Political masters and sentinels : commanding the allegiance of the soldier in India

This study is a serious effort to make a significant contribution to the underexamined field of Indian civil-military relations. The objective of the study is to set up a framework that helps explain changes in the division of labor between civilians and the military in India from 1947 to the present day. There are three basic themes in this dissertation that I seek to develop and explain in various chapters. The first theme examines key issues which directly address the divide between civilian and military functions. In discussing the division of labor between civilians and the military and changes affecting India’s structure of civil-military relations, I borrow Samuel Huntington’s general framework outlined in The Soldier and the State. Huntington’s framework provides the starting point for my argument by informing the reader about issues that emerge in the contestation of civilian space by the military. The second theme highlights the very different nature or experience of civil-military relations in India when compared to the United States. The third and final theme of this study seeks to illustrate differences in the nature of the Indian and American political systems. A major conclusion reached in this study is that the advent of nuclear technology in India has reduced the space between civilian and military functions, giving the military a greater role in shaping policy.