In his op-ed in The Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta, true to his regular form, shoots from the hip again to target his nemesis - the Indian Military establishment. This is my riposte.
It was difficult for me to understand the slant in your present article and for a moment, I almost found myself agreeing with you. But knowing you, I had to re-read it three times. But then that could be attributable either to my advancing age or to your still inexplicable anti-military forward policy. First, let me attempt to decipher your article for the simple folk:
In your first paragraph, you bring out your vintage. Fair enough, you need to establish your credentials from the fact that you have been around for sometime.
In the second, the rant against the "white man".
In the third, "aha" - the moment of truth - "...fed on jingoistic propaganda and convenient military mythologies", justified by Bollywood, aka Lata Mangeshkar and Prem Pujari. "Convenient military mythologies" indeed.
In the fourth, you pull an old trick of stating a half truth and leave anyone reading the article about what "indiscretions' Manekshaw was accused of, for you did not, quite conveniently, give any illustrative examples and left it to the imagination of the reader. A smiley with a smirk and a raised eyebrow would have done the trick, but then, "indiscretions" were the flavour of the day in Jawaharlal Nehru's era.
In the fifth you finally credit two congressmen - YB Chavan and Jagjivan Ram - with "cleaning out the Augean stables" and rebuilding the Army and for creating the legend that was Manekshaw, without stating how Chavan and his successors became so successful in higher defence management. And in case you have put on your "quizzical" face, let me just say that there were two reasons and there is no doubt the credit must to to Chavan both for his astuteness and for his discretion. The first reason: he read the Henderson Brooks report cover to cover, and took pains to get to grips with higher defence management and civil-military relations. And the second reason: he was discreet enough to let Nehru off the hook.
The fifth paragraph is about defeat spawning a horde of mostly self-expulcatory authors. You state that Dalvi's book is the "story of the greatest disaster of that war..." which is a weak attempt to shift the blame for India's greatest debacle to a lowly formation commander, a line that many of the uninitiated may well buy. Inexplicably, however, left out the contributions of Palit, one of many "Kaul-boys" in the Army Headquarters, and "intelligence super-czar" Mullick to the defeat. Yes, the same Mullick who was responsible for institutionalizing the theory that the Chinese would not react with force, no matter what we did and also who famously stated that India does not need a military, that "the police can do the job".
Sixth - That "...story of betrayal, stabbing-in-the-back...Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai" originated from soldiers? You hastened to add that "political, intellectual and strategic discourse' as well as "popular culture", all built the same story, but neatly hidden between the lines was that the soldiers were behind this myth or "story". Until Maxwell's book challenged it, that is, the soldier's story. Brilliant! And then you proceed to put the blame for the leaked report to its author, Henderson Brooks, because he settled in the same country - Australia - as Maxwell. Brilliant!
In the seventh, you attempt to praise Henderson Brooks as "committed and patriotic", but the damage was already done in the previous paragraph. In addition you state that "nobody knows yet" why Brig (later Lt Gen) Bhagat, the other author of the report, was "inexplicably passed over" and "victimized". Let me assure you that everyone who is anyone will know that Bhagat was passed over as he along with Brooks had the temerity to go beyond their brief, to "follow the stench of incompetence" [my quote] to the root causes - to uncover the disease, not merely document the symptoms.
In the eight, you have a message for all senior retiring military officers - that they should all head to a faraway place, just fade away and never be seen again on any platform, "except probably on a golf course". And we all know who this is directed against - your old friend VK Singh and his ilk, who recently joined the BJP in droves. Personally, I don't have a problem with this, however my reasons will , rest assured, be very different from what you might probably be thinking.
Then in the tenth, you deliver your "coup de grace" - the real reason why the report has not been classified. It is "the Army, stupid!" who torpedoed the efforts of the Ministry of Defence and St Anthony himself. If so, it must be a very different Army from the day's bygone. In my days, the file from the Chief's office went to a desk officer in the MoD. From there, it must have trudged up the bureaucratic heights and knocked Anthony off his pedestal. Well done, Shekhar - you must attempt fiction sometime before you retire. We may yet see an Indian Ludlum.
The rest of the article may be useful to the student of English who may like to understand how a "senior" journalist uses nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and the like. Except on the last line, where you called the Chinese "even more stupid than us". The subtext being, that any country that honours its soldiers is stupid.
And that is in addition to being a complete fraud. To conclude my exposition, just a small piece of information to picque the interest of your cheerleaders in positions of power. When Nehru died, the Army was given some part of the responsibility for the funeral arrangements. The then Chief, Gen JN Chaudhari "moved" forces from Ghaziabad without the approval of the MoD as a contingency measure. I believe Raisina was spooked even at that point in time.
It was difficult for me to understand the slant in your present article and for a moment, I almost found myself agreeing with you. But knowing you, I had to re-read it three times. But then that could be attributable either to my advancing age or to your still inexplicable anti-military forward policy. First, let me attempt to decipher your article for the simple folk:
In your first paragraph, you bring out your vintage. Fair enough, you need to establish your credentials from the fact that you have been around for sometime.
In the second, the rant against the "white man".
In the third, "aha" - the moment of truth - "...fed on jingoistic propaganda and convenient military mythologies", justified by Bollywood, aka Lata Mangeshkar and Prem Pujari. "Convenient military mythologies" indeed.
In the fourth, you pull an old trick of stating a half truth and leave anyone reading the article about what "indiscretions' Manekshaw was accused of, for you did not, quite conveniently, give any illustrative examples and left it to the imagination of the reader. A smiley with a smirk and a raised eyebrow would have done the trick, but then, "indiscretions" were the flavour of the day in Jawaharlal Nehru's era.
In the fifth you finally credit two congressmen - YB Chavan and Jagjivan Ram - with "cleaning out the Augean stables" and rebuilding the Army and for creating the legend that was Manekshaw, without stating how Chavan and his successors became so successful in higher defence management. And in case you have put on your "quizzical" face, let me just say that there were two reasons and there is no doubt the credit must to to Chavan both for his astuteness and for his discretion. The first reason: he read the Henderson Brooks report cover to cover, and took pains to get to grips with higher defence management and civil-military relations. And the second reason: he was discreet enough to let Nehru off the hook.
The fifth paragraph is about defeat spawning a horde of mostly self-expulcatory authors. You state that Dalvi's book is the "story of the greatest disaster of that war..." which is a weak attempt to shift the blame for India's greatest debacle to a lowly formation commander, a line that many of the uninitiated may well buy. Inexplicably, however, left out the contributions of Palit, one of many "Kaul-boys" in the Army Headquarters, and "intelligence super-czar" Mullick to the defeat. Yes, the same Mullick who was responsible for institutionalizing the theory that the Chinese would not react with force, no matter what we did and also who famously stated that India does not need a military, that "the police can do the job".
Sixth - That "...story of betrayal, stabbing-in-the-back...Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai" originated from soldiers? You hastened to add that "political, intellectual and strategic discourse' as well as "popular culture", all built the same story, but neatly hidden between the lines was that the soldiers were behind this myth or "story". Until Maxwell's book challenged it, that is, the soldier's story. Brilliant! And then you proceed to put the blame for the leaked report to its author, Henderson Brooks, because he settled in the same country - Australia - as Maxwell. Brilliant!
In the seventh, you attempt to praise Henderson Brooks as "committed and patriotic", but the damage was already done in the previous paragraph. In addition you state that "nobody knows yet" why Brig (later Lt Gen) Bhagat, the other author of the report, was "inexplicably passed over" and "victimized". Let me assure you that everyone who is anyone will know that Bhagat was passed over as he along with Brooks had the temerity to go beyond their brief, to "follow the stench of incompetence" [my quote] to the root causes - to uncover the disease, not merely document the symptoms.
In the eight, you have a message for all senior retiring military officers - that they should all head to a faraway place, just fade away and never be seen again on any platform, "except probably on a golf course". And we all know who this is directed against - your old friend VK Singh and his ilk, who recently joined the BJP in droves. Personally, I don't have a problem with this, however my reasons will , rest assured, be very different from what you might probably be thinking.
Then in the tenth, you deliver your "coup de grace" - the real reason why the report has not been classified. It is "the Army, stupid!" who torpedoed the efforts of the Ministry of Defence and St Anthony himself. If so, it must be a very different Army from the day's bygone. In my days, the file from the Chief's office went to a desk officer in the MoD. From there, it must have trudged up the bureaucratic heights and knocked Anthony off his pedestal. Well done, Shekhar - you must attempt fiction sometime before you retire. We may yet see an Indian Ludlum.
The rest of the article may be useful to the student of English who may like to understand how a "senior" journalist uses nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and the like. Except on the last line, where you called the Chinese "even more stupid than us". The subtext being, that any country that honours its soldiers is stupid.
And that is in addition to being a complete fraud. To conclude my exposition, just a small piece of information to picque the interest of your cheerleaders in positions of power. When Nehru died, the Army was given some part of the responsibility for the funeral arrangements. The then Chief, Gen JN Chaudhari "moved" forces from Ghaziabad without the approval of the MoD as a contingency measure. I believe Raisina was spooked even at that point in time.
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