Of Bonapartists

India has some too

The issue of the two army chiefs, in India and Pakistan, still dominate the discussions. Chief of Army Staff V K Singh has done an unprecedented thing by moving the Supreme Court on his birth year which he claims is 1951 while the government says repeatedly that it is 1950, meaning thereby he retires this May.

I wish the matter had been handled with care and caution. Preferably some amicable settlement should have been found and things allowed not to come to such a pass. Defence Minister A K Antony is known to be balanced and experienced. Why did he let the issue reach the point of no return?

Yet that does not justify General Singh’s knock at the Supreme Court’s door. He could not have made a worse choice and will now encourage talk that the civil setup has humiliated the armed forces. What BJP leader Jaswant Singh, a parliament member, has said is tantamount to Bonapartism. He says the sword of the armed forces has been blunted. Thank god, he is not in the government. Otherwise, the retired army officer that he is, he would have done unimaginable harm to democracy. It is a pity that even the 15 years he has spent in parliament has not yet worn out the dictatorial tendencies in him. In democracy, the civil side is supreme and not the military or any other institution.

When I rang up former Air Chief Idris Latif at Hyderabad, he was horrified over General Singh’s appeal to the Supreme Court. He is probably of the old school that service comes before self and that the military does not challenge the order of a government, whatever one’s feelings.

After General Singh had accepted the year 1950 for promotions, particularly at the time of his elevation as army chief, he should not have gone back on his commitments. This is what he and his supporters should ponder over. Their behaviour smacks of dangerous ambitions and when some former top brass interpret the age issue as a civil-military confrontation, they mock at India’s democratic state.

People are proud of the armed forces but they do not want them to be anything except apolitical. Once the government, elected by the people, decides anything there is no question of disobeying it. General Singh should have resigned and then gone to the court if he was so incensed.

I wish the BJP had rapped General Singh on the knuckles. Or, does Jaswant Singh represent their viewpoint? No doubt, the government has handled the case insensitively. But the question has become bigger. The COAS has challenged the Union of India. There is no dilly-dallying when the question of the country comes. General Singh has wrongly been advised and he has compromised the position he holds.

The government has filed a caveat in the Supreme Court so that the case is not decided without hearing the other side. It is a case of indiscipline and should have been dealt that way, not through the court. I am shocked to hear that some compromise has been tried through back channels. This should have been done before the army chief went to the court. Now it looks like a compromise at the expense of people’s sovereignty which the government represents.

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has been taken over by some other developments in Pakistan. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani put the army chief on the spot by criticising him that he should have sent his reply to the Supreme Court inquiry not directly. Not only that, Gilani dismissed his defence secretary and also went on to say that he would not tolerate “state within state.”

While the army posted at Islamabad the infamous brigade which has helped stage coups in the past, Gilani convened the meeting of parliament to declare the confrontation was between democracy and dictatorship. He wanted a vote of confidence in him and there was indeed consensus in the support of democracy.

I know PM Gilani went out of his way to defend in parliament General Kayani and ISI chief Shuja Pasha when America killed Osama bin-Laden in Abbottabad without letting Islamabad know. But everyone learns from their mistakes and Gilani is no exception. In fact, he has brought the nation together behind the demand of democracy after realising that whatever the outcome of the crisis, Pakistan’s problems essentially flow from the control of the army over administrative matters.

Another development in Pakistan is that the Supreme Court has issued a contempt notice to Gilani, for which he has respectfully appeared in court. He has been taken to task for not obeying the court’s order for reopening the cases of corruption against President Asif Ali Zardari. The government’s defence has been that both of them and some others were exonerated by former President General Pervez Musharraf through the NRO he issued.

Whatever the outcome of this case, he is the first prime minister who has withstood the pressure of the army. People may ask him why he did he not stand up before in the four years of his regime? Probably, the army did not throw its weight about. Probably, Gilani was waiting for an opportunity and hit back when it arose.

True, all eyes are on the Supreme Court – the Supreme Court which gave legal sanctity to the first coup by General Ayub inventing “a doctrine of necessity”. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has given independence to the institution, something which Pakistan needs.

Indeed, Pakistan has changed. But India is yet to understand how. People and political parties are unanimous in opposing to the return of the military. Democracy has come to stay, however belatedly. This prepares the ground for both countries to be friendly neighbours. There is no option but peace. Even if they consider it a punishment, they are sentenced to work towards normalisation.

The writer is a senior Indian journalist.