The book that wasn’t: Silence, strategy, & security

It is necessary to revive the vital issue of national security suppressed, presumably at the behest of the government, by former COAS Gen MM Naravane’s declaration on February 10,  that his controversial book Four Stars of Destiny has not been published. For a full one week, the unpublished book paralysed Parliament and gave it publicity of high order. The book contains an oral operational directive presumably from PM Narendra Modi to Naravane at the height of the India-China crisis on Kailash Ridge on August 31, 2020 — “jo uchit samjho woh karo” (JUSWK). The situation obtaining at the time is well known and  does not require recall. In his book Naravane wrote: “I was handed a hot potato” adding something few have recounted earlier, that he was told by the highest authority: “I should not be the first to open fire”. This was in accordance with prevailing protocols promulgated in 1993-96 on “no use of firearms”. JUSWK was clearly a case of passing the buck.

On December 15, 2023, Naravane issued a tweet, “Hello friends, my book is available….follow this link”. The book was to hit the stands in January 2024. On 10 February 2026, he said (or was forced to say): “My book has not been published”, which terminated several adjournment motions in the Lok Sabha. The publisher, Penguin Random House, repeated the claim on the same day. Both author and publisher were muzzled. Earlier in October 2025, at a literary festival in Kasauli, Naravane said: “The book is under review. The publisher has to get clearance; now it is between the publisher and the government”. In December 2023, the publisher provided extracts from the book to PTI. Two chapters, one on the events of 31 August 2020 - Operation Snow Leopard - and the other on Agnipath scheme, showed up the government in a poor light, reflecting the absence of civil-military coordination at the highest level.

Naravane has praised the government in his book, though he has much to answer for: allowing the Chinese PLA to commit aggression across a 2000km frontage in East Ladakh and occupying 1500 km of Indian Territory, this after claiming that all was normal on the LAC. But that is a separate topic as the government has papered over Chinese aggression and settled for disengagement without de-escalation and de-militarisation. Worse, it has lost 26 of 65 patrolling points, accepted buffer zones (not established earlier at Barahoti or Sumdorongchu), lost grazing grounds, but still normalised relations on 1 April 2025 by cutting a cake on the 75th anniversary of India-China relations. The bottom line of the Army Chiefs since the aggression has been ‘status quo ante April 2020’.

Ashley Tellis of Carnegie Endowment had said: “India has still not received from China any explanation for what it did in East Ladakh; that normalisation had begun before de-escalation”. NSA Shiv Shankar Menon had noted: “we know what happened in Fingers Area, but nothing about Kailash Heights”. Extracts from Naravane’s unpublished book throw some light without explaining the cover-up for the faux pas in agreeing to withdraw from Kailash Heights, which was India’s Trump card. The other revelation in the extracts is the ‘bombshell’ of Agniveer which Naravane disparages in detail. Former IAF and Navy Chiefs have made extremely negative comments about the scheme. It has damaged long-term India-Nepal relations as Nepal has not accepted the revised terms of engagement, and recruitment remains suspended since 2020 following COVID. A strategic bond will soon be lost.

It is these two issues — Chinese aggression of 2020 and Agniveer — which were intended to be blocked from discussion in Parliament. The government succeeded in preventing any debate about the Galwan episode also saying any debate on national security will undermine the morale of soldiers.

This method has been patented to block any discussion on inconvenient topics involving national security. Instead, the government follows a simple procedure of making statements in Parliament on heroic and swift counter-deployment of 50,000 soldiers in response to Chinese aggression. In no other democracy is debate on national security disallowed in Parliament. But enough is out there in the public domain about China’s inscrutable behaviour in 2020 and India’s reactionary response.

When asked by ANI, Jaishankar said: “How can I fight China? It has a big (five times) economy”. Unfortunately the Iron Curtain has concealed the excellent redeeming manoeuvre during Operations Snow Leopard and Chengiz on the North and South Banks of Pangong Tso Lake, Rajnath Singh, on 10 February 2021 merely informing Parliament that withdrawal from these areas had been done without mentioning the strategic loss of Kailash Heights. But he did add the usual: “not an inch of territory was lost”. The Naravane story has been carried faithfully by Caravan magazine and Wire portal

 Not only was an Army Chief silenced about his unpublished book, but also the publishers. Both dutifully complied in saying that the book Four Stars of Destiny had not been published. Former Army Chief, Gen NC Vij’s book Alone In the Ring-Decision Making in Critical Times was delayed by several months from release, but was freed later after vetting. The government has systematically persuaded mainline TV   and print media not to publish matters that will show government infirmities, but also not to publish the views of the opposition parties. This is evident from watching TV and reading newspapers. Inconvenient journalists have been quietly eased out. As a thoroughly apolitical veteran, I would like to see free debate and discussion flourish in the largest and most populous democracy. The military is not above criticism. The government’s new rules on retired public servants writing will inhibit them from recounting their instructive experiences during government service.

On April 3, The Public India Digital Media held a function to recognise journalists who are discovering and inventing ways and means to bypass government fiat on control of news and limit adversarial content. Naravane knew that his book would not fly; so he wrote the novel The Cantonment Conspiracy in 2024 when he triumphantly announced, not without sarcasm, “Now I am a published author” The message is out even if the author has been rendered hors de combat.

The writer, a retired Major General, served as Commander, IPKF (South), Sri Lanka, and was a founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, now the Integrated Defence Staff ; views are personal