M.G.Devasahayam
These
are but a few random names taken from a list of the brave sons of India who
died on the night of 19/20 October 1962 at Nam Ka Chu when the Chinese attacked
2nd Rajput positions at the base of the Thagla Ridge beyond the
Zimithang Valley in NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh). This was the beginning of the
bloody clash across the previously considered ‘impregnable’ Himalayas that
caught the Indian leadership napping and left 2,420 officers and men dead in
this theatre alone.
A
brief recap. By October 1962, an Infantry Division had operational control of
the NEFA border with 34 Assam Rifles posts of section/platoon strength established
all along the McMahon Line. As the fighting started on 19 October, the Chinese
crossed the McMahon Line in other sectors also, always in much superior
numbers. Despite the surprise and all the hardships faced due to lack of even
basic defensive requirements, at no stage did any of the army units fail to
resist the Chinese onslaught giving rise to the phrase ‘last man, last round’!
Much
earlier, in the 1950s itself General Cariappa had apprehended trouble on the
McMahon Line and had outlined his plan for NEFA suggesting some urgent measures.
Having heard him out Nehru flared up, thumped hard on the table and said: “It
is not the business of the Commander-in-Chief to tell the Prime Minister who is
going to attack us there. In fact the Chinese will defend our Eastern Frontier.
You mind only Kashmir and Pakistan.” A deflated and disappointed Cariappa
walked out of the Prime Minister’s office.
Subsequent advice from Deputy Prime
Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel on similar lines, led to some lukewarm motions to
set right things. But subsequently Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon, in an
arrogant manner kept on belittling the Army Chief General KS Thimayya. Besides
interference in promotions and the schism that had been created, Menon was
poking into strategic matters compelling General Thimayya to tender his
resignation. That Prime Minister Nehru talked him out of it and later berated
him in Parliament is history. Thimayya’s humiliation was a severe blow not only
to his own honour but the prestige of the Army as a combat institution.
To
cap it all, on Thimayya’s retirement he was replaced by General Pran Thapar
instead of the more competent Lt General SPP Thorat who was expected to take
over as Army Chief. The country paid a very heavy price
for this manipulation at the very top.
End-result
of the humiliating defeat in the Indo-Chinese war under the watch of General
Thapar saw the entire blame shifted to the Army. Today the road leading up to Sena Bhawan is ‘Krishna Menon Marg’ and his
larger than life statue adorns one corner of Army HQ. But all those who
sacrificed with their life and blood have been forgotten, their names ‘known only unto God’. Indeed
true of an ungrateful nation: “God and the Soldier, all adore; in times of
danger and not before. When danger is past and everything righted, God is
forgotten and the old Soldier slighted”
Where are we now, half a century
after those fateful days that shook the country’s conscience? What is the state
of the Army, its preparedness, its morale and the fighting spirit of its
officers and men? Army Chief General Bikram Singh says everything is hunky-dory
and roses all the way. Speaking a month before the 50th anniversary
of China’s military offensives he said: “I am assuring the nation as the Army Chief
that 1962 will not be repeated... No way. We have plans in place on all borders
to safeguard our country’s territorial integrity.”
But,
when the integrity of the Army itself has been severely eroded in recent times,
how the Army Chief’s tall claim is even tenable? In June
2012 Admiral L. Ramdas, former Naval Chief, along with few former senior civil and
military officers including the writer wrote to the Prime Minister and Defence
Minister highlighting several serious issues haunting the Army:
·
A serving Army Chief denied justice and
forced to move the Supreme Court only to face the embarrassment of being
advised to ‘blow with the wind’;
·
Bribe offered to a serving Army Chief
for defence deals, in his own office;
·
Corruption charges in the procurement of
defence equipment (TATRA) from a serving Army Chief, and he being hounded
because of that;
·
`Top Secret’ letter from the serving Army
Chief to the Prime Minister about the near-total unpreparedness of the Army and
its leak from Cabinet Secretariat tantamounting to treasonable act;
·
Totally false and fabricated accusations
that a serving Army Chief was responsible for spying/snooping on the Defence
Minister’s office;
·
Insidious insinuation of military coup,
casting aspersion on the serving Army Chief which virtually meant instigating mutiny in the Army;
·
PIL and Review Petition by responsible
citizens for safeguarding the institutional integrity of the Army and the same
being disposed of in a cavalier and perfunctory manner;
·
Raising the `communal bogey’ to divert
attention from the charge of creation of a ‘line of succession’ at senior
echelons of the Army that has demoralized the Officer cadre.
All these are symptoms of a deeper malaise within
the system– indicating years of brushing uncomfortable questions under the
carpet thereby adversely affecting the morale of the serving personnel. The
continuous failure of the top civil and political leadership to address the steady erosion in the ethical
framework which had always provided the underpinning for decision making at the
highest levels, has only reinforced a
growing feeling of discontent and cynicism. There is a widespread perception
that while the rank and file is subjected to severe disciplinary action for
even minor offences, those higher up, with the right connections, can get away
with anything! Not only is this reflected in the most recent appointments to
the highest offices within the Army, but also, and more seriously, has led to
the disturbing view, circulating at many levels, that it is not worth fighting
for a country that is in the grip of ‘corrupt and conniving characters’.
No wonder, the powers-that-be do not want to respond
to these very pointed posers and apprehensions. It looks as if the ‘adhocracies’
in the Ministry of Defence and Army Headquarters have entered into a
‘kleptocratic pact’ that could make the repeat of 1962 very much possible. Because
winning and losing is not on the borders of the country, but in the heart and
mind of every soldier.
Where
does it leave ‘We, The People’? Sure, in the next few weeks we will again dust
out our good-old Lata Mangeshkar ‘Mere Wattan ke logo’ LPs and shed a passing
tear or two before moving on to the more mundane matter of surviving in modern-day
India.
Were
the boys who died in the high Himalayas alive today they would be in their 70s.
Having been commissioned in the Army soon after the 1962 war, I sometimes
wonder whether they were the lucky ones who have been spared the agony of
seeing the rot that the country and its institutions are today. And then ask a
mind-wrenching question: ‘Are we Stabbing
the Dead…Yet Again?’
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