A Different Kind of Command

While commanding our Regiment – 125 Surveillance and Target Acquisition (SATA) Regiment – I attended office mostly on Friday afternoons. That was when I signed the official documents requiring the Commanding Officer’s signature, most notably the Daily Parade State.

At the time, I was a single parent CO. Marina had already migrated to Canada, and the responsibility of bringing up our two primary school–going children – feeding them, sending them to school, ensuring homework was done, making them bathe – all fell on my shoulders. Command had to coexist with parenthood.

What Is the Daily Parade State?

For the uninitiated, the Daily Parade State is a large table detailing every officer and soldier authorised and posted to the Regiment, along with their daily whereabouts. Compiled each evening by the Regimental or Battery Havildar Major (RHM or BHM), it shows the status of all personnel as of 8 AM the following morning.

The Detail Master, the understudy to the RHM or BHM, is responsible for compiling the Parade State. Typically a soldier with good handwriting and skill at mental arithmetic, he provides all secretarial support to the RHM and BHM. Battery Detail Masters prepare their Battery’s Parade State in the evening and hand it over to the Regimental Detail Master, who then compiles the Regimental Parade State.

The Challenge of Cooperation

Our Regiment was then a cooperating unit with the School of Artillery, Devlali, carrying both station commitments and training commitments – collectively called Range Detail. Unlike at many other Schools of Instruction in the Indian Army, at the School of Artillery, student officers and soldiers do not draw, clean, or maintain equipment. That responsibility falls entirely on cooperating Regiments.

Details of manpower and equipment to be provided – along with administrative arrangements such as pitching tents and preparing Observation Posts – were issued a week before the beginning of each month. Soldiers were thus well aware of their commitments and duties.

We were always short of manpower, as soldiers also needed to avail their leave. Yet our Section and Platoon Commanders managed the show admirably, often with radio operators or drivers doubling as radar operators or surveyors. Clerks were utilised as radio operators, surveyors, or kitchen assistants. Tradesmen pitched in. Even the Religious Teacher was not spared.

Failure or shortfall in Range Detail resulted in the CO being summoned by the General – the Commandant of the School of Artillery. Our RHM and BHMs ensured that all Range Details were executed flawlessly. They had their own methodologies for dealing with shortcomings. Whatever they did, I was never summoned by the General.

The Daily Ritual

Every morning, BHMs presented their Parade State to their Battery Commander, while the RHM presented the Regimental Parade State to the Adjutant, then to the Second-in-Command, and finally to the CO. The Daily Parade State is an auditable document used to account for rations drawn from the Supply Depot for the soldiers. Hence, the CO’s signature is mandatory.

Three months into command, RHM Kaptan Singh summoned enough courage and asked, “Sir, how come you do not ask any questions while you sign the Parade State? You simply tell me to turn the pages and place my finger where you are to sign. You do not even look at it.“

“Why this question now?” I asked, knowing the answer well.

“Your predecessor used to grill me for over ten minutes every morning about various figures in the Parade State – number of soldiers on leave, soldiers on various out-station duties, and so on. I know that you know about every soldier,” RHM Kaptan Singh explained.

‘Thank God! You had to suffer this agony for only ten minutes; I had to endure over thirty,‘ I thought.

A Painful Memory

My mind raced back to my Battery Commander days. Even then, I had hardly paid attention to the figures on the Parade State. But our CO then was not of the same disposition. He believed that every figure on the Parade State was gospel truth.

He summoned each Battery Commander and questioned us about the number of soldiers on leave or on out-station details. I always rattled off some numbers. Then he summoned our BHM and asked the very same questions. What a pathetic example of command!

Our BHM’s figures never tallied with mine, and the thirty-minute ordeal ended with our CO’s remark: “You do not know what is happening in your Battery.”

This continued daily, and my figures never matched our BHM’s. Other Battery Commanders, I later learned, coordinated their figures with their BHMs before being summoned. I had no such coordination. Fortunately for me, I moved out of the Regiment within two months to attend the Staff College Course.

The Explanation

Now I had to justify my blind signing of the Parade State to RHM Kaptan Singh.

“This document is a proverbial elephant’s teeth – for show only,” I began. “This Parade State was prepared by your Detail Master the previous evening, giving out the likely state of all personnel of our Regiment, including me, the next morning. He put in herculean effort, with much erasing and rewriting, to tally all the figures.

If this is accurate, then your Detail Master must be a genius – hell of a Prediction Master. Last evening, I did not know where I would be this morning. Hence these figures can never be accurate. If they are accurate, then the Detail Master must be sitting in my chair.

Do you want me to grill you on it now?”

RHM Kaptan Singh broke into his characteristic smile, saluted, and walked away – fully convinced. The Parade State continued to be signed on Friday afternoons, and our Regiment continued to function without I ever being summoned by the General.