Scam takes shine off India's top brass By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - The involvement of India's top generals in a corrupt building deal worth millions of dollars has shattered the relatively clean image of the military.

The armed forces, arguably the most respected institution in the country, now seem to be taking the same path as other corruption-plagued spheres of influence just as the military prepares for a vast procurement spree.

Investigations are underway to determine how senior politicians, and bureaucrats and officers took ownership of apartments in a block constructed on Ministry of Defense-owned land for widows and war veterans of the brief 1999 Kargil war with Pakistan.

Owners of flats in the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society, built in the upmarket Colaba area of south Mumbai, include former army chiefs General Deepak Kapoor and General Nirmal Chander Vij, former navy chief Admiral Madhvendra Singh and former army vice chief General Shantanu Choudhary.

The controversy was revealed when Admiral Sanjeev Bhasin of the Western Naval Command wrote to army headquarters and the Defense Ministry complaining that the building posed a security threat to nearby military installations. The land is located within the security perimeter of the Colaba naval base.

Originally meant to be six storeys high, the Adarsh building project instead became a 100-meter high, 31-storey structure overlooking the base. The building stands virtually on the seashore, despite coastal regulation zone laws that forbid construction in a 200-meter zone from the high-tide line of the coast.

Some years ago when journalists drew attention to the violation of security and environmental norms at the site, defense officials said civilian rules did not apply to land belonging to the military. The officials also cited humanitarian reasons, stating that the building was meant for war widows and veterans.

Kapoor and Vij have claimed they did not know the apartments were meant for war widows. It seems odd that a top general should be unaware of such a high-profile scheme.

It has emerged that Kapoor apparently bent other rules to get himself allotted an apartment in Adarsh. When he applied for the flat in 2005, the rules stated owners must have lived in Mumbai for 15 years. He quickly got himself a domicile certificate from Maharashtra

chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. The salary slip he submitted with his application was also false.

The apartments, completed in 2008 and bought for as little as 6 million rupees (US$130,000), are now worth about 80 million rupees ($1.8 million) in Mumbai's rising real estate market, according to local media.

This is not the first time that generals have become entangled in land scams. Last year, 70 acres (28.3 hectares) of army land in Sukhna in West Bengal

was sold to a private real-estate developer. Four serving generals, one of them a close aide of Kapoor, then chief of army staff, were indicted. Among the indicted was Lieutenant General P K Rath, who was then poised to take over as deputy army chief. He now faces a court-martial.

In previous decades, corruption in the armed forces took the form of simple pilfering of rations and supplies. But in the past 10 years, the scale has grown enormously, particularly with regard to the procurement of military hardware and weapons systems. What is more, it is the top brass that is increasingly being found with its hand in the cookie jar.

According to the Times of India, "at least 10 generals - of two- and three-star rank, which means major-generals and lieutenant-generals - have come under the scanner for corruption and financial misappropriation in a series of meat, ration, fuel and liquor scandals over the last few years".

Several scams have laid bare the depths to which army officers are willing to sink to make a fast buck. During the Kargil conflict, which raged between India and Pakistan across the disputed Kashmir region for three months in 1999, aluminum caskets meant to transport the bodies of dead soldiers were purchased from an American company at several times the actual cost.

Three army officials were named in the chargesheet. Soldiers, including those serving in the icy heights of the Siachen Glacier, were supplied with substandard food. Food and liquor meant for soldiers was diverted to the black market.

It seems army officers will try anything to cheat the system. They have been repeatedly found faking combat mission with an eye on cash and bravery awards. In Assam, a colonel made civilians pose in photographs as dead insurgents, their faces splashed with ketchup. In Siachen, a major and a colonel made video footage of fake killings of "enemy soldiers" in an attempt to win medals.

Unlike their more venal counterparts in the political establishment and civilian bureaucracy, military officers had generally been looked on as incorruptible. When scandals involving officers emerged over the years, they were dismissed as aberrations. The concerned officers were described as a few rotten apples. But the involvement of former army chiefs in these land scams has triggered a realization that the rot goes much deeper.

One reason why corruption has spread so deep into the armed forces is that the military is treated as a holy cow. Scrutiny is frowned on. Decision-making on military procurements is opaque and national security is often cited to brush allegations of corruption under the carpet. Those who dare to try and expose the rot in the system are labeled as dangerous troublemakers and can find themselves in legal hot water.

In 2001, when Tehelka, a news website, launched the sting operation "Operation West End" to expose corruption in high places including in defense procurement deals, it was subjected to a witch-hunt. Tehelka's founder-editor Tarun Tejpal was charged with "immoral trafficking" for offering prostitutes to defense officials during the sting operation. Tehelka's funders came under immense pressure, and were subjected to income tax raids among other things, almost ruining the company.

While Indians are willing to criticize politicians and their corruption, as slow pace of democratic institutions, the military are seen as disciplined, efficient and clean. This tendency to look on democracy with suspicion is a "hold-over from the days of Raj", Umair Ahmed Muhajir wrote recently in Outlook magazine. Taken to its extreme in India's neighbors, it has resulted in public support for military rule in Pakistan, Bangladesh

and Myanmar. Indians might not have gone as far as in endorsing the role of the military, but it is putting the military on a pedestal and that is dangerous, Muhajir warns.

There is good reason for India to quickly stem the rot in its defense establishment. India is on the brink of what global consultancy firm KPMG describes as "one of the largest procurement cycles in the world". Between now and 2016, it expected to spend $112 billion on capital defense acquisitions. This in turn will create opportunities for Indian firms to the tune of $30 billion, KPMG said in a recent report.

Leading defense manufacturers are engaged in aggressive lobbying for lucrative contracts. Many in India's defense establishment will be keenly eyeing kickbacks. Corruption in defense procurement can be expected to surge, unless the government acts now.