A few years back, when the phenomenon of social media had just about infiltrated the hallowed precincts of the cantonments and barracks of the Indian Armed Forces, came tumbling an image of militaristic traditions, restraints and sobriety. A distinguished third-generation soldier and then Chief of Army Staff, General DS Suhag, had just finished his address and it was followed by claps ~ he immediately returned to the podium to correct and insist on a longstanding tradition. The wise General noted, “After I finish my address please do not clap. Hereafter, we will maintain the decorum of not clapping in uniform.” This was not a social quirk, but one tenet conforming to “Officer Like Qualities” (OLQ’s) that befit a professional soldier.
The “Uniform” mandates certain composure, behavioural restraints, and adherences to approved protocols, and breaking away from these is considered unbecoming. Reactions like saluting, approved salutations, or even standing at attention (or at ease) is subject to the moment. Free expression of emotion that breaks away from such regimented and approved ways is frowned upon. But this disciplined conduct is not about stifling an individual but ensuring the maximum output out of the act of synchronization (physically and behaviorally). Synchronization of movement (along with a larger team) is institutionalised into the consciousness of a soldier, starting from the “Drill Square” to “Quarter Guards”, firing ranges, to even prescribed do’s and don’ts in an Army Mess.
There is even a defined way of rousing the morale of troops in the forward areas by desisting from using political/partisan goads, or invoking divisive stances ~ instead, the triggering of respective war cries of the battalion, arm, or service, is used. This is a necessary culture for maintaining the apolitical, non-partisan, and professional normalcy within ranks. By its very nature, the act of clapping is individualistic, as the assumption is that any content could be liked or disliked by the audience at large, therefore splitting opinion in the crowd.
This splitting of opinions and the public expression of the split is anathema for an institution that takes “orders” even though there is risk to the lives and limbs of those in the “Uniform”, who have to carry out violence, as tasked to protect the sovereign. This should not lull those outside the “Uniform” fraternity to think that the institution has no space for professional disagreements. In fact, the institution prides itself in the belief that professional dissent does not equate to disloyalty. But there are laid down rules of expressing dissent in a polite, firm, yet enabled way, so as to be able to add to the professional discourse.
The controversial but brilliant former Chief of Army Staff, General Sundarji, had highlighted the issue in his famous letter to all officers by suggesting that, “Encourage dissent and new ideas at the policy formulation and discussion stage and insist on implicit obedience in the right spirit, post-decision, at the execution stage”. Therefore, unlike the rabble-rousing and public mudslinging that continues unabated in the corridors of political and civilian governance, the synchronized obedience and acceptance of final orders in toto, is implicit to the “Uniform”.
This culture metaphorically disallows the public expression of consent or disagreement in the form of clapping or otherwise, to an addressed content. However, many unhinged politicians with little or no understanding of the ways of the Armed Forces try to usurp and appropriate the imagery of the soldier to conflate the same to their own “political muscularity” in a brazen compromise of the apolitical anchorage of the institution. For such “hyper-nationalist” politicians, toxic fear mongering (even amongst the diversities within the country) and conjoining their identities to the military to bolster their own nationalistic posturing, are a convenient prop.
US President Donald Trump (a confirmed draft-dodger) exemplifies the type of politician who has recklessly gone about infusing dangerous partisanship across the levers of governance, including the Armed Forces. From pardoning convicted service personnel by questioning the decisions of the past, to openly raking political opponents and their tenures, to even threatening the service personnel about the “new normal” (often retracting to revisionism) ~ he has attempted to redefine, control, and milk the apolitical institution to his own individual cult.
Always the one to be drawn to braggadocio with name-changing “muscularity”, he has recently rechristened the Department of Defense as the Department of War. At a mass gathered room of top military personnel, Trump and his henchman, Pete Hegseth, let loose a tirade of street-level populism by calling out “Wokeism”, dog whistling minorities, indulging in gender shaming, to every possible insinuation in the playbook of Trump insults. In a shocking take on the possible misuse of the Armed Forces, the President alluded to the “enemy from within” by positing the possibility of pitting the Armed Forces against its own citizens. Trump’s unrestrained and partisan rant went as far as suggesting, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military ~ National Guard, but Military ~ because we’re going into Chicago very soon.
That’s a big city with an incompetent Governor. Stupid Governor”. The duo mocked professional fighting of soldiers under “the stupid rules of engagement”. The hapless top-brass of military personnel who are simply trained to take orders, watched, and heard their Commander-in-Chief, without reaction. This too was to get to the uninitiated sensibilities of Trump who is used to groveling and blind devotion of his cadres and he put to question that time-honoured military tradition of not clapping. Trump said that he’d never “walked into a room so silent before” and in a shameful combination of ignorance and intimidation of a bully said, “if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want.
And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future”. The moment drew us back to the times of George Washington who had famously wondered what fate could await the nation should it have to deal with an unscrupulous Commander-in-Chief. That moment, it seems has dawned on the US and its Armed Forces, as many sensible people within Trump’s own Republican ranks recoil with horror at the unprecedented partisanship and “loyalty” beseeched, not to the Constitution, but to Trump himself.
In his first Presidential term, the senior most military professional, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, had stood his ground at the political shenanigans of a Trump and in his second innings as the President, Trump started his tenure by firing the incumbent Joint Chiefs of Staff, Head of the Navy, Vice Chief of Air Staff, JAG, and many other Generals and Admirals. It is for a good reason that practices like clapping or singing hosannas for anybody is shunned whilst in the “Uniform”. Most don’t have a clue about its traditions, elan, and dignity, that predates their personal vanity, partisanship or even construct of vacuous nationalism.
(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)