and dispersed. They even hurled insults at their `lust’ for more material benefits when millions lived below poverty line. Disappointed ex-servicemen now avoid public protests.

Invisible and undefined targets

The troops are trained in conventional warfare where targets are visible to naked eye. They fail to identify `enemy’ in disturbed areas. If someone does not halt in response to `halt’ order, they kill the innocent civilian. On knowing that they have killed innocent persons they remain traumatised for a long time.

Conclusion

Most of the suicides occur while on duty and often in occupied Kashmir or in the North East. The suicides are wrongly devolved to problems back at home. The nexus between suicide and duty stress cannot be ignored. Caste-based discrimination, poor leadership skills, supercilious, or even outright callous attitude of officers, also, exacerbate the problem.

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Mr. Amjed Jaaved has been contributing free-lance for over five decades. His contributions stand published in the leading dailies and magazines at home and abroad. He is author of seven e-books including `Terrorism, Jihad, Nukes and other Issues in Focus’ besides a research paper `India’s Democracy’. He has experience of serving Pakistan government for 39 years. He holds degrees in economics, business administration, and law. He specialises on India, Kashmir, and peripheral states. Knows several languages including French. Corrections and comments at amjedjaaved@gmail.com