India's arms bribery scandal has dealt a debilitating blow to the military's image, showing senior officers as corrupt and willing to compromise national security in exchange for money.
The venality of senior officers, including one- and two-star generals, portrayed in a documentary by the news portal www.tehelka.com, has come as a shock to most Indians. Soldiers, unlike politicians and civil servants, were always considered above such blatant thievery.
A video made public last week has plunged the 17 month-old federal coalition into its deepest crisis to date.
Reporters from the Tehelka website, posing as arms dealers, hawked a fictitious defence product in a seven-month long "sting" aimed at exposing corruption in weapons procurement. The resulting footage showed senior politicians, soldiers and civil servants accepting bribes to push through their non-existent thermal-imaging camera for the infantry.
Rival deputies came to blows in parliament over the scandal with opposition calls for the government's resignation. A beleaguered Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, ordered an inquiry into the scandal. His government was forced to seek a vote-on-account for the annual budget as the parliament's functioning was repeatedly disrupted, preventing the passage of the Finance Bill.
The scandal forced the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, to resign, as it did Mr Bangaru Laxman, the president of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata (BJP), the party which leads the 24-party federal coalition. Mr Laxman was shown in the documentary accepting 100,000 rupees (£1,600) from the fake arms dealers to use his influence with the government.
The Railway Minister, Ms Mamta Banerjee, also resigned, pulling her regional party out of the coalition. Four officials from the Defence Ministry and the army have also been suspended for taking bribes and at least four others, including brigadiers and major generals, are under investigation.
Troops serving in Kashmir have criticised their corrupt seniors for acquiring dubious military equipment in exchange for bribes.
"Money seems to be the ruling deity at army headquarters," a junior officer deployed on counter-insurgency operations said. He refused to be named.
Officials said that until the 1980s officers were considered upright men, respected in society and eagerly sought after by parents as suitable matches for their daughters. Officers, if passed over for promotion, retired gracefully, confident of their status in society. By contrast, today they use political influence to "seize" their next rank. "There is no decency or uprightness left any more, even in the army," the junior officer says.
The army's professionalism slowly began to unravel in the late 1970s when officer ranks were diluted by a pay commission. It was the moment politicians and civil servants had been waiting for. Having always looked upon the military with suspicion, they were biding time to gain ascendancy over the services.