K.N. Pandita
On February 26th last, came the sad news that Naval Chief Admiral D.K. Joshi had sent in his resignation. Anthony picked up the letter, made a detour via 10 Janpth and came to 7 Race Course. In a matter of couple of hours Naval Chief, Admiral D.K. Joshi PVSM, AVSM, YSM, NM, VSM was seen heading towards his home. The pilot was dropped.
Right now I am not going into the long trail of why of resignation though that is precisely what I will be doing at its proper time. Let details of Admiral Joshi case trickle down in drops if not in torrents.
But I just ruminated if we have had in this country people with high moral ground for self-mortification to atone for faults they committed or not committed directly or indirectly. A study of such cases opens space for debating important and highly consequential issues like the stepping down of top military brass.
Our people are little informed on security nuances of the expansive Indian Ocean and the coastline, and, therefore, the implications of the policy of one-man decision in most sensitive matters.
In 1956 Lal Bahdur Shastri was Railways Minister in Nehru cabinet. In a train accident in Tamil Nadu, 144 passengers were killed. Owning moral responsibility for the tragic accident, Shastri resigned as Minister. Nehru turned it down on the plea of human and technical error. Anthony may feign to be following the footprints of his party’s Herculean ideologue but parochial in essence, he could not fathom the spirit of visionary nationalism.
In early summer of 1972, when Indira Gandhi had decided for military action in Bangladesh, she called a cabinet meeting to reveal her decision and obtain consensus of opinion. Field Marshall Sam Mnickshaw, the Army Chief had earlier expressed some of his reservations. He was also called to be present in the meeting and knew what it was about. While the entire cabinet, an assorted pack of sycophants, gave their nod without reservation, Sam Bahadur, as he was affectionately called by his soldiers, refused to tow their line. He argued that his boys are for fighting but not for getting drowned in monsoon floods in Bangladesh. The meeting ended and the ministers dispersed. Indira Gandhi beckoned to the Commander saying, “Sam, will you stay back a few minutes”. As these two persons sat across the table, the General took out a small envelop from his pocket and placed it before the Prime Minister. She enquired what it was about. The proud and intrepid soldier said, “Madam Prime Minister, it is my resignation. I know you would ask for it and here it is.” “Sam, take it back and prepare for post-monsoon action as you want.” The history was made.
We still have Sam Bahadur(s) in our armed forces but we have not Indira Gandhi(s). What we have is mediocrity ambitious to put its pocket size hideous feet in mega size shoes.
This brings me to an extraordinarily historical but very painful episode,
In early 1959, Army Chief General KS Thimayya, after conducting two major war-games-cum-operational-exercises in the Eastern and Western Theatres had concluded that the Army needed urgent boosts in manpower and war-fighting wherewithal as also radical changes in deployment methodology before it could take on the Chinese. PM Nehru and Defence Minister Krishna Menon were duly informed. Nehru was diplomatically non-committal but Menon accused the Army Chief of “downright disloyalty and impropriety”. Thimayya resigned but Nehru unctuously talked him out of it and, on 1 September 1959, insipidly informed Parliament about the case. Thimayya ended up losing both face and credibility. While he had felt that “resignation was the only constitutional safeguard to a Service Chief against incompetent, unscrupulous/ambitious politicians,” he was politically naïve and gullible. Had he been steadfast, commentators believe the shameful 1962 debacle that followed could have been avoided or mitigated.
How the arrogant and supercilious Krishna Menon had reflected on General Thimayya’s considered and insightful observation was replicated by Anthony in far more crude words when he made a statement in the parliament on Sindhuratna tragedy. He said, “”It is the responsibility of the Navy to optimally operate and maintain (warships), as well as train its personnel suitably so that such national resources are optimally utilized and are not frittered away”.
Let me remind Anthony that when the 1962 Sino-Indian war debacle happened, Nehru sacked his defence Minister Krishna Menon but not the commander of the army. If the accidents of submarines have been happening, the Prime Minister, instead of sheepishly succumbing to the haranguing of Anthony & CO, should have sacked him there and then and immortalised the statesmanlike action of Nehru. He found the scapegoat in Admiral Joshi just because the Admiral is a professional soldier of highest integrity and not an unscrupulous politician with life size criminal record.
Since I have made a reference to an event connected with General Thimayya, I would like to reflect on a much debated historical decision which has given our history the saddest turn one can have ever imagined. In scores of seminars, I have been asked to explain why GOI accepted cease fire on the night of December 31, 1948 when we were poised for a big capture in Uri-Muzaffarabad Sector. Officially it is said that Indian army did not have the logistics for the capture of Muzaffarabad and Krishan Ganga valley. This is stoutly refuted by the biographer of General Thimayya. He has summarized General’s plan as this:
“In April 1948, Thimayya took over from Kalwant, as GOC, Jammu and Kashmir Force. A few days later, the Force was split, and two divisions were created. Sri Div was to be located at Srinagar, to look after the defence of the Kashmir Valley, while another division, based at Jammu, was to look after the Jammu region. Thimayya was given command of Sri Div, and moved to Srinagar, on 4 May 1948.
Thimayya had two brigades under his command. 161 Infantry Brigade, under the command of Brigadier L.P ‘Bogey’ Sen, was looking after the Uri Sector, while 163 Infantry Brigade, under Brigadier Harbaksh Singh, was in the Handwara-Kupwara area. On 13 May 1948, Thimayya held a conference, and gave out his plans for the summer offensive. The main thrust, by 161 Infantry Brigade, was to advance to Domel, on 20 May 1948, after being relieved by 77 Parachute Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Nair, which had already arrived in the Valley. A diversionary thrust, by 163 Infantry Brigade, was to commence on 18 May, and advance to Tithwal. By the end of June 1948, Nastachun Pass had been captured, and the area up to the Krishenganga River cleared by 163 Infantry Brigade. In the Uri Sector, 161 Infantry Brigade had captured Pirkanthi and Ledi Galli. Razdhangan Pass, in Northern Kashmir, was also captured. At this juncture, the Government decided to cease offensive operations, as the case had been referred to the United Nations. Domel had still not been captured, but over 350 square miles of territory had been liberated from enemy occupation.
The decision to suspend offensive operations came as a shock, and General Cariappa protested strongly to the Government, especially because Pakistan had not accepted the UN resolution, and continued with their operations. Finally, the Government approved that operations could be undertaken for the link up with Leh, and Punch, which had to be held at all costs. These would be in the nature of defensive operations. However, the road to Leh could be opened only after capture of Dras, Zojila and Kargil, which were held by the enemy. The operation for achieving this objective was code named DUCK.”
This clearly dismisses the argument that the Indian Army had not the full preparation to capture Krishan Ganga valley. Obviously, there were other and only political reasons for Nehru to order a halt to his advancing troops. Either he was confidentially persuaded by Abdullah to accept the ethnic divide and thus secure his Kashmir-based leadership or he succumbed to Premier Attlee’s advice of “thus far and no further”.
In final analysis, our political leaders are an ignorant lot in military matters and a defence minister is the most ignorant of all. The historical lesson for them is to go by the advice of commanders at various levels and take their own decision and not let sycophants make a fool of them and a tamasha of the country.
The big event received negligible media attention. One TV channel did but then let it die down silently. Indian nation has little knowledge about the vastness of the Indian Ocean coastline which our navy has to guard and what naval preparedness means in practice. Keeping the nation distanced from broad defence systems is what the traditional Congress leaders had clumsily imitated from their erstwhile Soviet lodestars.
Many a time, I pitched for sniffing in the sequestered information albeit with no success. RTI is just eyewash. But I changed the wavelength to see if there were predecessors to Admiral Joshi in the act of self-mortification for atoning the wrong doing.
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