Bravo Justice Mathur

Just a short post this time. Justice Mathur, the man hearing the petition by Lt Gen Avadesh Prakash in the AFT has made a statement which will echo throughout the ages. Commenting on the assertions of the counsel of the former MS that "this is the reward he has got for his VSMs and AVSMs", the good judge said, "these AVSMs, VSMs do not make you a holy cow". How true Justice Mathur. The problem is that too many bad eggs have got these so-called distinguished service medals, and the moment they get it, they think they are holy cows. Thank God he did not get a PVSM. But there is another medal which can be instituted given the number of corrupt Generals popping out of the wood: Param Bhrasht Seva Medal !

The General Doth Protest Too Much

The Chandigarh edition of Hindustan Times has been quite charitable to Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi (retd), former Vice Chief of Army Staff. In that it has devoted nearly a quarter page to his article castigating the media and the defence minister....and oops, lest I forget....busybody bureaucrats in South Block who have nothing better to do than give juicy leaks to the media.
I have immense respect for the General with whom I have had the priviledge of interacting many-a-times when I was with Hindustan Times in Chandigarh. But unfortunately, I do not agree with what he has written today in defence of the Army Chief.
The questions which begs to be asked is....who brought things to this pass? Certainly not the media. It was not the media which prompted a cold war between the Army Chief and the Eastern Army Commander with the Military Secretary acting as a catalyst for the former. And it was certainly not the bureaucracy which asked the GOC 33 Corps to get influenced by the MS and agree to sign the NOC.
And aren't we....the horrible journalists sick and tired of the oft repeated assertions..... look how much money the politicians make, look how the IAS and IPS officers amass ill-gotten gains and look at our poor little scams which pale in comparision to Satyam, Harshad Mehta etc etc.
My take is.....either do not act like holy cows or accept the veneration and the consequent fall from grace which comes after being put on a pedestal by the nation. The simple fact is the Army, or rather, the defence services are the last bastions of propriety left in the mind of the citizens of this country....and that includes irresponsible journalists too. But with the Army officers increasingly falling prey to pleasures of easy money, especially the General cadre, alas, this gloss is fading.
As any informed person who has intimate knowledge of the Sukna affair knows, it is a war of the Generals. The one who was hunted earlier has now become the hunter...and he has struck back with a vengeance. Lt Gen Oberoi is right when he questions the monetary cost of the scam....virtually nil. No one would have bothered whether the NOC was given under duress from the MS or if a private builder was setting up a school based on fake papers had there not been icy relations between the Army Chief and the now COAS-designate.
And because of this, the actions of Army Chief, in recommending administrative action against the MS instead of the outright dismissal recommended by the Army Commander, must have seemed as a step to save the accused.
Frankly, I would love to read an equally voluminous piece by a retired three-star General, any General, on why the Army has not had a DG Ordnance Services for the past nearly two years. Why is it that scores of Major Generals of Ordnance are mired in one scam after another resulting in their non-empanellment for futher promotion? Why the ASC was emboilled in a similar situation in a couple of years earlier resulting in no officer occupying the appointment of DGST?
And lastly, in defence of the defence minister. Is he not the same person who stood by the Army Chief when he moved out the Northen Army Commander to Central Command despite the fact that there were very distrubing allegations levelled against the COAS? Wasn't he the one who turned a blind eye when virually all officers indicted in the tent and egg scam in Northern Command were given lesser punishments than what had been recommended?
I cannot and will not accuse the Army Chief of not telling the complete truth in this entire affair. But, to quote 'Yes Prime Minister'......"There's a lot of difference between not telling lies and not telling the truth".

There are Many Chatwals in Military too

It is interesting to see the furore in the media over the Padma Bhushan awarded to the controversial hotelier, Sant Singh Chatwal. And this brings to mind the military system of dispensing distinguished service medals and commendation cards. Why the media does not question these, is beyond my comprehension. One of my former Editors, Kanwar Sandhu had once written about the "yellow fever'" (given the yellow colour of the distinguished service awards) that afflicts officers once they reach a certain rank. He remained the object of hate amongst the "yellow fever biradari" for quite some time.
The fact of the matter is that PVSMs and AVSMs are doled out in ample quantities as per a well laid out system and of course the likes and dislikes of the chain of command. Very few of AVSMs and VSMs are truly deserved. Now, SM (D) is also being doled out to all and sundry who have nothing to show by way of actually doing anything distinguished. So what is the SOP for awarding these medals? Is there any policy at all? Why are PVSMs doled out to every head of arm or service regardless of any good he may have done at all? Who has ordained that each head of arm and service will be given a PVSM? All Army Commanders too get it once the reach that coveted rank. And now UYSMs are being handed over for counter-insurgency ops. Lt Gen RK Swamy, Chief of Staff Southern Command has got it for some good that he did as GOC 16 Corps. These UYSMs, SYSMs and YSMs were put in place for regular ops and not CI ops. But maybe someone was able to convince the Army HQs that since there is no likelihood of a war taking place in near future why waste these perfectly good awards which will fetch the awardees much needed extra points when the selection board takes place. Again no one raises a question, no one puts in an RTI application.
And then there are those ubiqutous commendation cards. With the COAS and VCOAS commendation cards being handed about like toffees, the less said the better abou the GOC-inC commandation cards. I know of officers who have nearly a dozen such awards. A dozen, no less. And for what? For playing golf, for sucking up to the bosses and for running around for the memsahib, perhaps? And all this at the cost of hundreds of deserving officers, JCOs and ORs who have really done something to get these cards.
This is a bigger scam than the civilian awards. The common man takes it for granted that the civilian awards are manipulated. but he does not yet know that so is the case with military awards too. And very soon, this misconception of his will be cleared. And the military may end up with more egg on its face.

Have we heard the last of the MS saga?

I think not. this is not the last we will hear about this sordid affair. for the simple reason that it is the sympton of the problem and not the problem itself. The discord between the Army Chief and two of his Army Commanders (Lt Gen Panag and then Lt Gen VK Singh) will reverbate long after he ceases to be the COAS. The damage done to the institution is immense because never as any Chief been pilloried to this extent in the media and his reputation put in tatters before the average citizen of the country. But then, such are the consequences when you try to defend the indefensible and try to brush things under the carpet. Slowly, but steadly, more skeletons are going to tumble out. More scams are going to make their presence felt. And all this will be before the COAS, Gen Kapoor, hangs his uniform. For more, you will have to keep an eye on Headlines Today!!

THE LULL IS OVER

Guys, I'm back. sorry for the immense gap between the posts. I am now better placed to update the blog and articulate what is happening in the defence establishment. From now on there will be regular updates on this blog. I do not intend to "break news" on this blog (because if I have anything of that sort it will go to the organisation I work for), but I would like to bring out an analysis of the developments which may differ from what appears in the mainstream media.

So the journey begins anew.....

Is it a bird? Is it a brick? Is it a Sukhoi?

The question which is haunting many of our esteemed defence correspondents in Delhi is whether the Sukhoi-30MKI is grounded or not. Several of them are vexed over the question, many have taken various postures over the issue, some have gone ahead and done stories saying the fleet is indeed sitting on ground, others have gone ahead and printed/published vehement denials from 'sources' in the IAF denying any 'grounding'. Well the fact of the matter is that the SU-30MKI squadrons are not flying as of now. Till the fault which led to the unfortunate crash and the loss of life is identified these flying machines will have to wait on the tarmac. It is nobody's case that these jets have been grounded for an indefinite period. But the basic point remains that as a precautionary measure these aircraft have not been taking to the skies immediately after the accident in Rajasthan. Now, even if in a knee jerk reaction some 'sources' in IAF choose to let it dawn on some correspondents that the aircraft is not grounded, even then the discretion to question this assertion lies with the journalists. Carrying the official version need not be done in a servile manner which is akin to kow-towing. There is indeed something known as informed dissent. And the official version can always be questioned. But the nice part of it all is that there is no official version. The IAF will not comment officially on the crash till a preliminary report on the cause of the crash is revealed. So till then, there will be a battle fought in the defence correspondents community on the semantics of 'grounding'.

Army takes on MHA?

Are Army and MHA on a collision course? Is there a difference in opinion among them? Well the events in the past few days leading upto today seem to confirm this. On one hand the home secretary, Madhukar Gupta, goes on record to dismiss reports of heavy influx of infiltrators in J&K, which were being run in section of the electronic media. And lo and behold, just a few days later, the Army conducts a press conference of a militant caught near Gurez, who announces that there were nearly 120 militants waiting to cross the LC and that there were 31 of them who crossed over the India. This take the fizz out of the comments made by the home secretary who was at pains to suggest that the reports of electronic media were exaggerated. He had pointed out that he and the defence secretary had visited the valley and had been briefed on the issue and that the actual number of militants waiting to cross over was very low. but the manner in which the press conference was conducted, and the fact that select television news channels were represented by their reporters all the way from Delhi, seems to suggest that the event had been planned in such a manner that it deliberately contradicted what the MHA was saying. And the Delhi reporters were tipped off in advance of the conference so that they placed themselves in Srinagar a day in advance.
Anyway, these silly games apart, this brings us to the question as to who is right, the Army or the MHA? And why is there a sharp difference of opinion on the facts and figures. Is MHA playing down the numbers or is Army hyping them up? To add to the merry go round, the defence minister is hopping across to the valley to take a first hand look at the situation. The ball now seems to be in the court of P. Chidambaram and his babus.