An Institution Above Identity

Miscast as a religious controversy, the Lt. Kamalesan affair underscores the non-negotiable primacy of military discipline in the Indian Armed Forces.

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The controversy surrounding Lieutenant Kamalesan has been framed by its loudest critics as a test of religious freedom. It is nothing of the sort. At heart it is a reminder of an older, sterner truth: armies function by suppressing difference, not by celebrating it. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling, which upheld the primacy of military discipline over individual preference, was therefore not an aberration but an affirmation of constitutional logic. Uniforms, after all, are designed to erase distinctions that animate civilian politics of class, creed and conviction so that soldiers may act as one.

To see this as uniquely Indian is to miss the point. Militaries across the world, in democracies and republics alike, have long wrestled with the question of faith in uniform. Their solutions vary in texture but not in essence. The demands of cohesion trump the claims of individuality.

Multi-Faith Care

Consider the United States Army, often invoked as a paragon of pluralism. It maintains one of the world’s most elaborate chaplaincy systems, catering to Christians of many denominations, as well as Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and others. Services are held in chapels, multi-faith centres or quiet rooms. Scripture may be read from the Bible, the Quran or the Torah; meditation and interfaith blessings are common. Yet all this operates within a clear framework: chaplains are trained for multi-faith care, and every accommodation is ultimately subordinate to mission readiness. No soldier is permitted to recast institutional practice to suit personal theology.

Australia offers a similar lesson. Through the Royal Australian Army Chaplains’ Department, the force provides spiritual support across faiths, adapting prayers to regiments and occasions like Anzac Day, Remembrance Day and deployments abroad. Christian blessings sit alongside Jewish invocations such as Oseh Shalom, and broadly interfaith themes of courage, peace and sacrifice are woven in. The emphasis is not on asserting belief but on reinforcing shared values of service and duty.

The British Army, heir to centuries of regimental tradition, is even more explicit about this balance. It supplies chaplains and resources for Christians, Sikhs, Muslims and others, distributing everything from Nitnem gutkas to collections of duas. Regimental prayers ask for strength, fellowship and courage, and are rooted in history rather than theology. The aim is moral formation: loyalty, discipline, comradeship. Diversity is accommodated, but the ritual life of the regiment remains non-negotiable.

France, with its uncompromising doctrine of laïcité, might seem an outlier. Yet even the French Army recognises the psychological utility of faith. Catholic prayers such as the famous Prière du Para, which asks not for comfort but for struggle and strength, coexist with a system of chaplaincy that quietly serves multiple religions. The Foreign Legion, famously multinational, has long understood that morale is sustained as much by shared ritual as by strict secularism.

Germany’s experience tells a similar story of evolution without rupture. Historically anchored in Catholic and Protestant traditions, the Bundeswehr once relied on standard prayers like the Lord’s Prayer and explicit blessings for victory and protection. Today it offers broader spiritual support in a more plural society, but the core logic endures: liturgy is adapted to the battlefield, not the other way around.

Wilful Distortion

Against this backdrop, the attempt to cast the Kamalesan episode as evidence of majoritarian coercion looks less like principled dissent and more like wilful distortion. India’s Army has, for decades, operated its Sarva Dharma Sthal system - shared spaces where symbols of multiple faiths coexist. These arrangements are not a concession to theology but a triumph of pragmatism. Soldiers standing together at a mandir parade, a gurudwara service or an interfaith observance are not endorsing one creed over another; they are affirming the unity of the regiment.

Those who insist otherwise are not interested in complexity. By giving the episode a religious and political colouring, they evade the harder truth that the Indian Army’s secularism is neither doctrinaire nor performative, but functional. It rests on a sensitive balance between individual freedom of belief and the impersonal demands of discipline. To tilt that balance in favour of personal preference is not to advance liberty but to erode cohesion.

The danger is not abstract. Militaries rely on uniformity, predictability and ritualised coherence to function under stress. If individual choice were allowed to dictate participation in institutional practices, the chain of command would fray. Orders would become negotiable, rituals optional, authority contingent. The result would be not a more humane force, but a less effective one.

Citizens, too, have a stake in resisting this slide. India’s armed forces have earned global respect precisely because they have remained insulated from the sectarian tempests of civilian politics. To drag them into culture wars is to push them onto a slippery slope whose consequences would be felt not in op-ed columns but on the battlefield.

General Bipin Rawat once warned that India’s enemies are not only across its borders but also within its society, in the form of forces that spread communal disharmony. His words bear repeating. The defence of the republic does not end at the frontier; it extends to safeguarding the institutions that bind its soldiers together. In an army, faith may guide the soul but it is the uniform that holds the line.

(The author is a retired naval aviation officer and a defence and geopolitical analyst. Views personal.)