{"id":125290,"date":"2021-08-11T17:53:08","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T12:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=125290"},"modified":"2021-08-11T17:53:08","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T12:23:08","slug":"our-harmed-forces-merit-principle-is-dangerous-dont-let-politics-enter-that-domain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/our-harmed-forces-merit-principle-is-dangerous-dont-let-politics-enter-that-domain\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Harmed Forces: \u2018Merit\u2019 Principle Is Dangerous: Don\u2019t let politics enter that domain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/blogs\/toi-edit-page\/our-harmed-forces-merit-principle-is-dangerous-officers-at-the-very-top-are-all-able-dont-let-politics-enter-that-domain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TOI<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>: \u00a0Selection for top military posts, issues of merit over seniority.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis<\/strong>: The Current system of promotion and advancement employed by the military is fair and based on merit. An analysis of the current system and potential implications of changing it.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Background<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Read here<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/for-top-military-posts-mod-weighs-merit-over-seniority\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">For top military posts, MoD weighs merits vs seniority<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Significance of a fair promotion system<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>It is vital for services to ensure that the system of promotions and advancement is as just, fair and transparent as possible, so that the rank and file remain confident that the leaders they unquestioningly follow deserve the position they have attained.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Existing methodology<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>The military has a very <strong>fair methodology<\/strong> for selection of officers for promotion from the rank of Colonel to General (and equivalents in other services). There&#8217;s a fierce competition and stringent selection criteria, resulting in 60-70% of officers not making the cut.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Promotion boards<\/strong>, convened periodically for placing officers on a \u2018select list\u2019 for promotion to ranks of Colonel and above, examine only <strong>annual confidential reports<\/strong> rendered periodically on candidates.\n<ul>\n<li>ACRs contain numerical gradings for a number of attributes, as well as a \u2018pen picture\u2019 that describes the individual\u2019s qualities for the board and substantiates the grading.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u2018Merit\u2019, therefore, remains the sole criterion for the selection process by which a batch of 100 officers may be reduced to 10-12 by the time they reach 3-star rank.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Current system is fair<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>The current system of promotion to higher military ranks is based on the <strong>principle of seniority-cum-merit<\/strong>. As pointed out above, it consists of repeated screening of officers on the basis of merit alone. Therefore, the handful who remain and survive to reach top echelons are of <strong>uniformly high caliber. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Choosing the senior-most, by date of promotion to his present rank (not by date of birth or date of commission), has, therefore, proved a \u2018safe bet\u2019 for decades.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Issues<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Areas that need reform:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Written remarks for changing gradings<\/strong>: An issue of unhappiness arises from the fact that the service chiefs are entitled to have the last say as far as ACRs of 2- and 3-star rank officers are concerned. This is quite appropriate, but they too, must provide full justification, via written remarks, for changing earlier gradings.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s also a need to <strong>bring uniformity in personnel policies<\/strong> of the three services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Implications of a changed methodology<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>A deep-selection methodology, overlooking seniority and based on some other definition of \u2018merit\u2019, must be weighed against these drawbacks:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The selected would consider himself <strong>obligated to the politico-bureaucratic establishment<\/strong>, undermining his own credibility within the service<\/li>\n<li><strong>Political polarization<\/strong>: high-level military decisions may be biased to <strong>please politicians. <\/strong>Political polarization, if allowed to take place in the military, would create deep fissures within the officer corps \u2013 eventually infecting the rank and file.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The public respects the military for its apolitical and non-partisan conduct. But if the citizens perceive it as just another interest-group seeking to promote itself, that respect will soon vanish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: TOI Relevance: \u00a0Selection for top military posts, issues of merit over seniority. Synopsis: The Current system of promotion and advancement employed by the military is fair and based on merit. An analysis of the current system and potential implications of changing it. Background Read here: For top military posts, MoD weighs merits vs seniority&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/our-harmed-forces-merit-principle-is-dangerous-dont-let-politics-enter-that-domain\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Our Harmed Forces: \u2018Merit\u2019 Principle Is Dangerous: Don\u2019t let politics enter that domain<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216],"class_list":["post-125290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704910792},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}