Off the air interceptors used by the Army for eavesdropping upon MoD officials

IS THIS TRUE? – IT WILL BE EGG ON THE ARMY’S FACE

Like many others, I too had the chance to work with four ex Chiefs of Army Staff, viz General Padmanabham,  N C Vij, Joginder Jaswant Singh and Deepak Kapoor, while serving in the Army Headquarters, New Delhi. My appointment and the nature of my assignment often put me in a position to interact intimately and informally with these officers, owing to the interest they evinced in promoting the standard of sports within the Army and by extension the Armed Forces and the Country, in equal measure, respectively. It was during this period that the Army had launched itself into its mission Olympics, aimed at winning medals for the Nation in International Sports Championships, including the Olympic Games. The effort and commitment to do so, got the nod from the then Raksha Mantri Shri Jaswant Singh. A quantum leap in the budgetary allocation for establishing an Institute for sporting excellence in identified sports disciplines; and upgrading certain existing Sports Nodes to international standards of infrastructure and training was approved by the Steering Committee, constituted for the purpose. The results of this undertaking came about in an unlikely gestation period of just two years, when in the Athens Olympic Games an army man and a national athlete won an individual Silver medal, for the first time in a history of 100 years of participation. The country had something to cheer about in an otherwise dismal showing by our sportspersons and an ecstatic public vicariously lived the joy of a podium finish. Sport can be an author of its own mystery and dark theatre. It engages emotions; it exhausts players and audience, and leaves its pain / sting on us all.  The army had delivered on its commitment to the nation, like always, despite the sports system which obtains in the country. More than winning an individual Silver medal was the belief, which was imbued in the minds of the youth, that genetic disposition was not a factor in winning but training and preparation is; and an individual Gold medal followed in the Beijing Games.

It was amidst this euphoria of realizing the Army’s vision and living the Country’s dream of achieving what had not been done as yet ; that I hung my uniform in 2008 after respecting and overcoming the challenge of the Technical Conduct of the 4^th Military World Games in Oct 2007. That, the Games went without a glitch and in clock work precision, earned for the Armed Forces international encomiums and a sense of immense professional satisfaction for me, personally. Having bid adieu to service after 38 years of individual highs and lows and a string of conflicting emotions, the resultant feeling was one of contentment and passionate fulfillment. It was in such a mood of consummate retirement that, the heart rending news about the ‘Sukhna Scam’, ‘Adarsh Housing Scam’ and the ‘Date of Birth Controversy’ which screamed loud and clear from every national and regional / vernacular electronic and print media respectively, jolted me from my happy state of somnolence. It was the Generals of the Army who were steeped in unbecoming acts, sullying its glorious reputation. In between, there were more embarrassing splashes in news papers / periodicals, of one or the other army officer, involved in reprehensible acts of corruption / moral turpitude. The impression, which got created in the media was either of brazen acquiring of money, sensual gratification or else a position of advantage / profit, to covertly benefit from, while in service or after retirement. Public perception had definitively changed and the Army’s image had taken a beating. The only saving grace in this was the comparison with similar doings of people in contemporary times and in public life, which had besieged Indian society. The Vote for Money, 2 G and the CWG scams made our actions seem as dalliances in contrast. Thus, the Army was by logic of reductio ad absurdum, saved further humiliation.

Just, when one was overcoming the intellectually regressive affects; of the ad nauseum debates on the prime time electronic media about General V K Singh’s DoB controversy, and had thanked the Supreme Court for giving it a closure on 10 th February 2012, one was proved wrong by another story which is fast developing and has the potential to become equally disgusting. We now have a smitten Lt General (retd) who once headed the Defense Intelligence Agency, occupying space in the pages of the print media, for putting up fabricated fiction in connivance with disgruntled serving officers to create a rift between General V K Singh and the Government. The off- the - air interceptors which are alleged to have been used by officers close to General V K Singh to eavesdrop on the conversations of MoD officials, can be a huge embarrassment for the Army should it be proved correct. This story leaves a lot of room for any amount of conjectures to be drawn in the matter, because the manner in which the dramatis personae of the DoB controversy went hammer and tongs to plead the Chief’s case in the media, I, much against my wish do smell a rat in this. The Chief was very poorly advised by his inner circle of advisors, who wanted to take two bites at the cherry with the intent of extending his tenure by another year. And, there is a very likely possibility of this same band of regimental / self seeking officers of having gone to any degree of ingratiating conduct for “their hero”. Lt General (retd) Tejinder Singh Sarawat, a clansman of General V K Singh, spent two years and six months with me in the same squadron in the National Defense Academy and it is being insinuated that he is the author of this canard of – Eavesdropping upon the MoD officials. Tejinder seems definitely cut up with VK Singh, for not whittling down on the inquiry on the ‘Adarsh Housing Scam’ in which he is involved as a beneficiary, and therefore the suggestion could as well be true and not fabricated fiction as maintained by the Army Head Quarters.

Should the truth in the matter emerge and it gets established that eavesdropping was indeed done by the Chief’s cronies to either find favor with him or else be his cat’s paw; in drawing the ultimate strategy to counter the Government’s defense in the legal stand off, it will be a huge trust deficit which will emerge between the Army and the MoD. I, fully empathize with Bikram Singh, for the legacy he will inherit from his predecessor, making his position all the more precarious to deal with critical issues requiring a certain degree of brinkmanship to deal with the parent Ministry. The Chief of Army Staff designate is already under tremendous pressure to reinvent his professional credibility and acceptibility, in an Army divided by opinions in righteousness, with V K Singh as a shining example at one end of the paradigm and an ex Chief who manipulated the line of succession to promote his own clansman, in a never before display of extreme parochialism, at the other. The straw which may break the back of the camel is this unfortunate story which is likely to gain acceptability should the allegations be established, and will further drown the Army’s reputation in the quagmire of murky and furtive actions, inviting serious future reprisals by the bureaucratic interface of the MoD.

 General Joe ‘Vinegar’ Stilwell of the American army and the ‘Hump Route’ to China fame in the Second World War, wisely said “The higher one goes, the more of his backside he exposes”. Therefore, I only hope and wish that after all the madness which was enacted on the Tv by VK Singh’s supporters, to justify and support his foredoomed cause and make a complete mockery of the entire issue by taking sides and finger pointing at all others except themselves – this story dies as non maintainable for want of truth. But, should that not happen, then all those mature and wizened people who were always wary of V K’s obdurate course of action to resurrect his “Integrity and Honor,” which was never suspect earlier, will once more be proved right and the Institution of the Chief further denigrated, with his honor and integrity justifiably now becoming suspect. I, was once advised early on in my career by my professional mentor and role model, to always make a point but not to make it into an issue. And, I maintained that piece of counsel without ever compromising on my ‘Integrity or Honor’. There could be a lesson in this for the future leadership of our Army.

Brigadier (retd) S D Dangwal

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