Suspected coup spooks India
Posted on 11. Apr, 2012 by S M Hali in World News
By S. M. Hali
Last January, when the Indian government was at a standoff with its own Army Chief General Vijay Kumar Singh regarding his date of birth, unusual troop movements towards New Delhi “spooked” its rulers fearing a suspected coup d’état. General VK Singh is the first Indian Army Chief, who took his own government to court to prolong his tenure. The controversy arose because General Singh claimed that the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) was retiring him a year earlier following the date of birth (May 10, 1950) filled in by VK Singh himself in his application forms while joining the Army. Singh maintained that his actual year of birth was 1951, which would give him nine-month extension from May-end this year, and dragged the government to the Supreme Court on this. However, he lost the legal battle there and will hence retire in May 2012. The scandal caused great embarrassment to India and its Army but it now appears, it nearly toppled the cart of Indian democracy.
The reported coup attempt coincides with the date that VJ Singh took his case to the Supreme Court, January 16. A belated exposé made by the “Indian Express” reveals that fearful of being sacked for his effrontery, General Singh tried to preempt the possible extreme disciplinary action and mobilized an entire unit of Mechanized Infantry, with its Russian-made Armoured Fighting Vehicles, carried on 48 tank transporters from its base in Hisar (Haryana) as a part of the 33rd Armoured Division (which is a part of 1 Corps, a strike formation based in Mathura and commanded by Lieutenant General A K Singh) in the direction of the capital, 150 km away. While the Indian politicians, babus and spooks tried to gather their wits to deal with this unexpected development, reports came in of yet another military movement “towards” Delhi. This unit was identified as a large element of the airborne 50 Para Brigade based at Agra. Like all coup d’états, this ominous troop movement towards the capital was in the dead of the night. The government posted look outs and the Minister for Defence who had no clue of the march of India’s crack army units, which are an essential component of its much touted “Cold Start Doctrine” to overawe Pakistan through a “Blitzkrieg” towards Delhi, issued orders to slow down the traffic by deploying traffic police to check every vehicle. Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma was asked to cut short his visit to Malaysia. He returned posthaste and summoned Lieutenant General A K Choudhary, Director General Military Operations to seek explanations. Meanwhile the threat of a coup d’état became portentous as the mechanized unit parked itself at an industrial park near Bahadurgarh abutting West Delhi’s Najafgarh. The Para Brigade lodged its personnel in the barracks of an artillery regiment—79 Medium—not far from Palam airport.
The Army's explanation that it was all a simple fog-time exercise was viewed with skepticism at the highest level. Questions were raised as to “Why was the well-set protocol that any military movement, at any time, in the National Capital Region has to be pre-notified to MoD, not followed? Did the units have to come so far towards Delhi? Why was the IAF not informed?” My question: why the story was kept under wraps for eleven weeks?
The fact is during the 65 years of the independence of India, its army stayed absolutely out of politics, yet many people in India are not satisfied with the present government. None of India’s political forces will support a military coup but last year’s broad anti-corruption campaign and the deplorable results of the Congress at the regional elections of 2011-2012 indicate that the position of the central government is considerably weakened, and at the best it can hold out until the next elections, which are planned for 2014. Additionally, this was revealed in the course of scandals associated with the name of General Singh, that India is facing a significant dilemma now: how to combine its claim for regional leadership with the necessity to live within its means as the growth rate of the economy is slowing down, and the exchange rate of the national currency is falling. India is the world's largest importer of weapons and that reflects its geopolitical ambitions. Simultaneously, in his recent letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh General V. K. Singh described the deplorable state of the Indian army. Where there is smoke, there is fire; India should come clean regarding the suspected coup d’état.
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S M Hali
Dennis Dey
11. Apr, 2012
India has come clean about the "coup-de-etat". It did not exist. A coup can never take place in India, because of the Multi-religious multi-ethnic multi-state nature of the Armed Forces. Christ, Krishna and Allah are worshipped together in every unit Mandir. Remember that in the Bangladesh operation, the Cheif of Army Staff was a Parsi (Manekshaw), The GOC Easter Command was a Sikh (JS Arora) the Air Chief was a Muslim (Latif) , the Navy Chief was a Hindu (Nanda) and the Prime Minister was a woman (Indira Gandhi). The President soon after was a Muslim (Fakhruddin Ahmed).
Dennis Dey
11. Apr, 2012
continuing from above, let me add that the Chief of Staff, Indian Eastern Army Command in 1971 was Major General JFR Jacob, descended from a family of Baghdadi Jews. This immediately led the Pakistani press at the time to claim that Israel was helping India.