Lady and Gentlemen, Except for Shekhar Gupta, who alone highlighted the fact that the Army was guilty of making faulty plans while exonerating the babus and netas. He expected the army to refuse to carry out the bidding of the govt to adopt a forward posture postulated by BN Mullick, the self styled intelligence czar who (duly supported by babus) had specific intelligence that the Chinese will not react to our provocation. It is he who poisoned the minds of Nehru and his ilk that the Indian army may follow the example of our neighbour Ayub Khan. Consequently, the Indian army was starved of even basic equipment like web belts, boots and other field service equipment. I remember in the second half of 50s when a sudden spurt of recruitment was ordered due to the looming Chinese threat, we at Arty Centre did not have enough clothing for the new recruits. Then suddenly in lieu of trousers we received shorts which had a folded leg which could be buttoned in line with the fly!. These were left overs of the campaign in N Africa in early 40s so that soldiers could unbutton the folded portion at night when the temp dropped drastically. When I joined 17 Para Fd Regt in 1958 I found that none of the stores of clothing or FSMO were ever replaced on condemnation and the men had to buy them from the market at their own expense. The state of vehicles of the strategic reserve of the Army was such that when we went for any exercise to Babina ranges from Agra, our convoy of about 60 WWII vintage vehs took three days to reel up. It was the lot of Capt (later Maj Gen ) KS Pendse, our LAD officer to repair the stragglers who had broken down enroute. No wonder the guns rations or reinforcements never fetched up anywhere in NEFA or Ladakh at an appointed time. The pity is that the soldier knows that he is inadequately equipped for the task thrust on him but he must carry it out because of the countys, battalions and his comrades honour. Did not Gen Ved Malik say during the Kargil ops that we will fight with whatever we have. Will the soldier ever be able to fight without one of his hands tied behind his back? Turn to 1986. I attended a meeting in the COAS, Gen Sundarjis office on Armys 15 Year Perspective Plan. The meeting was chaired by Mr Arun Singh RRM and other attendees were PSOs, Def Sec, Addl Secy and all JS of MOD. I was there as the ADG Fin Plg who had worked on the financial viability. On arr I found for the first time, a tape recorder on the conference table. At the start of the mtg Arun Singh announced that he had just read the Henderson Brookes Report and he had decided that al the conversations will be tape recorded so that no one could change his stance later.( This was corroborated by a report in one of the newspapers yesterday that Krishna Menon (May He Squirm In Hell For Ever) had ordered that no notes will be taken in his mtgs.) You will be surprised that not a single babu spoke during the 2.5 hr mtg. Within a few days the Chief was to present the Plan to the CCPA in the Cabinet Sec office. All the high faluting Secs of the govt were present. It was comical that even though most had confessed that they had not fully read the document they made such silly suggestions as, the budget for the Rapid Divs of Rs 600 Crs be amended to Rs 580 Crs, or the cost of med guns be reduced by an amount of Rs 50 Crs. This time everyone was speaking but no notes were being taken to indicate who had made such valuable contributions to the discussion! Gentlemen, this how serious our discussions on national security are. God Bless India!!! Lt Gen SK Bahri (Retd)
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 13:55:37 +0000
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