The Military as an Institution

The book written by Kaushik Roy offers an interesting take on the development of the Armed Forces as an institution, its nature and purposes and the formulation of theories as regards its functions. Not much has been written about India’s military post-Independence despite the fact that the Armed Forces of India have continuously been enga-ged in conflicts of various intensities for over five decades since then. Perhaps this has some-thing to do with the Indian ethos which histo-rically has been more attuned to dissemina-ting information through the oral tradition rather than the written one.This is a lacuna which the military would do well to correct as the British Indian Army was prolific in recording every aspect of its history.

The bulk of the book is devoted to the Indian Army while a chapter each looks at the Air Force, Navy and defence industry. The author has succinctly traced the military di-mension of India’s national Security Policy and viewed Indian policy as being essentially pas-sive in nature. He explains the convoluted process by which India’s security policy origi-nated and grew. His well researched analysis confirms the view of George Tanham, the American security analyst, who stated in a re-cent work that Indians had no strategic doc-trine and formulated strategy on an ad hoc basis.