Former diplomat and intellectual Ml Sondhi played a key role in General JFR Jacob’s life. Not only did he help the General get due credit for the latter’s role in the 1971 war, but also helped him contribute to India’s polity
Much has been written and said about lt General JFR Jacob, the Bangladeshi war hero, but what little I have to add is from my vantage point as a witness to former diplomat and intellectual Ml Sondhi’s friendship with him. Although they were good friends, Ml Sondhi addressed him as ‘General’ and spoke of him as ‘Jacob’.
The first time Ml Sondhi and I met Gen Jacob was in the early 1990s, long after he had retired from the military and just prior to the normalisation of relations between India and Israel. We met, thanks to Greville Janner, a British MP who often visited India because he had a sizeable number of Gujaratis and Punjabis in his leicester constituency and also because of his interest in furthering India-Israel relations.
While in service, Gen Jacob could never visit Israel, but he had many contacts over there, via his family and community abroad. However, Ml Sondhi, after having resigned from Government service in 1962, was free to visit Israel and campaign for normalisation of relations with the country.
One evening, Gen Jacob and I were Janner’s guests at the Taj Hotel at Man Singh Road and it was in that relaxed atmosphere when Gen Jacob gave vent to his great disappointment with the Government which failed to recognise, in any meaningful way, his contribution to the victory of the Indian Army in the 1971 war.
It was generally believed that the Government had been afraid of provoking Pakistan and other West Asian countries by drawing attention to the fact that it was a Jewish (albeit Indian) General, who was responsible for defeating the forces of an Islamic country.
Ml Sondhi, deeply moved by Gen Jacob’s story, became determined to rectify this wrong in one way or the another. Since the Congress Government remained shackled by its West Asian posture, he looked for options amongst opposition parties in favour of India-Israel normalisation. The Swatantra Party had dissolved itself, but the socialists and the BJP remained.
Ml Sondhi suggested to General Jacob that, as a first step, he should join the BJP. With his social background, the idea of the BJP was somewhat alien to the General, to say the least, but being an eminently rational man, after about three months of cogitation, he finally overcame his inhibition.
On the eve of his publicly joining the party, we had dinner with a very tense and nervous General, poised for a decision which could either make or break him.
Gen Jacob joined the BJP in mid 1990s, and for some time, the party used his services for advice on defence matters. Once the NDA Government came to power in the late 1990s, Ml Sondhi worked to get Gen Jacob appointed as the Governor of Goa, and later the Governor of Chandigarh, and in both assignments, Gen Jacob played a memorable role.
In Goa, he was ranked as one of the best Governors and is remembered for his work on conservation and environment, for his refreshing speeches at the opening of Assembly sessions and for telling off a certain powerful Gujarati businessman who came seeking favours from him.
Ml Sondhi felt that Gen Jacob still had more to contribute to India’s polity. Since Dalits, Sikhs, Muslims, women etc were represented in politics from northern and southern States at the highest levels of the nation, why not a Jew — a highly talented one at thatIJ
At the time, APJ Abdul Kalam was the President of India, so Ml Sondhi thought of Gen Jacob as the Vice President. He wrote a piece for The Pioneer in June 2002, entitled, ‘The man who should be Vice President’, which deserves to be quoted as a summing up of Gen Jacob’s character and accomplishments.
Ml Sondhi wrote, “Today, Kalam is the man of destiny and it will be widely hoped that India under his presidency will be less prone to conflict. For the vice presidency, I would suggest that Governor JFR Jacob of Punjab can become a man of destiny and would be credible to not only the Indian public, but also to the world. If Kalam’s choice is realpolitik at its best, General Jacob’s choice will be perceived as an Indian example of Wilsonian idealism. Governor Jacob, like Dwight D Eisenhower, is a war hero and will be perceived as playing a new role as a man of peace.”
He added, “Governor Jacob won the surrender of the Pakistani forces in Dhaka by his superiority of strategic manoeuvre and later showed his skill at political conflict management in Goa in his gubernatorial assignment. His record in Punjab, in the context of the attendant political strife in the State, has been outstanding. Observers have commented favourably on his ability to structure politics in an information age. His strategic and foreign policy analysis at several intellectual forums have been marked by his acute understanding of how Indian power can contribute to a more stable regional system and a more cohesive international order.”