Defence: Gung-Ho Geroge

Collaring the bureaucrats, dining with the troops -- India's maverick defence minister thunders ahead.

The Schedule would be punishing for a 40-year-old but George Fernandes, Union defence minister who celebrated his 69th birthday this June, wouldn't know it. Take his last trip to Siachen, a place avoided by the healthiest at the best of times. Up at Udhampur at 4.30 a.m., Fernandes was at the airport an hour later for the flight to Leh, which he reached by 7 a.m. A visit to local officials, the Doordarshan Kendra, a quick lunch, and he was off by road to Khardung La. There, atop the highest motorable pass, he held an impromptu press conference with accompanying journalists, even while army officers pleaded with the party to move on because of the danger of hypoxia. By evening, he reached Partapur, the headquarters of the Siachen brigade. Throughout the journey, he made it a point to stop the convoy to talk to locals and jawans. At Partapur, his first assignment was to inspect the base hospital, which he did, taking notes in a small book. After dinner, he chatted with friends till 12 midnight, worked on his files till 2 a.m. and was up again at 6.30 a.m. for a helicopter ride to the higher reaches of the glacier. Special privileges were at a minimum. On the road he was, as always, upfront, next to the driver, minus any special security. Arrangements were not ostentatious and at the army bara khana (lunch with the jawans) he dispensed with the special table and tucked in with the jawans.

GEORGE ON A ROLL

Touring the trenches: Logging close to a thousand kilometres every month, Fernandes revels in visiting troops on remote frontiers, sharing a meal with them and talking to them.

Listening to the generals: He does not make speeches and leave. Instead, notebook in hand he sits through commanders' conferences and asks about anything he doesn't know. He reads briefs and grasps them.

Siachen and beyond: Apart from his own trips, he forces ministry babus to visit posts in Rajasthan when it hits 50 degrees, Kashmir when it's below freezing and the North- east when its pouring buckets.

Fernandes' familiarity with the troops has dispelled the initial incongruity of his crumpled kurta-pyjama, chappals and shock of unruly hair in the spit-and-polish world of the armed forces. But the adulation hides serious systemic problems that the minister hasn't yet got down to tackling. The armed forces are overstaffed, overused and clanking along with obsolete equipment. The army needs to be pruned by a few tens of thousands to free the money for weapons and training. The air force needs to scrap at least 14 squadrons of vintage aircraft. Such urgent restructuring is especially needed post-Pokhran. Every nuclear weapons state has technologically advanced armed forces. But quick and radical decision-making can begin only if the armed forces' headquarters are integrated with the defence ministry. It isn't as if Fernandes is unaware of all this: he just isn't sure where to start.

For now, he's trying to ensure he and everyone else at least get to know the trenches. The educational virtues of travel are enshrined in Georgian fatwa enjoining every civilian officer who joins the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to make three compulsory visits to Siachen, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Rann of Kutch, Rajasthan, the North-east and a sortie in a submarine. "It will be no fun trip," says the minister. "The trip to Kashmir is in winter, that to Rajasthan when it's 50 degrees plus there and to Kutch and the North-east during the monsoon."

When Fernandes was made the defence minister, there were many who ridiculed the appointment of a person who was once tried for sedition. But within weeks the scorn had changed to grudging respect. He actually read the briefs and grasped them. When the practice for the defence minister was to attend the inaugural session of senior commanders' conferences, make a speech and leave, Fernandes stayed till the end, diligently taking down notes. This was interspersed with field trips to India's borders where the armed forces are deployed. Wherever he went, Fernandes displayed an insatiable curiosity to learn everything he could.

To say that Fernandes' electric charge has shocked the moribund Defence Ministry may be an exaggeration, especially since he has had little competition. In the past 15 years the ministry has had full-time ministers for only six years and most of the incumbents have been indifferent to their charge. As the armed forces casualties showed an upward trend in the '90s, the situation went from bad to worse with declining budgets and indifferent or incompetent ministers. The bureaucracy rushed in to fill the vacuum and the result was a gridlock between civil and military officers, manifested in the unseemly interference in military issues by civilians and delayed decisions that have hurt the morale of the armed forces and affected their operational readiness.

The armed forces are still awestruck at the collaring of the bureaucracy. Within days of taking charge, Fernandes announced the revival of the Defence Minister's Committee which had been dormant for decades. This means the defence minister, the three service chiefs, the three secretaries in the MOD and the financial adviser meet every third Thursday of the month. This may not quite have ended the civil war being waged by the uniformed and civilian personnel in the ministry but it has made it less hostile. Two weeks ago, to remove a major cause of friction, the committee delegated powers to a series of purchase boards to take decisions on all purchases. "A giant step," observed a service chief.

What sets Fernandes apart is not just his raw energy but an emotional fervour in doing what he does. His frenetic travel seems driven by a desire to learn more and do more for the jawan. Last month, during a visit to Chushul on the shores of the Pangong lake in Ladakh, he was so overcome by the tough living conditions that tears welled up; he was unable to speak. "Passion is George's defining quality," says Ajay Singh, Fernandes' political acolyte. "There are good ministers and bad ministers, but no one can match George's emotional commitment." In his present avatar, this ardour is visible in his effort to make things a little easier for the ordinary jawan.

But his main fixation is Siachen. It is easy to see why. This is the country's toughest battlefield, yet Delhi has been cavalier in handling it. Nearly 600 army personnel have died and 1,000 injured in defending it. Almost four-fifths of these casualties have been a result of the terrain rather than enemy action. Heights of over 18,000 ft with temperatures that even in summer remain minus 30 degrees Celsius result in death or illness from hypothermia or pulmonary oedema. Avalanches and crevasses too take their own toll.

One of Fernandes' earliest decisions was to order that a full complement of snowmobiles be retained in the glacier and the two babus responsible for the delay visit the area and see for themselves why these vehicles were needed. Last month, when he inspected the base hospital, he found that its central heating system had been out of order since 1994, with no replacement available since. His response was immediate. A week after his return on September 7, decisions came fast and hard. At a meeting attended by all three service chiefs, a central heating system as well as a CT scan and MRI system were sanctioned for the Srinagar hospital and a hyperbaric compression chamber for Thoise to provide critical aid to those struck by pulmonary oedema. Fernandes also decreed the provision of refrigerated trucks to provide fresh meat for jawans in Siachen instead of the insipid tinned food. A number of specialised items are to be imported such as winches to ease climbing, lightweight binoculars, hand-held range finders and thermal imaging systems.

Cutting red tape on purchases and resolving jawans' personal problems make great copy, but Fernandes will be judged by his response to the larger tasks. Critics say he will lose focus once confronted with the more intractable problems of his gargantuan ministry. Already some say he devotes too much time to politicking in Tamil Nadu and Bihar. Fernandes has been unable to dent the three major defence problems: obsolete weaponry and overstaffing, the bureaucratic stranglehold on his ministry and the massive corruption.

The minister claims that he would like to disband the IAS and the IPS, but it is no secret that he has been stymied in his efforts to transform the higher echelons of his own ministry. Despite the much-hyped complaint box he installed outside the ministry gate, he has not come to terms with the monster of corruption.

Fernandes as industry minister in the 1977-1979 Janata government is best remembered for kicking out Coca-Cola and IBM. This time around, the jury is still out on Fernandes the defence minister.