A SANCTIMONIOUS CHIEF-----WHO DESTROYED AN INSTITUTION
Circa 2011, was a veritable annus horribilis for the Army and will go down in its glorious history as such. An inane matter of reconciling within the Army Headquarters two separate dates of birth of an officer, was dragged into the public domain by non other than its own Chief of Army Staff. This has willy nilly brought the Army and its apex Institution under severe and unwanted scrutiny, quite gratuitously. As, the subject had divided public opinion on the matter, it was put to excessive discussion and debate on the ubiquitous electronic and print media. Military veterans, bureaucrats and correspondents in bringing forth their points of view, took positions based on their grasp of the narrative as it had unfurled over the year. From a Civil- Military confrontation to raillery of Politicians, Bureaucracy and a previous Chief of Army Staff who decided the line of succession for 2012 and yet another who used coercion to extract an ungainly commitment, it was all in bad taste. Nothing gainful has emerged from this public haranguing, except for the fact that it has brought out in the open the festering resentment which brews within the Army against its Own and the Political and Civil Services establishment. To a large majority of the informed people who have been privy to this theatre of the absurd, the Army has come out a cropper, because General VK Singh has demolished the status of the very Institution he represents. How one wishes that the General had shown more restraint and grace in his conduct and not behaved as a smitten middle rung officer, fighting the System for his perceived right.
Does, General VK Singh realize what he has done to the image of the next Chief who will succeed him. Should it be Lt Gen Bikram Singh, which in all probability it will be, then imagine the burden he will have upon himself to prove his leadership credentials and not become a subject of furtive ridicule within the rank and file of his Army. The appointment of Bikram Singh, on the principle of seniority by the Cabinet Committee of Appointments (CCA), will suggest a communal undertone to it, orchestrated by an ex Chief belonging to the same community as that, of the new incumbent. This is most unfortunate. Also, in a Government dispensation wherein Civilian Supremacy over the Army is a given, one would hate to be in Bikram’s shoes, as he would have been largely defanged by the supposed largesse done to him by the Political Establishment. In such a situation, imagine what stand he will be able to take with the Bureaucracy or else the Parent Ministry on matters of critical and vital importance to the Army, which have been put in limbo by the Government. I doubt, if any. Therefore, General VK Singh in taking his fight for his honor and integrity to the streets; on an innocuous issue such as the one he has, has done irreparable damage to the Institution of the Chief, from which it will require someone of the caliber and character of late Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw to resurrect.
Good luck! to the next Chief of Army Staff to steer his Army from the murky waters in which his Institution has been bequeathed to him, by his holier than thou predecessor.
Brigadier S D Dangwal,VSM
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