Saffron or olive-green? For any minister in the NDA government that choice would equate with being stuck “between a rock and a hard place”, but for the defence minister it translates into a genuine quandary. Nirmala Sitharaman could find her several capabilities stretched to the limit in deciding whether to favour the Army’s 16 Corps, or some top leaders of the BJP’s Jammu unit, over allegedly illegal construction near the perimeter of a key defence installation ~ an ammunition depot at Nagrota, a base from where the Army conducts operations against not-infrequent forays across the LOC/IB by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. It is not the Kashmir Valley alone that is targeted.

The government in New Delhi promotes the tough line the security forces are taking, any dilution of that by failing to address the property dispute, or unlawful use of land near the depot, would send out an unfavourable signal to the military leadership. Yet can South Block ignore the claims of the deputy chief minister and Speaker of the J&K Assembly (who have recently switched places)? More so since an influential minister in the PMO is from Jammu. The details of the dispute need not detain us ~ there are always two sides to a story ~ but what is worrying is the line taken by Nirmal Singh (now theS peaker) that the depot “should never have been located there”. That argument can be advanced against several military facilities across the country. Even worse is his accusing the Corps Commander of “political motives”, despite that officer citing a host of regulations transgressed by a construction within 600 yards of the depot. While, ideally, the matter should be judicially resolved, the Army would be hamstrung if it sought to move the court against a couple of senior BJP leaders ~ also associated with the private “developer” from whom the land was bought. And court cases take time to resolve, perhaps too long to keep ammunition marking time.

How Mrs Sitharaman, or more senior leaders of the NDA, address the issue will have nationwide implications. Cantonments/military stations across the land have been engulfed by the urban sprawl, and ineffective local administrations have turned a blind eye to massive construction, including high-rise structures, just beyond “military limits”. It is not just accidental fires at depots that prove hazardous, other elements of security are also compromised. It is over-simplistic to ask the forces to move out (as the transport minister did after a squabble with the Navy in Mumbai), building up infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming. And can the forces keep on “re-locating” because civic authorities are deliberately impotent ~ rendered so by political pressures? Truly a “nasty one” for Mrs Sitharaman ~ her professional credentials are being tested against her proven political attributes. She got the Army to build railway over-bridges, what about helping it preserve the sanctity of its installations?