By Ghazala Wahab
General Joginder Jaswant Singh has been bit
of an oddity in the Indian military. While most Indian soldiers, irrespective
of rank and service have been chary of the media, treating it as a necessary
evil to be endured when completely unavoidable, Gen. JJ Singh, affectionately
called Gen. JJ, has always courted the media fearlessly and with great
enthusiasm.
As Chief of Army Staff (COAS) [and
before that, as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Western Command],
he seemed to believe that publicity was publicity — it was neither good nor
bad. This is the reason that when even ordinary officers went into spasms of
anxiety at the whiff of a ‘negative’ report, Gen. Singh remained unflappable. He
had a penchant for issuing statements at the drop of the hat and making
headlines every alternate day. That led the grand old man of Indian journalism
Khushwant Singh, to write that if he didn’t stop talking, he’d end up being a
source of more ‘Sardar’ jokes. So rattled
was the government of the day (used to mute chiefs), by his garrulousness, that
apparently, he was asked to talk less with the media.
Gen. Singh might have tried to curb his
instincts. But how do you hide a flamboyant personality? When he wasn’t speaking
to the press, he was being photographed at glamorous events like polo tournaments,
with Page 3 regulars. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say he fashioned himself as
something of a star. Someone who’d walk into a room and immediately draw
attention to himself, whether intentionally or unintentionally. But there was
never any doubt that he wanted to be projected in a certain way. Within a
couple of weeks of taking over as COAS, this correspondent was granted an
interview with the General and his wife, becoming the first guest of the first
couple in the Army House. Not only did they speak extensively about themselves,
about Gen. Singh’s achievements, his war wound (in Kashmir), about adopting
children and so on — post interview, his office even supplied family
photographs for the story. It appeared in the March 2005 issue of FORCE. He was
a refreshing change from his predecessor, who did away with even the
traditional Army Day press conferences during his tenure. But then, there is
something called too much of a good thing. Some would say Gen. JJ Singh spoke
enough for his successors too — they all remained squeamish about the media. Except
Gen. V.K. Singh, who went ballistic towards the end of his tenure.
Gen. Singh is currently the Governor
of Arunachal Pradesh. For someone as irrepressible as him, it was only to be
expected that he’d write his memoirs and present them with the same panache he
presented himself. His autobiography A
Soldier’s General, published by Harper Collins, has already been released
three-times over. It was released in Delhi on June 9, by the Marshal of the Indian
Air Force Arjan Singh; in Mumbai on June 23, by the Governor of Maharashtra K.
Sankaranarayanan; and in London on June 25, by a British member of parliament
Paul Uppal and the Shaheed
Nanak Singh Foundation.
Talking to the press at one of the
release functions, Gen. JJ Singh said that his book was simply a narration of
his life, of events as he saw them. “There is nothing controversial in my
book,” he insisted with a broad smile. Weeks before the book was released, one
of his former aides cautioned that one should not expect too much from the
book. “It is light-reading,” he said, suggesting it would neither be contemporary
history nor a quick guide to national security.
Indeed, the autobiography is an
accurate reflection of Gen. Singh’s personality, putting him not only at the
centre of the book but at the centre of every event in it. In that respect, both
the book and the author have been extremely faithful to one another. It’s
another matter that Khushwant Singh, whose advice Gen. Singh sought before
embarking on this literary journey — recently wrote that he’d advised the
former chief not to praise himself too much. People get put-off by that, he’d
said. But the General obviously didn’t take that hint.
Gen. JJ has an explanation for that.
Addressing guests at the book release function in London (a video of the speech
has been uploaded on YouTube), he said that he laboured hard over the format of
the book. He realised that if he was to tell his story, it would automatically
read like self-praise. But there was to be no escape. “Maybe, this is the
reason why so many army chiefs do not write their autobiography,” he told the
audience.
If so many Indian military chiefs
have desisted from writing their autobiographies, then the reason has to be
more than just reluctance to praise oneself. To my mind, there are three
reasons why an autobiography should be written. One, the author is such a brilliant
writer that he/she has the capability of turning even the mundane into a work
of literature. Two, the author’s life has been unusually eventful, he/she has
been witness to history in the making and has something useful to say. Three,
the author has had a very close/personal association with the powerful and the
rich (mainly the former) to enable him/her to write a kiss-and-tell tale. These
three conditions eliminate the need for putting oneself at the centre of the book,
even if it is an autobiography because one would write as a spectator, seeing things
as they happened.
While reading Gen Singh’s autobiography,
I wondered if it is really difficult not to succumb to the temptation of
writing things like ‘I did this’. And ‘I told so and so that...’ The immediate
reference that occurred to me, was of his predecessor four times removed, Gen.
Shankar Roychowdhury, COAS from November 1994 to September 1997. His
autobiography, called Officially at Peace,
was published by the Penguin imprint Viking, in 2002. The book starts with Gen.
Roychowdhury becoming the chief. He divides chapters on the basis of issues as
he saw them. And not in a chronologically linear manner. Critical of the
political leadership (he worked with four prime ministers starting with
Narasimha Rao and finishing with I.K. Gujral) — which he always found indifferent
to national security issues, Gen. Roychowdhury appears in the book primarily as
a narrator. There are hardly any personal details, because he assumed readers
wouldn’t really be interested. His autobiography reads like contemporary
history, putting in perspective the Indian Army’s state in the mid-Nineties,
its roles across theatres, state of war-preparedness (or lack of it) and the blanket
blindness over nuclear issues. He narrates in great detail his meetings with
various ministers, politicians and bureaucrats at various levels. His recounting
of his first meeting with the minister of state for defence (whom he does not
name) upon becoming the chief and his subsequent meeting with finance minister
Manmohan Singh, pleading for more funds for army modernization, are both funny
and eye-opening. Ironically, Gen. Roychowdhury is not a highly decorated
officer. Like Gen. K Sundarji, he only has a Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM) to
his name. But this is not a review of his book.
Gen. JJ seems to have been hemmed-in
by two self-imposed restrictions. First, he starts with the conviction that his
has been an unusually remarkable life. For him, the fact that he is a third
generation military officer and the first Sikh to become the chief, itself
makes for an interesting story. Hence, this narration takes care of the first
section, without any attempts at giving a perspective to the prevailing circumstances
then. Or insights into the politico-social conditions. Or why being the first Army
chief of Sikh descent, was a big deal. While Operation Blue Star finds no
mention, the 1984 anti-Sikh carnage is dismissed in a paragraph — saying no
violence took place in Jammu where he was posted.
Given that his grandfather was a
sepoy in the British Indian Army (deployed in France during World War I) and
his father was commissioned in the Royal Indian Army Service Corps before
Independence, a more thoughtful narration could have added so much more depth
to the book. His grandfather was injured in France and returned home because of
his debility. Did it ever cross his mind whose war he was fighting, or for what
reason? How did the growing pitch of the freedom struggle affect him? Were he and/or
the people in his village, aware of it or not? Did he have any patriotic
dilemma regarding loyalties? His father joined the service in 1943, at a time
when the freedom struggle had reached a crescendo. What were his reasons for the
choice he made? The idea is not to judge them for their choices. But to
understand a narrative different from what one reads in history books.
Later on, the partition of the
Indian military in 1947, after which his father came to the Indian Army,
deserved more than platitudes like: ‘It was a time of great stress for my
parents... The effect was traumatic as well as tragic in many cases,
particularly for those soldiers and their families who happened to suddenly
find themselves living in the wrong country.’ Taking the easy way out, he fills
his narration by quoting from different sources, often fictional. For example,
to give the readers a sense of India’s Partition, he quotes from Khushwant
Singh’s ‘Train to Pakistan’. Or to
establish that his ancestors probably (he is not certain) were Aryans, he
quotes from a glossary on tribes and castes of Punjab and the Frontier
provinces. To think that he had such rich ready-made material at home, (both
his parents and his wife’s parents migrated from what became Pakistan) — borrowing
narrative is nothing but intellectual laziness.
The second restriction is his choice
of not writing anything ‘controversial’. As a result, he says nothing at all in
his book. This is a huge let-down, considering he served in important positions
during crucial times. During the Kargil conflict, he was Additional Director
General of Military Operations (ADGMO). During Operation Parakram (when India
nearly went to war with Pakistan on two occasions) he was Commander 1 Corps,
one of the Indian Army’s strike corps. He subsequently went on to command the Indian
Army’s prestigious Western Command, before becoming Army Chief. Yet, he writes
about all these events quoting from press reports. As if he wasn’t privy to
anything himself. His chapter on becoming Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee (CSC)
takes the cake. To describe India’s nuclear weapons’ capabilities across
domains, he quotes from Wikipedia!
All this begs two questions. Who
exactly did he write this book for? Is it for young soldiers, scholars of
defence, general readers or merely for his extended family? Because there is
nothing in the book, that is not already available in the public domain. Even details
about incidents like the time he was shot near the Line of Control (LOC), or
was nearly ambushed in Baramullah, frequently appeared in the media when he was
the chief. Even I have written about these incidents way back in 2005!
Perhaps, nobody told Gen. JJ that
writing a book isn’t like making a statement to the press. Unlike a media
report, a book has a shelf life, hopefully longer than the life of the author.
A book remains a reference point for the future; even those who didn’t know you
learn about you through your book. Hence, I believe an autobiography should be very
carefully thought through. Not only in terms of what you reveal in it but also
what kind of image you convey through it. ‘Controversial’ is hardly the adjective
one would use for an autobiography — it can be candid or cagey.
This raises the second question. What
exactly is the purpose of this book? It is true that to some extent that the
very act of writing an autobiography, smacks of self-aggrandisement. But surely
it is up to the author to determine how high he wants to raise the bar. Whether
he wants to gloss over crucial issues or take them head on. Instead of filling up
the chapter on Kargil (during which he was the ADGMO) with press reports, he
could have pointed out weaknesses in the Indian side, that led to the conflict.
He could have discussed if it was a politico-military disconnect, that led to a
severe loss of lives in the early days. Is it possible that Mumbai’s 26/11
happened because very few lessons were learnt from Kargil?
What feathers would Gen. JJ Singh have
ruffled, if he had addressed allegations of human rights violations against the
Indian Army? Instead of dismissing them by saying that ‘no violations occurred
during my tenure.’ After all, the fact that violations have happened, is not a
state secret. On the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), he says we should
be open to the idea of incorporating humane modifications in it. But he stops
short of suggesting what these could be.
And where he does dwell upon the
much-bandied concept of the iron fist and the velvet glove, he draws parallels
between the Indian Army’s operations in Kashmir and the United States/ North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is he
by any chance suggesting that Kashmir is our Afghanistan? Is the Indian Army,
God forbid, an occupation force in Kashmir?
His penchant for drawing parallels,
leads him to draw one between himself and Pakistan’s Army Chief and
subsequently its President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The chapter Musharraf and I
is the most embarrassing one in the book. The sad part is, it was completely
avoidable — both Gen. JJ Singh and his tenure as chief, had nothing to do with
Musharraf at all. The two didn’t even meet. Comparisons can never be fair. I
would have been horrified if somebody was to compare me with anyone in the
world. And here, Gen. JJ sets himself up for a comparison, concluding that he
was a better chief. Musharraf’s tenure as Pakistan Army chief will be judged by
his army. His tenure as President of that country (during which, in addition to
getting Major Non-Nato Ally status for his country, he got the US to give nearly
USD 20 billion as aid) would be judged by his country. Forget Gen. JJ,
Musharraf in his autobiography does not refer to any Indian military officer;
he only talks of the heads of the state. Even if Gen. Singh believed there were
favourable grounds for comparison, this alone should have dissuaded him.
The only place where Gen. JJ Singh sparkles
and goes beyond his chosen circle of comfort, is writing about Arunachal
Pradesh, where he is currently Governor. Perhaps, it is his fondness for the
place and its people. Or simply nostalgia (he served here as a young officer).
But he writes about his tenure there with affection and sincerity. Had he marshalled
this sentiment throughout the book, it would certainly have been a collector’s
item.
A Soldier’s General: An Autobiography
General J.J. Singh
HarperCollins, Pg 356, Rs 799
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