After months of disputing his date of birth, Gen. V.K. Singh, chief of army staff (COAS), has finally moved court. This is the first time in India’s history that a serving army chief has taken such a step. In a country where few institutions have survived degeneration of some kind, it marks a low for an organization that is a source of pride for citizens of all persuasion.
The source of the trouble is the two conflicting dates of birth in two different offices in the army. In the adjutant general’s branch—the administrative wing of the army that maintains data on personnel —his date of birth is registered as 10 May 1951. The date in the records of the military secretary’s branch—responsible for career planning and promotions—is listed as 10 May 1950. If the government accepts 1951 as his date of birth, as the general wants it to—then he will retire in 2013. Otherwise his tenure as army chief will end in May.
Shyamal Banerjee/Mint
Singh claims this is a matter of his honour and has nothing to do with remaining in office for another year. This is a duplicitous argument. A more prudent—and certainly more honourable—course for him would have been to resign and then approach the courts to vindicate his honour. If anything, he has besmirched the high office he occupies. If indeed this were the case, why did he accept earlier promotions that were based on the 1950 date? In any case, when one joins the service, there are opportunities to get errors in one’s basic data (date of birth, misspellings in name, etc.) rectified. But there is a stage for that: when one is COAS, that stage is long past.
Given the uncertainty about his age, and in turn his retirement date, there is, now, vicious jockeying among the country’s senior generals to succeed him. It is not a happy sight to see charges and counter-charges being hurled at senior general officers all because they want to become the chief. Irrespective of what Singh or anyone else says, this will have a corrosive effect on the army.
The lion’s share of the blame, however, must lie with the government, in general, and defence minister A.K. Antony, in particular. Letting matters fester to the point where the army chief openly contests the government’s fixation of his date of birth—after it secures three different and concurring opinions from the attorney general—betrays a cavalier attitude towards a sensitive matter. Singh should have been sacked. But there is nothing surprising here: the hallmark of this government is incompetence.
Honour or tenure: what explains the controversy over the army chief’s age? Tell us at views@livemint.com