The image of the Army has taken a beating recently. Earlier, it was for professional incompetence but after media reports exposed corruption among senior officers, fake killings and recruitment scams have shattered the image of Army as an honest and professional organisation.

While there are certainly a few corrupt elements in the Army, it is unfortunate that certain sections of the media are portraying entire Armed Forces as a corrupt institution.

Till a decade ago, associating the word corruption with Forces was considered a taboo as media felt it could demoralise them. Today, media houses are competing with each other to twist corruption cases linked with Army and discrediting the institution in its entirety.

While none can justify the incidences of corruption in the Army, mistaking a few black sheep with the entire flock is neither appropriate nor acceptable. It is not possible to isolate the Army from the degeneration of moral fibre that has been accepted by the society as our fate for years. Very few take pride in being upright and talking straight. Courage, integrity and morality have been the major casualties in recent times giving way to hypocrisy and sycophancy and the Armed Forces have not remained untouched.

No system can remain foolproof in such times as designing a fair system is one and letting it function effectively quite another. Vested interests don’t let the system function, as the babu and politician combine ultimately controls the introduction of any major weapon system or equipment in the Army. Procurement of any equipment depends upon various factors including urgency, quantities required, import cost, production with foreign collaboration and indigenous development. However, the system which attempts to integrate many agencies like DGMO (Director General Military Operations), DGMI (Director General Military Intelligence), ADGWE(Assistant Director General Weapons and Equipment) , DGQA(Director General Quality Assurance), DGSD, Ordnance, MOD in the procurement process of equipment tends to become unnecessarily complex and unwieldy.

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