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BOOKS
Lion
Singh
The general
who won India the 1965 war shoots
from the hip
By
Himmat Singh Gill
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In
The Line Of Duty
By Harbakshi Singh
LANCER
Price: Rs. 595
PAGES: 440
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A
general's general and a jawan's pride, commander of the Western Army that
won India its first major war with Pakistan in 1965, Lt General Harbakhsh
Singh penned a hard-hitting and truthful memoir just before his death
a year ago. Harbakhsh, affectionately called "Hairbrush" by
his peers, reproduces his early carefree days with the 5/11 Sikh in Razmak
in the NWFP; the spine-chilling personal accounts of life in a Japanese
POW camp at Kluang in Malaya during World War II; the saving of Srinagar
with his I Sikh and Kumaonese boys when the Pakistani raiders had all
but taken the city in 1947; his command of 4 Corps, where he took over
the reins from an inefficient and ill but politically well-connected General
B.M. Kaul who had by then gifted away NEFA to the Chinese in 1962; and
finally his masterly conduct of operations on the western front in 1965.
Despite COAS General J.N. Chaudhuri asking him to fall back on the line
of the Beas river leaving Amritsar open to the enemy, he resolutely held
on, counter-attacked and snatched a well-deserved victory.
But sadly,
given all that the general had done for the nation, Harbakhsh writes he
was pipped to the post of COAS after General P.P. Kumaramangalam, with
Indira Gandhi selecting Sam Manekshaw instead. Harbakhsh recounts Kumaramangalam
had recommended his name and initially the Cabinet had ratified it. Harbakhsh
was informed of this "on telephone by Mr Malik of Intelligence, almost
immediately ... (But) I am told that he (foreign minister Dinesh Singh)
advised her that as a prime minister her desire should prevail. Accordingly,
she had it announced in the next day's papers that the next COAS was going
to be her choice-General Manekshaw". It was as simple as that.
Harbakhsh's
account of the 1965 war is revealing history. He also writes he had no
time for the Indian National Army and, as a POW, refused to join it. Of
K.M. Cariappa, Harbakhsh says, "The trouble with General Cariappa
was that he had never commanded troops in battle; nor even heard a shot
'fired in anger', so to speak." There's no way you can avoid reading
this no-nonsense account.
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The
stock markets are humming, and it's feel-good time once again, writes
INDIA TODAY Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in 
