Daily Times

What does General VK Singh have to show for his mandatory three year-tenure as the Indian Army chief? He lost two battles in a row, casting an unflattering reflection on his performance as the chief of a million-plus army. His first battle lost concerned his date of birth. He claimed it was a year short of the date given in his service records ever since he joined the army. Having failed to convince the government to extend his tenure by another year based on his revised, self-calculated age, he moved the Supreme Court to draw a blank from there too. He will now retire in May as per the date of birth noted in his service records all the way through. That marked the sad end of an otherwise distinguished service record, to help him work his way to the top, the one fond dream of every career officer, vouchsafed to few.

The second battle lost might have been the sorry confessional of Singh’s dismal failure to note and notify the gaping chinks in the armour of the force under his command for three years. In a top-secret letter addressed to his defence minister, mysteriously leaked, General Singh listed formidable deficiencies in his arsenal, enough to reduce any fighting outfit to a shadow without substance, a mock force good for mock battles. Some of the worryingly missing links and acute shortages of hardware he identified in the leaked letter are as follows: Army tanks do not have critical ammunition to defeat enemy tanks. Infantry poorly equipped and lacks night fighting capabilities; ‘large-scale voids’ in critical surveillance. Elite special forces ‘woefully short’ of essential weapons. Air defence ‘97 percent obsolete, undermines confidence to protect ‘from the air.’

Shocking! Is that all an army chief has to show at the end of his three-year army command? Hard to understand, but there is no way of turning a blind eye to the mess. The question is how all these gaping holes escaped Singh’s attention during his stewardship of the army. Would not that be too much to assume that the above might have been only the thin end of the wedge? In addition, there would be much more than the army chief’s sensational disclosure on the eve of his retirement. What is to be said about its negative impact on the morale, normal training and operational readiness of the field formations?

Commenting editorially, The Statesman, New Delhi, dated March 31, noted, “The army chief cannot escape the suspicion that his ‘much delayed revelations have followed his losing out on the date of his birth controversy.” Imagine a 60-plus, full general, first pressing the government to accept his self-chosen date of birth and then moving the Supreme Court to change his date of birth as given in his annual confidential reports and all other relevant documents, including his passports. This is a strange case of an army chief, in command of the world’s second or third largest army after the US and Russia.

The ‘topsec’ letter of March 12/12 addressed to defence minister A K Antony was first published by a relatively little known Mumbai daily. The minister sat tight over the missive until a provincial daily spilt the beans about the working relationship between the army chief and his civilian bosses, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reported to be ‘tense’. Whatever that might mean.

Yet another circumstance to embarrass the Indian army chief on the eve of his retirement happened to be his own disclosure of a case involving some 140 million rupees worth of kickbacks offered to him for recommending the purchase of some substandard military trucks.

He named retired Lieutenant General Tejinder Singh, who offered the army chief the aforementioned bribe for the purchase of second-rate trucks. While the army chief firmly rejected the lucrative offer, he stayed quiet about it for almost two years before reporting it to the higher authority, the defence minister in his case. The chief’s firm (and final) ‘no’ to the dirty lucre, notwithstanding his inaction for practically more than half of his three-year tenure, did lend a strong shade of some sort of a personal interest in the dirty business.

General V K Singh is yet to file a complaint about the alleged bribe offer, but the CBI may call Defence Minister A K Antony as a witness to confirm that the army chief had told him about it. The minister’s statement may be recorded after a preliminary inquiry into the case. The army chief has claimed that he has ‘hard evidence’ to back his claim. Lt. Gen Tejinder Singh reportedly, has taken the army chief to court for ‘libel’ along with the vice chief of the army, the chief of military intelligence and others, involving top brass at the army headquarters.

Ashok Mehta, a retired major general, describes this as a bizarre situation in which the image of the army office of the COAS and national security has been “directly imperiled.” Mehta would have the prime minister immediately to ‘rein in’ General Singh. He would recommend the constitution of a ‘ministerial task force’ to examine why and how army’s ‘operational preparedness’ dipped so low and how civil military relations reached ‘a nadir’.

Yet another act, unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman, least of all a four-star army chief, happened to be Singh’s failed bid to incriminate a serving officer Lieutenant-General Dalbir Suhag. He named Dalbir for corruption in the ‘purchase’ for some substandard materials during his tenure as the Inspector General Training and Evaluation. General Suhag had been placed at number two for the appointment of the new army chief after Lieutenant General Bikram Singh.

Rightly or wrongly, Singh’s bid to compromise his prospective successor without sufficient evidence would be yet another act beneath the dignity of the outgoing chief. CBI to probably shame General Singh cleared Suhag.

No matter how one might try to explain it, it had been an act against all norms of service etiquette and professional camaraderie. As for Singh’s gross negligence of the serious shortfalls in his combat equipment, it would be now between him, his own conscience and his civilian masters to figure out who is responsible.

Summing up General Singh’s critical lack of oversight vis-à-vis the gaping holes in his war-fighting systems and material, The Statesman dated March 31 commented editorially as follows: “…. As Gen.Singh’s career winds down, he has taken down with him just about all that he earned… the army’s trust and the faith of the Indian people.” What a sad end of a man who many believed was ideally equipped to restore glory by uniforms.

Goodbye General Singh.

The writer is a retired brigadier and can be reached at brigsiddiqi@yahoo.co.uk