Despite being revered as “the most trusted institution in India,” the Indian Military has no political significance. In any electoral polity, the political relevance of any pressure group is directly proportional to, and generally dependent upon, the number of voters one can marshal in their support. In addition, sometimes the number of elected representatives in the legislative bodies also demonstrates the political clout of a particular group. For example, lawyers as a professional group are far too dominant in terms of their representation in the Indian Parliament despite being few in numbers. However, the Indian Armed Forces neither account for the number required to influence nor have any representation in Parliament. For example, the sixteenth Lok Sabha consisted of only three military veterans, i.e., 0.56% of the total strength of 543 members, which is in stark contrast to other liberal democracies in the world, e.g., 19% veterans in the US Congress and 8% in the British Parliament. This not only results in the absence of informed voices who can advocate for the genuine concerns of the military but also leads to a lack of military expertise in the Parliament required for democratic oversight of the military. Notwithstanding, the Indian military does not have much political relevance electorally to safeguard their interests or push necessary organizational reforms through Parliament, which shall be clear from the next few paragraphs.
As per Lt. Gen. Bhopinder Singh, the voter segmentation in India is divided into two clusters, i.e., “tangible” and “emotive.” Numerically superior “tangible clusters,” based on acquired identities like regional, caste-based, religious, occupational (e.g., farmers), etc., can sway the elections by voting en masse on the basis of their “cluster-specific aspirations.” They can favorably exploit the “competitive wooing” by various political parties and ensure representation in more than one political party to voice their concerns. The Armed Forces, however, due to their scattered presence, have so far remained as one of the “emotive clusters” who can make noise during elections but could not affect the result of the elections. Apart from being numerically insignificant, the military also used to fiercely guard its “avowedly apolitical culture,” which, while helping to retain its professionalism, also rendered the military irrelevant in the larger context due to the absence of political participation and hence representation. To an extent, this started changing post-Sixth Central Pay Commission recommendations. Since it was not perceived favorably by the military, the ESM organizations like the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) started publicly demanding a better deal for soldiers and making it apparent that unless they become politically relevant, the politicians will not care for them. By the 2014 election, it gained momentum and the veterans started joining political parties (e.g., Gen. VK Singh after retirement joining BJP along with 50 ex-servicemen).
Nevertheless, the numbers still make the military electorally irrelevant in India. A cursory look at the numbers (Refer to Table 2 below) will make it evident that, barring a few states, the ESM numbers are inconsequential in the majority of the states due to its vast population. Despite India possessing the world’s second-largest standing military with an approximate strength of 1.5 million (excluding the paramilitary and Territorial Army), the number of ESM stands at approximately 2.5 million. Even if you add together everyone, including their families, it forms only 0.6% of the 814 million electorate. As per official data, only ten states in India have relatively significant populations of ESM. Out of which, more than 60% of the total ESM reside in seven states in northern India, i.e., Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. Even out of these seven states, ESM are electorally insignificant in the politically important states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan (being the first, second, and seventh most populous states of India). The rest of the four states, i.e., Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Uttarakhand, do have an electorally significant ESM population. However, they will still be politically insignificant at the national level as their cumulative total of parliamentary seats is 32 out of 543 seats, presuming if they win all 32 seats.
Even in these 32 seats, the number of ESM is unevenly distributed. For example, ESM voters in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are 110,000 and 120,000, i.e., 1.4% and 1.2% of the total electorate, respectively (Uttarakhand is more populous than Himachal). Out of the total nine constituencies in both these states, only four parliamentary constituencies, i.e., Garhwal and Almora in Uttarakhand and Kangra and Hamirpur in Himachal, consist of a significant number of service and ESM voters, that too a maximum of up to 6%. In another state, Punjab (which has traditionally been sending a disproportionate number of recruits to the Indian Army since WW-I), the situation is the same. The ESM population is mostly concentrated in three constituencies of Jalandhar, Amritsar, and Ferozepur, which are major army cantonments. As per my analysis, the ESM votes are crucial in only seven seats out of 32 seats being discussed, which are insignificant out of 543 seats in the Indian Parliament.
Based on the above, however, one must not simply assume that the ESM do not try to influence the politics of these states, due to a lack of requisite numbers barring in a few seats. In fact, they do try to influence the politics of these states, e.g., the ex-chief minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh, is a veteran of the 1965 Indo-Pak War. Captain Abhimanyu Sindhu, an army veteran, was an influential cabinet minister in Haryana. Major General BC Khanduri, five-time MP from Garhwal, has been the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. However, that influence is only limited to state politics, and in the overall scheme of things, they remain irrelevant.
