The Draft That Never Came

While commanding the Regiment, I tasked our young officers with drafting a letter in reply to a query from higher headquarters on the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones). Two days later, I asked about the status of the draft.

One of them replied, “Sir, why don’t you write it yourself? You write much better than all of us.“

I did not like it one bit. But instead of my usual response, I curbed my irritation and took a different approach. I sat down with them to analyse the root of the problem.

Where Did Our Creativity Go?

“We all came through the Services Selection Board (SSB),” I began. “We were shown nine caricature images – each impossible to make head or tail of – and we wrote nine convincing stories. The tenth was a blank card, and still we wrote a story. We were flashed a hundred words at the rate of two words per minute, and we wrote a hundred sentences. Had what we written not made sense or lacked creativity, none of us would be here today.“

I paused, letting the weight of the words settle.

“Where did we lose all that critical thinking, analytical power, and creative thinking?“

A Case Study in Creative Decline

To illustrate my point, I presented them with a case study: an infantry section capturing two militants in a hideout.

The same situation was posed to four groups:

• Ten Gentleman Cadets (GCs)
• Ten Young Officers (YO) Course qualified officers
• Ten Junior Command (JC) Course qualified officers
• Ten Staff College qualified officers

The results, I explained, followed a predictable pattern:

• The ten GCs would generate nine solutions, of which eight would work.
• The ten YOs would generate seven solutions, of which five would work.
• The ten JC officers would generate four solutions, of which two would work.
• The ten Staff College qualified officers would generate one solution – which would fail at its very first step.

The Culprit: Over-Structured Training

This decline, I told them, is the direct result of over-structured training in the Army. With each stage of professional development, the level of structuring increases, and creative thinking diminishes correspondingly.

It begins with the first document most of us created as young officers in our regiments: a Court of Inquiry, usually to regularise an injury suffered by a soldier while playing. The Adjutant would hand down the task with a caveat: “Refer to a previous Court of Inquiry and do the needful.”

From that moment onward, we learn to look backward and copy forward. Original thought becomes an anomaly.

A Failed Attempt at Reform

A decade ago, a friend of mine – Brigadier Azad Sameer, who served as Colonel General Staff at the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) – was tasked with suggesting methodologies to make tactical exercises more creative. I offered him a suggestion drawn from my experience in Canada with the Gifted Children Programme which our children went through.

In Canada, gifted children – who constitute about two percent of the student population – possess an advanced degree of general intellectual ability that requires differentiated learning experiences beyond what is normally provided. They are identified through a written examination in Grade 4 and placed in self-contained programmes designed to meet their unique needs, characteristics, and interests.

These programmes, run by teachers with additional qualifications in special education, offer:

• Learning content more relevant to their interests and abilities
• The opportunity to work with intellectual peers of similar or higher aptitude
• The ability to collaborate with like-minded individuals who share creative and complex ways of thinking
• A space to relate with others who have similar interests

Applying the Model to DSSC

I noted the parallel between gifted children and the student officers at DSSC. Both groups, I argued, thrive on intellectual stimulation beyond the conventional.

My suggestion was simple: for one tactical exercise, give the students a blank map sheet with minimal inputs – force levels, weapons, logistics – and let them begin by marking the International Boundary themselves. Let them create the exercise and devise its solution.

In this approach, no pre-made solutions would be available. Each map sheet would be unique, requiring original thought. Instructors would need to work overtime to correct and assess each solution. Perhaps one or two of the resulting exercises could be conducted for the entire course.

The Faculty’s Response

The idea was presented to the DSSC Commandant, who asked Brigadier Sameer to share it with the entire faculty. At the end of the presentation, a senior faculty member posed the question that sealed its fate:

“How will we assess the students?”

The Baby Thrown Out

The proposal was rejected. Not gently, but decisively – the baby thrown out with the bathwater, loofah, and soap.

It became painfully clear that in military training, the ultimate aim is not to teach or to nurture creativity, but to assess. To measure. To fit every solution into a predetermined mould.

And in that process, somewhere along the journey from Gentleman Cadet to Staff College graduate, the creative thinking that got us through the SSB is systematically extinguished.

The young officers who asked me to write their draft for them were not lazy. They were products of a system that had trained them, over years, to look backward for answers rather than forward for possibilities.

That, I realised, was the greatest tragedy of all.