The book needs to be read to understand the controversies that surrounded General VK Singh while in service and after that, writes MG Devasahyam
COURAGE AND CONVICTION
Author: Gen VK SINGH
Publisher: Aleph, Rs 595
As a rustic boy from Bapora in Bhiwani district, Haryana, Gen VK Singh had grown up listening to the village elders “secure in the knowledge that not one of them, individually or collectively, would ever bend before the wind”. The book is the testament of how he lived up to this legacy. This he has done despite horrid Goebbelesian onslaught on his honour, patriotism and integrity.
Gen Singh had a troubled childhood, with his mother suffering from cancer. His schooling was at Birla Public School in Pilani where in the NCC he had an interesting experience. “I was initially in the naval wing, before being shifted to the Army and then yet again to the Air Force before leaving the school,” he recalls. Though he was “infatuated” with the Indian Air Force and wanted join it, at his father’s (an Army Officer) insistence he opted for the Army.
Barely out of the National Defence Academy (NDA), Singh came face-to-face with the date of birth issue which he describes thus: “It then transpired that in the original UPSC form, my year of birth had been filled in as 1950. Other supporting data and the certificate sent by the school independently had correctly listed it as 1951... The various papers were then forwarded to the UPSC which accepted the documents and the explanation, and cleared me to join NDA. The matter having been resolved, I embarked on the journey to join the Academy almost a week later than rest of the batch because of this snafu.” Indeed, this belief turned out to be misplaced. As the author reached the pinnacle of his career, this ‘resolved’ matter was dug out, severely distorted, and turned into a weapon by vested interests leading to confrontation between him as Army Chief and the Government.
The book contains revelations on several momentous events and episodes relating to the Army’s operations in the last four decades — from the 1971 Bangladesh War and the 1984 Operation Blue Star to the Operation Meghdoot, the codename given for the 1987 operations to occupy Siachen, the IPKF operation in Sri lanka and the 2002 Operation Parakram.
Gen Singh was the first commando to become India’s Army Chief. At the Young Officers Course in Mhow, he was awarded the Commando Dagger and the coveted Sam Manekshaw Trophy. He topped the Ranger Combat leadership Course of the US Army, considered the “toughest in the world”. Commandos are defined as “a small fighting force specially trained for making quick destructive raids against enemy-held areas”. Gen Singh started his four-star career by taking on the corrupt. Within weeks he took on the then Union Home Minister and declined to let loose the Army on the jungles of central/east India. It is with this episode that Gen Singh opens this book — his first encounter as Army Chief with then Home Minister P Chidambaram. Without beating about the bush, Chidambaram came straight to the point: “General, you know the Naxal problem is a major national issue. So why do you oppose the deployment of the Army in Naxal areasIJ” Realising that a half-baked answer would open the door, the General responded: “I am fully aware of the situation on ground, Minister. It is a socio-economic and governance issue and needs to be addressed accordingly. At the same time, this is not a secessionist movement and it would not be correct to use the Army against own people.” The book, however, is silent about the fallout of this encounter.
The book needs to be read to understand the various controversies that surrounded Gen Singh while in service and after that. He has dealt with them all — line of succession, age controversy, TATRA loot, bribe offer, leaked top-secret letter to the Prime Minister, concocted coup story, among others — in sober language without rancour, and there is no hype as many would expect.
While the General has come down heavily on the PMO, he has dealt with Defence Minister AK Antony with velvet gloves. Writing about TATRA and BEMl, the General implies that the corruption “trail goes right up to a very high official in the PMO”. He has also fortified the common perception of collusive understanding among political parties while sharing defence procurement loot. After the BEMl-TATRA scandal broke out, a senior Opposition leader told him off-the-record, “General saab, lapetna tha to aapne Tatra kyon pakraIJ Isme hum halla machayenge to hum bhi phaste hain (General, if you had to catch them, why TatraIJ If we back you, we’ll also get exposed).”
Post-retirement, a General is expected to fade away into golf-cum-party circuits. But not so for Gen Singh. He had unfinished tasks to complete. “After a month’s break, I felt my job as a citizen of this country was only half-done. I had long discussions with colleagues and others who over time had become friends. They all more or less said the same thing — go out into the countryside and see what is happening. A former soldier/bureaucrat, whose relentless fight against corruption has thrown up a new word ‘kleptocracy’, said to me, ‘You have seen the rot that has set in on defence matters. Grassroots, man, get down to the grassroots,’ he emphasised, ‘only then can you expose the rascals who are today in power and are relentlessly eating up this country’.”
Gen Singh believes that his unfinished task is to “create a movement to bring in democracy as envisaged by greats like Mahatma Gandhi and Jayaprakash Narayan. Something that starts at the grassroots levels, something that starts in the villages, something in which a common man has a role to play”.
The General signs off the book not as a hard-boiled soldier, but as a deeply concerned citizen: “When I sat down to write the autobiography, I was acutely conscious of the fact that my story could probably match that of any other officer in the Indian Army... At the end of the day, I didn’t want anything more from the state. I have got much more from the country and the Army than anyone can hope to get in a lifetime. As I rose through the ranks, I tried very hard not to forget how every decision would impact the men in the trenches. To stand up for what you consider to be your duty towards your country is our ultimate dharma.”
Courage and Conviction is a must-read for every soldier past, present and future and all civilians who feel for the nation and not just feed off it!
The reviewer is a former Army Major and IAS officer of the Haryana cadre