I heard there is a saying in Pakistan, that their clock
ticks because of Allah, Army, and America. I wonder what makes India’s clock
tick?
I have an old grandfather ‘Cuckoo clock’ which I inherited along with an old hand wound
gramophone with just one 33 rpm record that has a song sung by Lata Mageshkar
to help fund collection, on a national scale, sometime after 62 war. When I
feel dejected or depressed, like the silly thoughts on what makes India tick,
or when my wife calls me a ‘useless
bugger,’ I go fix myself a rum and cola. Then I wind up both the Cuckoo and the gramophone and listen to
Lata’s rendition of ‘ Yeh Mare Watan Ke Logon, Zara Ankh Me Bharlo
Pani...’ After I have had couple of Rum and Cola and listened to the Watansong couple of more times, and see
the old Cuckoo pop it’s head out like
the President of India, I am convinced that God and America have little to do
with what makes India tick, it just needs frequent winding up like my Cuckoo clock’. I also get convinced that
it is the military that has the responsibility to go and wind up the Republic’s
stupid clock. I get the unreasonable feeling that the Indian Military is the
pillar on which the Indian Republic stands. I get the feeling that the Sarnath Lions
are the face of the military. Sometimes, if I have had too many rum and cola, I
roar like the MGM Lion. My wife usually locks the bedroom door and makes me
sleep in the drawing room after that. I think someone may read this and lock me
up in Tihar Jail.
What the heck, I may even get intellectual company if I
am sent to Tihar and may learn about what makes politicals tick from criminals
lodged there.
Earlier this afternoon, I went through my home library
and took a look at the history of the world from it’s inception. I found that
men in uniform have had a profound role to play in governance. The man in a
uniform was always at the apex, whether it was monarchy, anarchy, dictatorship,
communism, Marxism, feudalism, or democracy. Democracy came about in Rome
around or before 3000 BC, with a senate and a Cesar. The Cesar was always a
General. In later English history the feudal lords were military, King of
England was military type, even Queen Victoria was somewhat a military person.
In Indian context from Porus to Nadir Shah, including Ashoka and Gautam Budha,
they were all Generals. The entire leadership of the world during WW-II was
military types (Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini,
you name it, even Emperor Hirohito of Japan). Democracy was built on the bull
work that the chief executive of a state or an empire would be a General, or at
least one who has had some military background. I agree that some Generals were
bad, the Idi Amin types. But I can also line up a whole lot of them who are
very fine gentlemen, erudite, wise, very patriotic, exceptionally brilliant
administrators and above all those who believe that the country comes first,
and thier selfish interests last. About 162 of them were in NDA with me, some
senior, some my peer group and some of them junior and still serving.
After the second world war, I think after they got rid of
John F Kenney, the world at large and America in particular redefined
democratic leadership profile, they did not want clean, honest, strong, intelligent
leaders who could govern with a strong heart and a mind of their own. They
wanted puppets, and idiots. The democratic world is now led by pliable,
spineless people who can easily be manipulated by other internal mechanisms of
their own country, the secret coterie including corporations like East India
Company, media barons, arms merchants or the self seeking sycophant
bureaucrats. The military has been downgraded, degraded to a foot mat, or at
best a well heeled Alsatian dog on a leash held by bureaucrats. One hopes that
in India the military continues to enjoy some level of popular respect. In most
other countries, the military is looked down upon by the people.
In Colonial India, till Dalhousie came to rule, the
Governor General was a person with military background (all of them). India was
ruled by a secret conclave within the board of directors, all of them ex or
serving military. See my blog ‘Namak Haram’ http://cyclicstories.blogspot.com/2011/07/namak-haram.html. The C-in-C
(army chief) was part of the inner group. Dalhousie was the first exception (he
was a lawyer) and he started to down grade military by getting rid of Charles
Napier (C-in-C) and making Lord Gough (next C-in-C) redundant during second
Punjab war (1848-49). He cut to size Col Henry Lawrence (father of Sanawar
school) who may have been his successor. The C-in-C’s were expelled from the
inner council. GGs from civil service (predecessor of ICS) were made Viceroys
(or Vice – Kings, reporting to the King/Queen of England). John Lawrence
(Henry’s younger brother) was the mastermind of the first bureaucratic coup
d’état. John was a dipped in wool Indian bureaucrat.
From 1864 the military languished in the outhouse till
Field Marshal Wavell came to rule India in 1943. It was a war time government,
military was supreme. He relegated the civilians to Secretary status, like personal assistants to take dictations or do
the paperwork so that the military could govern. Venerable Field Marshal
Cariappa (the first Indian Army Chief) was from that generation of Wavell.
Cariappa lived in the largest house, Tin
Murthi Bhawan, only smaller than the Viceroy’s house on Raisiana hill where
Mountbatten an Admiral lived. The second largest house, next to Vigyan Bhawan,
where the Vice Prez now lives, it was the house of C-in-C IAF (Gerald Gibbs).
He lived there till 1954. The size of their house and it's proximity to the
Viceroy's house will give you an idea of the power base, who the Titans were in
those days.
Nehru as you
know was a man who had been arrested and jailed innumerable number of times the
British Military Police, many of them Indians in British uniform. It was
inevitable that he hated the military with as much zest as the military hated
him. At the turn of independence the reluctance of the Indian Army to get
themselves involved in stopping the genocide did not go well with Nehru (the
Indian Army was confined to the barracks by the British commanders who feared
that British officers would be called upon to fight other British offices who
were part of the Pak army). The initial reluctance of the Army in 1947 to
immediately mobilize and go into Kashmir, simply on his orders as the PM, also
did not endear the Army to Nehru. As Karan Thapar said in a recent article in
HT, the man in uniform including his father called the politicals as
‘Dhotiwalas’. This hatred was inflamed further by venerable Mr Malick who was
then the boss of IB who carried horrific tales pertaining to the Army to the
PMO. I think the only Lion amongst the poetical wolves those years was Sardar
Patel, he had a good rapport with the military and in turn he was held in high
esteem by them. It was inevitable that a tussle took place between the
political and military – there were two sets of people in uniform, the Gen Kaul
types (62 war infamy) personally loyal and subservient to Nehru and the
Cariappa type King’s Commissioned Officers (KCIOs) who were absolutely
non-subservient to Nehru but whose loyalty to the country was unquestionable
(my late father-in-law was one of these KCIO oddballs). There were others who
played snake and ladder like Karan Thapar’s father (Army Chief in 62) who got
their heads bitten off by the political (he was removed after 62 war). There
were also very senior ICS officers (KPS Menon for example – an old colleague of
my father) who saw the opportunity to create a second bureaucratic coup d’état.
They inserted themselves in between the military and the political – the
military opened their arms and welcomed them, so that the service HQ did not
have to deal with the highly confused and unfocussed politicals directly. Thus
the Ministry of Defence (MoD) came about in earnest, staffed not by military,
but by Secretaries of several hues
and shades, all of them with typewriters.
Venerable Cariappa was asked to vacate Tin Murti Bhawan in 1953 because it
galled the political establishment that Nehru used to live in an outhouse
somewhere behind present day National Defence College (30 Jan lane). Before he
remitted office, in protest, Cariappa moved to a tent in an open field that is
now the Signals enclave. He took the whole Army HQ there with him into tents (the
Sena Bhawan was built later, I think those days part of Army HQ was in Red fort
and the rest in South Block now occupied by the foreign office). At that time
the Army Chief was supreme, enough guts even to tell the PM to piss off.
Maharaj Rajendrsighji Jadeja (the man who gave us the ubiquitous RSIs) was a
very moderate man who kept the army as well as the politicals happy.
Rajendrasinghji and Srinageesh had more or less an easy time with mild mannered
Baldev Singh and Katju as Defence Ministers, every one forgot about the army. All
the administrative actions, including promotions, awards, rewards, expenses,
deployments, defence procurements, all these issues were all sorted out
internally in the service HQ, they did not have to ask a Babu whether to
promote a Lance Naikk to a Naik, or whether they could go outside the HQ to the
pavement shop and buy themselves a rubber stamp. You will not believe this, but
the service records of the officers in the Pak army were still kept and
maintained up-to-date by Indian Army HQ I think till around 1953-54 and they
used to come to Delhi to sort out their discrepancies !!!! I think the
relationship soured between Pak and Indian Army only around 1953-54 over approx
Rs 52 lks that was to be paid to Pak by GOI as compensation to them for some
military stores that were not partitioned or left behind in 1947. GOI did not
pay, for whatever reasons.
And then in 1957 the vitriolic, intolerant, impatient,
exigent and incredibly dictatorial VK Krishna Menon came to rule as the Def
Min. Krishnan Menon was being groomed as Nehru’s successor. As late Bomb Mama
(the father of Indian N bomb, venerable K. Subrahmanyam) once told me, under
Krishnan Menon both the bureaucracy as well as the service chiefs ran for
cover. Thimayya and then Thapar (the TV jock’s father) bore the brunt of it.
COAS was practically made redundant, Krishna Menon took over as the ex-officio
army chief after Ayub Khan took control of Pakistan in 1958. The political
establishment was mortally scared that Thimaya may emulate Ayub. In those years
most of the senior military officers in India as well as Pakistan were friends
and on talking terms, they served in the same regiments before partition and
were therefore good friends. So the political and bureaucratic lobby completely
distrusted them, though the military were the very guardians of the Indian
Republic. It is sad but true that, in private, most of the military
establishment had a very poor opinion of the ability of Indians to govern
themselves. This was partly because of old British disdain that they had inculcated
in the British army and of-course the disarray and disunity amongst the Indian
political establishment was as bad as it is now. Governance was not on the
political mind, they simply wanted accommodations, to be democratic ‘Kings’
after getting rid of Princes, Kings and Emperors of all hues, white as well as
brown.
Around 1958, as a result of political asylum being
granted to the Dalai Lama and assistance to establish a Tibetan Govt In exile
at Dharamsala, political decisions taken by Nehru and Krishna Menon without
consulting anyone, probably based on the advice and manoeuvring of of Mr
Mallick, the boss of IB quite under the thumb of CIA, there was more friction
between Army HQ and the political establishments. The Babudom fanned the flames further by questioning the very rationale
of Army HQ interference in decisions related to foreign policy. In those years,
Thimaya, like his predecessors, perceived that the Army HQ must have a say in
foreign policy issues since military is ultimately the tool of foreign policy.
Army HQ evaluation of the scenario perceived that China’s territorial ambitions
would extend beyond Tibet to Aksai Chin, Sikkim and NEFA, indefensibility of
the border, and hence they sought augmentation of defence budget, force level
and defence equipment to deal with threats that emanated from India’s abetment
of Tibetan aspirations. Unfortunately Nehru and Krishna Menon had their heads
stuck in socialistic ideals and scoffed at Thimmaya’s views, suggestions and
requests. Thimaya offered to resign. There was some wheeling dealing because
Nehru felt that his Govt will fall if Thimaya resigned. Finally Thimaya gave in
to the perceptions of Krishna Menon that China was no threat to India (a
perception that was enforced by the MoD even as later as 1994).
Thereafter Army HQ was permanently delinked from a newly
formed Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA). I think it was around this time that
the Chiefs were pushed to 16th on the protocol list. Four years
later, the 62 war vindicated Thimaya’s foresight. To quote an old conversation
with Mani Dixit (before he became the NSA), so many near catastrophes that
faced India down the ages (65 war, 71 war, Sri Lanka, Maldives fiasco, Agra
Talks, Kargil to name a few) may have had less disastrous consequences had the political
establishments or the MoFA and later version Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)
had ever consulted any of the Service Chiefs before they took any decision. But
by 1958, as far as the political and bureaucratic establishment were concerned,
the service HQ, a few hundred meters away from their own offices, had been
turned into a dog house. It is another story how the creation of R&AW (Kao
Boys) over took the MEA and converted the MEA to Jeeves for VVIPs when they
went on frequent foreign jaunts. About the R&AW, lesser said the better.
Foreign policy now became an intangible subject for GOI, whose blunderbuss
consequences had to be borne by the poor military with their blood sweat and
tears. I think JN (Mani) Dixit has written many volumes on this.
The inter services problems started with Gen JN Chaudhury
(I think-that is what ACM PC Lal said) mainly because of JNC’s overbearing
nature and also as a result of the humiliating defeat in 62 Sino Indian war. By
then the ICS were all gone and the IAS took control with a vengeance to not
only undo the military but also undo the memory of ICS. The IAS was a product
of Indian political mind and they competed with each other to better the
sycophancy expected by the political. Chavan, a very non obstreperous and
pliable man who took over as Def Min after 62 was completely in awe of the IAS
lobby, who dictated policy for Chavan. The military was pushed back further
down the line. After Chavan came Jagjivan Ram who surprisingly was a strong man
and well placed with Indira Gandhi. So the bureaucrats got less elbow room.
Indira was politically week so she required support from the three chiefs and
hence she gave them adequate importance. J’Ram used to have direct interaction
with service chiefs on weekly basis in south block. A large part of the success
of the 71 war probably resulted from this strong bond, freedom and direct
interaction with the PM as also the personal friendships between the 3 chiefs.
After the 71 war the inter-services rivalry heated up
once again, defence spending was downsized, armed forces were once again sent
to the dressing room in every respect. For some strange reason the IB reported
to the PM that Manekshaw was planning a
coup d’état. Quite possible that
it may have been due to a news paper article which said that if Sam stood for
elections, with a service officer in each constituency, the Army would win a
democratic election in every constituency and the right to rule India without
any coup d’état. I have heard
that Indira called Sam and asked him on his face, ’Sam are you planning a
coup?’. His answer I believe was, ‘Sweetie, you can have my resignation on
grounds of insanity’. I think Indira had balls and Sam was an incredible man. In
later years I can think of quite a few other venerable Generals (Bhagat, Sinha,
CNS Pereira, CNS Bhagwat etc) all of them incredible people
with impeccable credentials and integrity who scared the political, the
bureaucrats and the arms merchants. Hence they were sidelined or got rid of
though they never once questioned the democratic system, only the lack of
wisdom of the ruling class. For them their loyalty was to the country and not
to their political master. Their only crime was that they refused to do stupid
things that the political asked them to do for their own parochial reasons.
Their integrity could not be bought with post retirement perquisites. I have
heard of a Naval Chief who formally wrote to the GOI that no service chief
should be tempted or offered a post
retirement gubernatorial post so that his loyalty would be to the nation and
not to the ruling party. I am told that an ‘Under Secretary’ in MOD informed
him that his request has been accepted and that he would not be considered for
any such post after his retirement, but others would be entitled to such posts
!!!!
Bansi Lal (75-77), Indira, and R Vankatraman (82-84) came
to rule MOD as Defence Ministers. This was a terrible time for the service
headquarters. The worst was to come later when India was ruled by a series of
inept PMs starting with Desai to Gowda. There was not a single meeting between
the chiefs and the Def Min or the PM, or consultations on matters related to
security of the country or on foreign policy. The chiefs mostly sat in their HQ
and whiled away their time while the services rotted and the bureaucrats ruled
the roost. Frankly no point in castigating the bureaucrats, it is the service
HQ that needs to be blamed. The Chiefs felt ignored and slighted, they did not
wish to ruin their gubernatorial aspirations and hence there was no attempt by
the service HQ to make any decisions, they began pathetic whining, everything
including the most mundane things began to be referred to the MOD for their
approval. The service HQ became a decorative organisation, with no authority.
There could have been nothing more despicable than to seek free rations, that
broke the camel’s back, the man in uniform was now expected to eat the bloody
ration and wag his tail at the bureaucrat.
Things changed for the better once again when Rajiv
Gandhi took over as Def Min in 85 with the brilliant apolitical Arun Singh and
the incredibly soldierly KP Singh Deo in MOD. The three chiefs La Fontane,
Tahilani and the awesome Sunderji got along fine with the politicals promoting
the inter services camaraderie. The bureaucrats simply fell in line. For the
first time after 1971 the services began to brush up their uniforms as well as
professionalism. In many ways I personally think Sundarjee devised Siachin, Chequerboard
(Tawang) and finally Brass Tacks to down size the MOD and get the services back
into lime light with some dignity. ( I agree, it is a wonky interpretation).
After Rajeev Gandhi, the services went back to the
boondocks especially due to all the scams (Bofors, HD Submarine, so many of
them those days) – the MOD came back with a back swing. Vohra the Def Sec
stepped out of line at India Gate line up on Republic Day and started to
introduce the 3 chiefs to the PM. Can you imagine his contempt for protocol,
like introducing the PM to the President ? The Service chiefs went further down
on the protocol list. The Sri Lanka war was thrust on the services without even
consulting with the 3 chiefs. The RAW and the IB overtook the services. I am
given to understand that the IB keeps a file on every senior service officer
and that only those are promoted on whom they have a handle. Why else would a
man who went and gave a fully armed Gnat to the Pakis become the chief of IAF
intelligence and an Air Mshl ? The para military was taken away and put under
Home Ministry so that they can now wage war against the political dissidents
and opposition party rallies in the socialist democratic republic of India
where freedom is guaranteed by constitution. The Police are alright with
Danadas and silly fellows like Ram Dev, but you need para military with rifles
to handle some stronger ones like the Maoists or the insurgent Nagas.
The rest is recent history. I took a premature retirement
in 93 out of disgust against the system. Afterwards I have not been privy to
what happened in the corridors of power except gossip and conjecture. My
personal, less than successful interaction with Babudom while I served in Air
HQ is there on my blog
The Kargil Committee under Bomb Mama and Arun Singh tried
to bring sanity and parity in MoD, creation of a CDS and a sandwiched MoD with
both civilians and the military. But do you think the Babus will ever let go ?
Just the way Anna thinks that the political will become honest if he goes on a
fast. I think it is us the ordinary people and the soldiers who have to change
and rewind the Cuckoo clock of the
Republic. How, I don’t know. But we have to stop dreaming about utopia, that
political and bureaucratic establishments will reform itself. The hell it will.
About two yrs ago when some of my course mates got AVSM
and PVSM, I was invited as a personal guest to Akash Mess where the Def Min
Anthony was giving an official reception and dinner. The brass from all 3
service were there in their finery, medals, collar tabs, auguets, gold
burnishing, gold buttons, sam brownies, what have you – some even had their
swords. In spite of a smart business suit even I felt undressed in front of
such an august and very impressive uniformed crowd. Anthony arrived late after
we had already drowned 2 Ls down the hatch. He was wearing a simple white bush
shirt with a traditional Malayali dhotie,
luckily not at half mast. He was taken around the august collage of military
brass and introduced to them by the Def Sec. Afterwards I saw Anthony standing
in a corner with the Def Sec. His knees were shaking. I went to say hello.
‘An-Thony Sare,’ I said with due diligence. ‘Why are you
standing as if you have swallowed a spear, your knees are shaking ?’ (Literally
translated from Malayalam), I asked without tact. ‘Ayyo Kartavu Sare’, he replied equally frank. ‘I am frightened of all the costumes here, it looks like Satan is having a party’ (Malayalam translation). At that moment I think I understood the crux of the polico-military problem. If only the services dress up like very ordinary people, say like the Chinese Army in the 60s, with drab uniforms and less frightening pomp, I think the political may even get to like the military. I have noted on TV that when Gen Kayani goes to meet the Paki PM, or the Paki Prez, he goes in a simple jersey without a frightening visage. He doesn’t even seem to carry a cane / baton. I think we must learn to emulate the Paki man, though Kayani is frightening even when undressed. Why do we insist on wearing the frightening ceremonials when we go to meet uncouth politicals ??
About bureaucrats, they are the boss, they are in control
for now and forever, we need to make an effort to get to like them. It is a
universal problem, all over the world. It is a new world order in which the
military is a simple service provider. That is the unpalatable truth whether we
like it or not. Having said that, I continue to dream about a proud and
exemplary military, and about a bureaucracy who will become kind enough to
revert my quota of rum from the canteen to 12 units and not keep reducing it
and making it more expensive with unnecessary tax. With 8 units I can barely
say cheers to MM Singh –don’t much care about OROP, it is bloody peanuts and a
waste of time.
I believe there is talk of shifting Sena Bhawan to
Manesar or elsewhere. If that happens, I presume the Army Chief as well as
other chiefs will probably get to live in a 2 bed room flat on Sohana Road,
quite a distance from Raisiana Hill where Cariappa once lived. I am sure this
will never happen. But that is the way the world may go.
When Gen VK Singh took over as the COAS, I had great hopes
in him. Ever since NDA days I have credited him as a man with steel balls,
integrity and courage. I thought that he would bring back some dignity to the
armed forces. When he stood up to Omar Abdullah and refused to repeal the Armed
Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) I cheered. I believe that AFSPA is necessary
even if simply to ensure that an Army Chief or any of the Army Commanders are
not tried and convicted like a common criminal for war crimes that they did or
did not commit like the Serbian Slobodan Milosevic because of some self
seeking political who uses the Army (AF or Navy) for political expediency. When
VK told the Home minister to bugger off and refused to send tanks and attack
helicopters to massacre Maoists in Dhantewada, because they were simple rural
misguided countrymen and not secessionists, I cheered for him. When he
court-martialed several generals (those who objected to his DOB), ketch-up
artists and rum thieves, very senior officers, some of them my close friends which
brought adverse publicity to the forces, I told myself that it may be good for
the system. When he took up the cause of the date of birth after he became the
COAS, I was quite pissed off because he had cheated the system by joining NDA
underage, probably fudging his own dad’s signature. Yet it did not reduce his
image in my eyes, after all he had turned out to be a good general with long
meritorious service. In my overdeveloped sense of propriety I hoped that he
would resign before he went to court. Yet I liked his style, he had more clout
to fight in court when he was in uniform, he would have loked silly wearing a
tweed coat on TV. Like all of his peer group, I too followed his escapades, but
this afternoon I was most disappointed that he withdrew his case in the Supreme
Court. If he had continued, even if he had lost, I would still have cheered
him. I would have maintained my belief that he does indeed have balls of steel.
Now I am not too sure whether they are steel or made of chrome plated brass
bought from Vohra Brothers in CP. It is not the Chief who lost, it is the Armed
Forces who lost. It is not the politicals who won, but it is the bureaucracy
which got more entrenched and gained control over Haji Pir Pass. The Armed
forces would now have to fight battles not against an external threat but the
line of control (LOC) with bureaucracy. The international date line between MoD
and Service HQ. Beware, be prepared, a
Desk Officer in MOD can now issue warning letters to the Chiefs, even if he
were to couch it by saying, ‘I have been directed by the faceless GOI to tell
you to bugger off.’ I lament that there is none left to wind up the Cuckoo clock ’ of the Republic. The President, the
Supreme Commander, will look silly to pop her head out of the GOI clockwork to
say ‘Cuckoo, Cuckoo’, or whatever.
The ‘Clash Of The Titans’ simply
petered out without a whimper. I have had couple of rum and cola. I have
woefully listened to Lata’s rendition of ‘
Yeh Mare Watan Ke Logon, Zara Ankh Me
Bharlo Pani...’ several times. I tried to roar like an MGM Lion. But
tonight, it is sounding like the mewing of a cat, a disgusting noise.
Cyclic
