April 3, 2014, was the 100th birth anniversary of Field Marshal S.H.F.J. Manekshaw. A life size statue of the Field Marshal was unveiled at Manekshaw Centre, Delhi Cantt. An excellent coffee table book on him written by Brigadier Penthaki and his wife Zenoba, was also released. Army Chief General Bikram Singh unveiled the statue and released the book in the presence of five former Army Chiefs and a very large number of serving and retired Army officers.
Neither the defence minister nor the defence secretary attended this function. The government and the defence minister had ignored the military funeral of India’s first Field Marshal in 2008. The funeral of Britain’s first Field Marshal, the Duke of Wellington, was attended by all the heads of state and heads of government in Europe.
Like Krishna Menon’s tenure, A.K. Antony’s tenure has been bad for military preparedness. Civil-military relations in the ministry have nosedived. Sidelining the military from the process of decision making and denying its legitimate due started in 1947. This has been because of the politicians’ fear of the man on horseback and the civil bureaucracy’s stranglehold over our defence mechanism — exercising authority without accountability. Sidelining military from the process of decision making was one of the reasons for the 1962 disaster.
Yet this continues unabated. This is unlike in any democracy. From time to time cosmetic changes have been made but they have meant little. In 1955, the Services Chiefs were designated Chiefs of Staff as in other democracies, but they continued to function as Service Chiefs of attached offices subordinate to the ministry. After the Kargil War, a Kargil Review Committee was constituted. Its Defence Working Group under Arun Singh, a former minister of state, made far-reaching recommendations to reform the higher defence organisation. The Group of Ministers under L.K. Advani in the National Democratic Alliance government approved the recommendations for a Chief of Defence Staff and integration of the ministry of defence. Soon the United Progressive Alliance government came to power. These recommendations were subverted.
A headless integrated Defence Staff was established with no Chief of Defence Staff and a bogus integrated ministry without integration on issues of consequence. Naresh Chandra Committee under a former defence secretary during UPA-II regime skirted the issue of Chief of Defence Staff and recommended a toothless chairman Chiefs of Staff. Thus the stranglehold of bureaucracy continues with the defence secretary functioning as a virtual Chief of Defence Staff. On the centenary of India’s greatest soldier not even a postage stamp was issued to mark the occasion.
There was a delightful function at the Delhi Parsi Anjuman in Delhi on April 5, 2014. A few retired Army officers from Gorkha Regiments were invited to share their personal memories of Sam Manekshaw. This tour de force down memory lane brought to life Sam the man, the great war leader with unparalleled achievements, India’s greatest Army Chief and a splendid human being. He was a legend the likes of which one had not been seen nor is likely to see. Maj. Gen. Ashok Mehta, a well known defence analyst, urged that Manekshaw be given the Bharat Ratna. The Anjuman decided to start a campaign for this. Being the senior Gorkha veteran officer I was invited to speak both at Manekshaw Centre and Parsi Anjuman.
I first met Sam when he was a promising young Lt. Col. and I a junior Captain. We had just got off our motorbikes in the car park of South Block in September 1946. For the next 28 years of our Army service, I served under him in different ranks and appointments including as Maj. Gen. on his staff when he was the Army Chief during the 1971 war. In 1972, it was rumoured that he would be promoted as Field Marshal. The defence minister declared that India would not have a Field Marshal or a five star rank General. Yet on the night of December 31 I heard on the radio that the government had promoted Manekshaw Field Marshal. I was holding the fort as chief of personnel of the Army, responsible for manpower planning, ceremonials and discipline. I had to get government sanction for his perquisites and privileges.
A Field Marshal never retires. He gets a ceremonial gold embedded baton as part of his uniform, full pay for the rest of his life and a high protocol status. We made out a paper for all these. The ministry vehemently opposed each one of these. The bureaucracy argued that in the US a five star rank does not have a baton. And being a republic, we need not follow the practice in Britain which is a monarchy. I replied that the government had appointed Manekshaw Field Marshal and not a five star rank General. Duke of Wellington was the first Field Marshal of the British Army. The victor of the Battle of Waterloo set Britain on course to become a world superpower. He was raised to Dukedom, the highest award of his country reserved primarily for royalty. On that analogy we recommended that Manekshaw be awarded Bharat Ratna.
The holders of this award in protocol rank next to Cabinet ministers. The only recommendations approved for Manekshaw at that time was a baton most grudgingly and a meagerly special pay of '400 per month in addition to the normal pension of a Service Chief of '1,200 per month instead of full pay. A Field Marshal will rank with Service Chiefs and be junior to the Cabinet secretary.
In 2008, President Kalam had visited Manekshaw, then terminally ill in Military Hospital, Wellington. At his intervention the bureaucracy ultimately released his back pay. The defence secretary went to Wellington to hand over a cheque for over '1 crore to him. A few days later, I happened to be in Wellington. I went to see him. He told me “A babu from Delhi came to give me a cheque. I have sent it to my bank. I do not know if it will be honoured.” A couple of weeks later he passed away.
There is a silver lining now. Narendra Modi at an election rally in Ghaziabad paid rich tributes to Manekshaw. Hopefully, if he comes to power he will do justice to India’s greatest military hero whose achievements have been unique in the military history of India. He bequeathed to his nation, constantly conquered by foreign invaders for over 2,000 years, an unprecedented victory in which 92,000 enemy soldiers surrendered and a new nation of hundreds of millions was born. The Bharat Ratna was instituted in 1955 as “the highest award for national service”. Does he not more than richly meet that requirement?
