"General" rule

For it was for the post - that of the Chief of Army Staff that has thus far saved the man, because we all know what happens to those who blow the lid off corruption in India. The Manjunaths , Amit Jethwas , Satyendra Dubeys have all perished in search of what Holmes would have called the search for truth and a matter of morals. You blow the whistle; they blow the life out of you – simple Math some would argue. ‘Strangely’, we do not have a strong law that protects these men who expose corruption – something that America realized in 1863, still eludes us. America had the False Claims act to protect whistleblowers by combating fraud by suppliers of the United States government during the Civil War. It encouraged whistleblowers by promising them a percentage of the money recovered or damages won by the government and protects them from wrongful dismissal. But then, America was then steered by the great Abraham Lincoln, a man who ‘took decisions’.

What started as a bemusing spat between the Army and the government has now become quite amusing. For you now know that the Chief is right (though a little sloppy with the timing) and the government rattled. When the Congress accuses Gen Singh for ‘not wanting to pursue’ the matter concerning the alleged bribe that was offered to him for substandard defense purchases, they forget that the Defense Minister, by virtue of being informed about this and being the senior in command order, held the onus. He failed to act. In fact, he should have even questioned the General as to why he did not want to pursue this matter! Congress’s claim of a disgruntled Chief due to his lost age case in Supreme Court is as childish as one can possibly imagine. They also claim that a letter claiming the obsolescence of Indian defense equipments was leaked by General Singh himself and above that that there was no need for such a letter. However, such letters are prerogative of the head of Armed forces to write to the PM when he seems fit. In this case, all the more reason as General V.K.Singh has limited number of days in the office (though SC still calls the age case ‘ambiguous’). Also, he would not gain anything from this leak and in fact would be liable to court-martial if found guilty. Would any chief risk his life earned reputation on this? Surely not.

This issue has another angle - the role of media. While The Hindu was cognizant of the importance of the news and its potential to create ripples in the society, consequently taking time to verify and sanity check the interview with the General before publishing , The Indian Express sensationalize the ‘movement of troop’ – a possible Coup d’état by the Indian army. Even simple logic eluded the latter. If 1000 soldiers could throw the government, surely we would have been in a military regime. The least The Indian Express could have done was to consult ex-army men before ‘exposing’ / exaggerating the entire episode. They would have been told that these normal fleet movements are but a part of routine, scheduled well over in advance.

While I used ‘amusing’ as a word defining parts of this entire controversy, it is quite disheartening to see glaring loopholes in the matter of Defense ignored. It’s high time we integrated the Army headquarters and the Ministry of Defense where both jointly take the decision of purchase of equipments, as the military would know what they want in the field and the government would know how to best bargain the price. Let us hope that what seems so intuitive to us, does not get unnoticed by the policy makers, at least now.