Spare the General: The Army should not be drawn into a political war

 SADLY, GENERAL MM Naravane’s as-yet-unpublished memoir has attracted unseemly and unnecessary controversy. Because the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi attempted in Parliament to make an issue of it.

The regrettable fallout of this unsavory political fracas is the denigration of the hallowed institution of the Indian Army, compounded by the tarnishing of a distinguished four-star general with an impeccable record.

I have observed in earlier columns how politics, even more than Bollywood and cricket, is our all-consuming national passion and pastime. All the eightrasas, except I am afraid the substratum santa or quietude, are involved and excited by politics. But, remember Pakistan, our desperate and unhappy neighbour? That is why I say please leave politics out—far as possible—from the Army.

But precisely the opposite happened on February 3, 2026. During a discussion of the motion of thanks on the president’s address in Lok Sabha, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi attempted to quote from the unpublished memoir, ‘Four Stars of Destiny’, of the former Army Chief General MM Naravane. Waving what he claimed were excerpts published in a magazine, Gandhi sought to highlight alleged lapses in political leadership during the 2020 India-China standoff in Ladakh.

This triggered a pandemonium in Parliament. Perhaps, I shouldn’t use the word harking back to Milton’s Paradise Lost where it denotes a place full of demons (pan = all + daimōn =demon). Should I say, instead, thatbedlamensued? But then it would invoke St Mary ofBethlehem, an institution for certified lunatics.

Let me retract both descriptors. After all, there was nothing “mad” about the melee or, at any rate, there was a method in the madness.

Treasury and the opposition benches yet again displaying their inability to get along and were at each other’s throats. Predictably, the former erupting in protest, prevented Gandhi from speaking. He was accused of breaching parliamentary norms by citing an unauthenticated, unpublished document. Speaker Om Birla adjourned the House multiple times, invoking Rules 349, 352, and 353.

Shouldn’t Parliament be a place where the government of the day faces questions from the opposition? Doesn’t invoking technicalities to silence the opposition only invite suspicion instead of inspiring confidence?

Not surprising that the next day, Gandhi doubled down outside Parliament, displaying a printed, but unauthorised copy of the book, asserting that the government denied the book’s existence while withholding clearance for its publication.

What are the facts? The book, contracted with Penguin Random House, a leading international publisher, has indeed been awaiting clearance at the Ministry of Defence since late-2023. The publisher has issued a statement clarifying that the book is not yet published and legal action will be taken against those circulating it.

Being an author myself, I hate to see a book “shadow banned” even before it sees the light of the day. Why not suggest edits if anything is found to be sensitive or objectionable in the book? I even dare say, deny permission, although I am totally against it, if the entire manuscript is found to be dangerous to national security.

After all, in the name of national security so much good—and bad—can be shoved under the carpet.

Let’s consider the book in question, now that pre-publication copies, albeit unauthorised, are in the public domain. There are two sticking points as far as the ruling party and the government are concerned. First, the Agniveer scheme, about which General Naravane had some issues. His views were well-known. The compensation offered to a would-be, albeit uncommissioned, soldier, who might be called upon to risk his life in combat, was too low. The government, if I am properly informed, did make amends, adding incentives and augmenting the package. The second, more serious, sticking point is the rub of the present controversy. It does appear that General Naravane felt not fully supported or directed in the 2020 eastern Ladakh standoff against China. Particularly on the night of August 31, 2020, at Rechin La on the Kailash Range, south of Pangong Tso. What happened in the end? He ordered Indian tanks to point at the Chinese. The latter backed off. The general’s gamble, as he himself puts it, paid off.

However, in this dark and uncertain hour, he was left on his own, without adequate briefing or backing by the political authorities.

This is one interpretation; the other is that the general was given a “free hand” in dealing with our adversary.

Did the Ministry of Defence anticipate trouble over this—or any other part—of the book? If so, they ought to have suggested correctives. But babus and the ministers, by and large, will never call a spade a spade.

Instead, they put the hot potato—whether it is a book, a report, or an uncomfortable official document—into cold storage. General Naravane’s book suffered such a fate though he sportingly said that it was “ageing like old wine.”

But, to the change the metaphor, now that the genie is out of the bottle, the battle lines are clearly drawn. Not between India and China, over which the current uproar rages. That bit is done and dusted, so to speak. But over politics, with the good general caught in the crossfire.

Suddenly, from being a decorated former Army chief, he is not even being addressed by his rank. Both sides have stopped referring to him as General Naravane. When politicians of either dispensation get hold of you, you are dragged through the mud, whether you like it or not. Overnight, a long-standing professor stops being called a professor, a doctorate becomes a mere mister.

One can laugh at this mayajaalor vanity fair; especially General Naravane, who also earned a PhD late in his life. His thesis on “Harmonising Naga Customs, Traditions and Institutions in the Context of Peace and Development in Nagaland” was submitted to the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala. He defended it in June 2023, after retiring as Army chief, thereby earning his doctorate.

Now, both sides, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress-led opposition, along with their vocal supporters on social media and beyond, have plunged into a partisan brawl. The casualty? The sanctity of the Indian Army and the unblemished reputation of a distinguished four-star general. All this, regrettably, for the sake of ‘dirty politics’.

I say to them, by all means carry on with your vile stock-in-trade. But please leave the armed forces and the good general out of it.