Admiral D.K. Joshi, the Chief of the Navy, resigned on February 26, taking moral responsibility for the recent accidents involving submarines for which he was in no way personally responsible. It reminds one of Lal Bahadur Shastri resigning as minister for railways after a serious train derailment.
The resignation of a Service Chief is a matter of grave concern. The fact that the nation is in election mode and election fever is reaching a crescendo should not be a reason for not examining all the dimensions of the problem and taking suitable corrective action.
The credo on the portal of the Indian Military Academy reads, “The safety, honour and welfare of your country come first always and every time. The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next. Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time.” When a Service Chief is not in a position to act as per the first two requirements for reasons beyond his control, what should he do? Should he resort to a coup and take over power to discharge those responsibilities? Most certainly not. The other option is to go public and file a statutory complaint or seek redress in court.
It is not clear why the government accepted the admiral’s resignation within a day. When Gen. Thimayya, a charismatic general respected internationally, resigned over the abrasive behaviour of the then defence minister, V.K. Krishna Menon, who interfered in promotions and functioning of the Army, Nehru immediately sent for him. Nehru evoked his sense of patriotism, asking him to withdraw his resignation.
The Pakistan military dictator Ayub Khan was passing through Delhi and his resignation would send a wrong message to the world about Indian democracy. He assured him that his grievances would be addressed and a solution found.
It is a different matter that subsequently Nehru criticised Thimayya in Parliament for his immaturity. Thimayya should have resigned the second time. By not doing so, he damaged his own image and harmed the interests of the Army. In hindsight, one can say that had Thimayya resigned the second time and stuck to that, the stranglehold of the bureaucracy over the military would not have become as strong as it now is. Possibly, the 1962 debacle could have been avoided. The resignation of a much respected and highly professional Naval Chief, Admiral Arun Prakash, is another case in point. He resigned because of a criminal act in the Navy’s war room — an officer was leaking top secret documents.
The government persuaded him to withdraw his resignation. The individual concerned was identified and was being proceeded against. This was an entirely different case that did not call for the Chief’s resignation.
The political executive has the right to sack a Service Chief in a democracy. The latter should accept this unquestioningly. Instances of Service Chiefs being sacked in India and in the US are relevant. More recently, Adm. Vishnu Bhagwat was immediately sacked for indiscipline. He went to court after he was made to leave the service. The court upheld the government’s decision. The greatest US general in history, Douglas Mac Arthur, with an unmatched war record in two World Wars and after, was sacked for publicly questioning his government’s war policy in Korea. He accepted his government’s decision without a murmur. When summoned to the bar of the US Congress, he said: “Old soldiers never die, they fade away.”
It is amazing that the same A.K. Antony, who dithered for over one year and took no action against an Army Chief, accepted Adm. Joshi’s resignation in such undue haste, ignoring the culpability of his own ministry that exercises authority without accountability. Unlike in any democracy, Service Chiefs in India are denied direct access to the Prime Minister and have been totally sidelined by the bureaucracy. The haste with which Adm. Joshi’s resignation was accepted only proves this. As defence minister, Mr Antony may have saved his snow white reputation for honesty, but in the process he has inordinately sacrificed national interests by delaying modernisation of the military and leaving it ill equipped to meet the grave threats to our national security. Krishna Menon through his abrasiveness, Communist leanings and myopic strategic thinking had done the same.
A new government coming to power must not allow the history of 1962 to be repeated.
I conclude by saluting the moral courage and sacrifice of Adm. Joshi. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for the nation.
