India is about to attain the distinction of sending an Army Chief home without any retirement orders and without responding to his statutory complaint. The biggest loser is the military with an ambivalent government and a gloating Clique.

The susceptibility of the fourth estate to the intelligence community had tied our hands down. They are one of the too many holy Indian cows. Some of them, as described by a senior member of the fourth estate, ‘taxi on hire.’ Any paymaster can hire this particular brand,” thus wrote M.K. Dhar, former Joint Director IB in his book Top Secret – India’s Intelligence Unveiled some years back.

Involvement of high profile media personalities in the Nira Radia episode too is open secret. This is what is being exploited by The Clique – an appallingly deplorable group in the government, linked to arms mafia, that feeds on political unilateralism-cumfavouritism and is hell bent on breaking the cohesion of the military. Editor of a national daily front-paging an attempted military coup should be no surprise. He must have compulsions – links, skeletons? The Sunday Guardian talks of the story having been fed to the editor by a high profile Union Minister whose relatives are linked with the arms mafia.

The editor sites a “reliable source”. Perhaps the same “reliable source” on whose basis, the same editor frontpaged news of retirement orders of the Army Chief having been issued when there was none. Describing this editor, Ambassador (Retd) K. Gajendra Singh wrote on April 5, 2012, “….A top US/Mumbai corporate interests count, who also disseminates the ruling party’s line and is suitably rewarded by invitations to official dinners, etc. Like many others who have prostituted the profession of journalism,.… will probably be nominated to Rajya Sabha.”

The Clique has misused the media with impunity, subverting propriety of some high profile members of the fourth state. Recently, an inebriated former NSA was brought in for a TV debate, slurring in full public view and stooping to lowest levels of propriety – payback time for Padma Vibhushan courtesy the Boston Bailout, as per Dr Subramaniam Swamy. The interviewer, unable to rid his ghosts of 1962, obviously considers his dad (1962 fame) the “worst chief” and wants the label passed on to someone else any which way notwithstanding the atmosphere of total political unilateralism and political favouritism prevailing in 1962 and is no different from today.

The Clique has also unleashed few loose cannons (mostly diplomats and bureaucrats) that fire talcum powder smelling of lies instead of gunpowder. The loosest of them all is a 1974 batch former diplomat (another rumoured Rajya Sabha nominee) who keeps up the monologue that General V.K. Singh should resign. He had the audacity to say on national TV on February 3, 2012, that the series of trashy articles against the Army Chief in a newspaper published ex-Chandigarh were authorised by the Prime Minister himself. Look at the arrogance of this fellow. On another occasion, he said the Army Chief should be worried about Maldives knowing full well when required to assist the military will be there in a matter of hours but it is his own colleagues in the foreign office who are clueless to happenings even in our immediate neighbourhood – difficult to find a bigger fake and he has the gumption of labeling General V.K. Singh a “loose cannon”. Others keep harping on strictures by Supreme Court to General V.K. Singh, which is completely false.

The Clique aided by government silence has continuously heaped muck on General V.K. Singh, hoping he will resign in disgust. The factual position today is that no retirement orders have been issued for General V.K. Singh and his statutory complaint is unanswered by Government of India. India is about to attain the distinction of sending an Army Chief home without any retirement orders and without responding to his statutory complaint. The biggest loser is the military with an ambivalent government and a gloating Clique.

The views expressed herein are the personal views of the author.