This incident of fratricide in the ranks of India’s security forces is not a one-off occurrence. Such incidents — not just fratricides but also suicides — have happened in the past in both paramilitary as well as defence forces. In the last three years until August 2017, 310 army personnel committed suicide while there were 11 cases of fratricide. The country’s 15-lakh strong armed forces continue to lose over 100 personnel a year in stress-related deaths.
In the case of paramilitary forces, 325 suicides and 26 fratricides were reported till 2016. Chhattisgarh alone has seen the most suicides among security forces in more than a decade. Till September 2017, the toll this year stood at 36 as against 12 last year.
Clearly, the saying ‘stress is a killer,’ which holds significance for any profession, is more acutely felt in the case of armed forces — especially in counter-insurgency or high-altitude posts.
It’s not a coincidence that three of the four that CRPF constable Santh Kumar allegedly killed last week were his seniors. Initial reports indicate Santh Kumar had had a dispute with ASI Gajanan, who was injured, and with sub-inspector Vickey Sharma who was killed.
In a similar incident that happened in July this year, army jawan Naik Kathiresan, posted in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri sector, pumped five bullets into Maj. Shikhar Thapa after he had been reprimanded for using a cellphone.
Various other incidents of fragging — the act of intentionally killing a fellow officer — reported in the past have featured a stressed subordinate lashing out at a senior. In fact, various studies of the phenomenon of suicide and fratricide have indicated that one of the major reasons for stress-triggered violence in the security forces is the gap between Other Ranks (OR) — jawans, havildars — and officers in the armed forces and between officers and troopers in the paramilitary forces.
In her 2015 study ‘Occupational Stress in the Armed Forces: An Indian Army Perspective’ published in the IIM-B Management Review, Sakshi Sharma says, “the leadership style adopted by the army officers and seniors creates stress among the soldiers. When the subordinate is uneasy with the management style of the superior, it can lead to frustration especially when insufficient guidance of the job requirements is provided.”
In an occasional paper titled ‘Addressing Stress-Related Issues in the Army’ published by the Indian Defence Studies and Analysis, Col K C Dixit, highlights the problem and says “the officers and junior-commissioned officers at platoon/company/unit level have to be sensitised towards the needs of soldiers both as an individual and as a group…(and) there is definitely a need to change mind set (sic) of senior officers in the armed forces.”
In another paper ‘Emotional Intelligence & Occupational Stress: A Study of BSF Personnel,’ published by the journal Police Practice and Research, M K Chhabra, then director of the Bureau of Police Research and Development, found that a majority of police personnel felt that they could not approach their seniors as and when required. “Clearly, the channels of communication between the base level and seniors are blocked,” the study said.
In a blog post on Millenium Post, Sanjiv Krishna Sood, a retired additional director-general of BSF, says the “most important reason for low morale is the irrational and faulty operational, personnel, and administrative policies pursued by the IPS officers as they have no connect (sic) with the operational philosophy and ethos of the BSF.”
While stress is common to all personnel serving in the uniformed forces, it is greatly exacerbated by counter-insurgency situations and difficult terrain.
However, having said that, it would be too simplistic to pin the responsibility for stress-related violence in the ranks completely on the shoulders of senior officers when there are organisational and policy shortcomings.
Firstly, the shortage of officers in the armed forces is well-known. At least 7,986 positions of officers lie vacant in the Indian Army and 1,256 in the Navy as of January, according to government data.
As for paramilitary forces, out of a sanctioned IPS strength of 37 posts for deputation as DIGs in the CRPF, only three are posted presently. In the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), only one IPS officer is available as DIG against a total of 23. A similar situation prevails in the Border Security Force (BSF) and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).
The shortage of officers overloads the seniors and leaves them less time to attend to the problems of the ranks.
Secondly, it’s not just the shortage of officers but also the lack of experience among them arising from quick promotions which hinder the growth of a relationship between an officer and his/her subordinate.
Explaining this problem, national security analyst Nitin Gokhale, in a blog post on
rediff.com, said, “Very often young officers with less than two years of service are commanding companies. Even in the battalion headquarters, one officer ends up doing the job of three given the shortage. There is no time to interact with soldiers.”
Brigadier (retd) Deepak Sinha, writing in the Indian Defence Review observes that “the senior leadership is completely disconnected from the rank and file and even worse, has little or no practical experience of counter-insurgency operations and what they involve.”
Another factor which drives resentment towards seniors in the forces is the colonial-era sahayak system. Under the sahayak or the buddy system, a soldier is attached to an officer and his duties include maintaining their weapons and other equipment and helping them in carrying out their responsibilities.
However, distortions have crept into the system, as was evident in the video posted by Lance Naik Yagya Pratap Singh of 14 Rajput in January this year. In the video, the soldier said: “I had written to the Prime Minister asking that sahayaks should not be made to polish shoes of officers.”
When the Prime Minister’s Office wrote back asking a brigadier to investigate the matter, said Yagya Pratap Singh, “the brigadier... put pressure on me and tortured me to such a level that I could have taken an extreme step.”
The soldier’s voice quivers as he says, “But I will not commit suicide or act in any way or against anyone that will tarnish the name of my service.”
The video went viral, and the army copped a lot of criticism regarding the sahayak system. It also prompted the army to at least consider recruiting civilians as sahayaks in peace stations. Not only that, in March, the Centre informed the Rajya Sabha that the practice of deploying ‘Suraksha Sahayaks’ in the paramilitary forces has been discontinued.
So, why don’t more personnel come forward with their stress before it becomes a problem to their mental health and their own and their comrades’ physical safety? Stress is always a condition to admit to in the security forces, which function on the principle of a clear line of command and never questioning an officer’s orders. Such a basic principle is always likely to deter stressed personnel from seeking the counsel of a superior officer or even a professional counsellor.
In fact the 2013 study, ‘Stigma of Mental Illness: A Study in the Indian Armed Forces’ by Rear Adm A A Pawar, command medical officer of the Eastern Naval Command and two others, found that 90 per cent of the personnel included in the study admitted to experiencing stigma against mental illness.
The study also found that 86 per cent of the personnel faced discrimination when they reported that they were depressed. This discrimination, according to the study, was in “matters of promotions and postings and attributing all actions of the persons as due to mental illness.”
The government and the security forces have taken cognizance of the problem of stress among the ranks and though they have announced a slew of measures to combat stress, the chasm between officers and the other ranks continues to grow.
The strained relationship between officers and subordinates is by no means the only reason fuelling suicide and fratricide in the security forces. In fact, several studies of the phenomenon of stress in the security forces show that home-related issues like marriage and financial distress are major causes of stress among jawans.
However, for lower-ranked personnel, stationed in far corners of the country away from their home, these are variables beyond their control. What can mitigate their situation is a healthy relationship with seniors.
