Union Minister Sachin Pilot Joins The Army

On September 6, 2012, Union Minister Sachin Pilot walked into South Block and walked out a lieutenant.

In a commissioning ceremony, Army Chief General Bikram Singh pipped the rank of lieutenant onto Pilot — making him the first serving Union minister in Indian history to be commissioned as a regular officer in the Territorial Army. The distinction matters: unlike the honorary TA ranks given to celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar, M.S. Dhoni, Kapil Dev, and Mohanlal, Pilot's commission was earned, not gifted. The 34-year-old MP from Ajmer had cleared the preliminary interview board at Western Command headquarters in Chandimandir four months earlier, then the Service Selection Board, and then the medical board in Bengaluru — the full gauntlet every officer candidate runs.

He was posted to the 124 TA (Sikh) Battalion, the TA's "urban concept" battalion. The commitment ahead of him: seven months of staggered training, including a month of recruit training in drills and firing, three months of in-house basic military training at Deolali in Maharashtra, and three months at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun. After that, 14 camp days and 22 parade days each year, on weekends.

For Pilot, it was a family circle closing. His father, the late Rajesh Pilot, was an Indian Air Force fighter pilot before plunging into politics; his grandfather was a non-commissioned officer in the Army. "I am honoured to be a part of this family," Pilot said at the ceremony, calling it a long-held desire.

The TA is the citizen-soldier force — a volunteer brigade that backs up the regular Army. That a sitting minister chose to subject himself to its discipline, salary for only 36 days a year and all, was the kind of gesture that rarely survives the cynicism of politics. It survived this one.