STILL HAVE A SAY: Ex-Servicemen of armed forces staging a dharna at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Wednesday protesting against the Government move to conduct a survey on religious basis. — Photo: Sandeep Saxena

NEW DELHI: The Army may have over-reacted by refusing to provide data on the number of Muslims and their gender in its ranks to the Prime Minister's High Level Committee which is preparing a report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community in India, according to the correspondence exchanged between the Army and the committee.

In its first refusal to the committee in August last year, the Army's chief of personnel K. P. D. Samanta had said that the data relating to various castes or religion is not maintained in the Army and "it will also not be proper to collate such data as this may convey the wrong message to the troops, adversely affecting the well established cohesion, regimental spirit and morale." But the Army's recruitment forms tell a different story. For example, the application form for women officers has a column asking for the candidate's religion. Thus the Army seeks information on applicants' religious identity at the first stage of recruitment.

`Fixed composition'

Further on, replying on behalf of Army chief J. J. Singh, Major Gen. Samanta admits that a "few traditional regiments continue to be based on fixed composition," but their recruiting proportion is also subsumed within the recruitable male population criteria. In other words, soldiers are recruited, mainly in infantry regiments, according to their caste, religious and ethnic identities but the Army tries to balance it in the overall criteria.

In similar letters to the three services, the committee pointed out that the information sought was not limited to a particular institution. "The mandate [given by the Prime Minister] requires the committee to collect, collate and analyse information from various sources, including Central and State Governments, ministries and departments, public sector undertakings, universities, corporate sector and even the Government's beneficiary oriented programmes," it explained.

While the Indian Air Force responded promptly to the first letter and submitted all the requisite data directly to the committee, the Navy gave information only about its civilian employees.

It is later learnt to have provided the rest of the information at the prompting of the Ministry of Defence. After the Army did not respond to the second letter sent last year, the committee Chairman, Justice (Retd.) Rajinder Sachar, sought Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee's intervention in January this year.

In the words of an Army officer, "It was almost like an order."

Meanwhile, the committee has sought additional information from the Army to make meaningful analysis and interpretation.

It wants 10 years' details of districts from where the Army recruits its infantry regiments, the way it ensures that its recruitment is representative in character, recruitment rules for different regiments and whether recruitment rallies are advertised in the vernacular press, especially in the Urdu press.

None of the letters sent by the committee to the Ministry of Defence or the Army seeks details about the 1948 and 1999 operations.

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