The Fauji Way: Radio Niticentral interviews me on why I am writing this book

On Monday, Niticentral Radio interviewed me on my fauji connection and the new book that I intend to write on the ways of the Indian military.

Listen to the podcast here: www.niticentral.com/2014/07/14/nitin-gokhale-on-how-armed-forces-can-be-re-inspired-233275.html

And read about the book project here: 

 CALLING ALL FAUJIS!

The Fauji Way: Military tales from the cantonments

The Indian armed forces, among the top three militaries in the world, are a unique entity.

Forged in the crucible of the two great wars in the 20th century, nurtured by traditions that some time date back 200 years and sustained by a support system that is a combination of regimental loyalty,... personal bonding and sheer survival instinct of the fauji fraternity, the Indian military has a lifestyle of its own.

For outsiders, military life in India's sprawling cantonments looks like a perpetual celebration. But only those who have lived in the closed community of the fauj know it is anything but glamorous.

The wives (more commonly called the Spouse) go through constant shifting of house every two years, the children learn to change schools frequently and make new friends each time the father gets posted to a distant location.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the money was never enough; but the perks of 'Bharat Darshan' on the house more than made up for the shoe string household budget.

Over the years since Independence, much like the Indian society, the fauji life has undergone much change in the past six decades. And yet fundamentally, many things remain constant.

This book will chronicle the wonderful, varied, exasperating triumphs and tragedies of fauji families. Their struggle, their achievements and more importantly the unique life that makes the military stand out in the mosaic that is India.

The book will not be possible without contribution from all the faujis and their spouses; the parents and the children who grow up to be as resilient as anyone possibly can.

So here's calling every fellow fauji brat, fauji spouse and fauji mothers and last but not the least, the fauji father to get in touch with me with your stories, anecdotes, unforgettable experiences--the works.

Please email your stories/contacts/suggestions to thefaujiway@gmail.com and I will take as many on board as possible.

Let's show the world what we are made up of!

Fulfilling a sacred contract with the soldier

 

The  Ministry of Defence will soon invite international bids for constructing a National War Memorial at India Gate following the allocation of Rs 100 crore in the budget for 2014-15 presented to the Parliament on Thursday.

Although a basic design and concept for the proposed memorial is available with the Indian Army, the authorities want to explore more possibilities within that framework. 

The proposed layout for the War Memorial

 

Defence ministry sources said the proposed concept includes a museum and a walkabout. Some of the images from a presentation made to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by the Army last month suggest 

• Landscaping/sloping up of lawns around 'Chhattri' to create retaining walls for writing names of martyrs - post independence
• No disturbance at all to existing structure of India Gate and 'Chhattri'

•  
 
• 

  

  The proposed underground 'shradhanjali kaksh'

  Construction of Shradhanjali Kaksh and auditorium at Princess Park and Armed Forces Museum at Jodhpur Hostel (adjacent but outside the India Gate complex) and connecting these with the war memorial through underground passages


 



The proposed walls that will have martyrs' names

This is a welcome development. Otherwise 64 years after India became a Republic, we are still paying homage at India Gate, built by the British for the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the Imperial power in World War I! 
 
It is important to honour all the soldiers who have given blood, sweat and life for preserving India's independence and protecting its sovereignty. Otherwise, India will be like Japan or Germany, post-WW II—big economies without adequate military muscle. Let them know we care for them through the year and not just on two or three ritualistic occasions.

 It’s important to recall what Kautilya (not Sun Tzu as many of us are fond of quoting) said ages ago about the duty of the King (in this case the Government) towards the soldier: “A country makes a sacred contract with its soldiers. A country that refuses to respect this contract with its armed forces will eventually end up getting forces that will not respect the nation (government).”

The proposed underground auditorium

  

Kautilya, better known as Chanakya, also reminded King Chandragupta Maurya:

“The day the soldier has to demand his dues, will be a sad day.”
 
Fortunately, after years of stalling a War Memorial, soldiers can look forward to a befitting memorial for their fallen comrades.

 

Announcing a new book project!

 CALLING ALL FAUJIS!

The Fauji Way: Military tales from the cantonments

The Indian armed forces, among the top three militaries in the world, are a unique entity.

Forged in the crucible of the two great wars in the 20th century, nurtured by traditions that some time date back 200 years and sustained by a support system that is a combination of regimental loyalty,... personal bonding and sheer survival instinct of the fauji fraternity, the Indian military has a lifestyle of its own.

For outsiders, military life in India's sprawling cantonments looks like a perpetual celebration. But only those who have lived in the closed community of the fauj know it is anything but glamorous.

The wives (more commonly called the Spouse) go through constant shifting of house every two years, the children learn to change schools frequently and make new friends each time the father gets posted to a distant location.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the money was never enough; but the perks of 'Bharat Darshan' on the house more than made up for the shoe string household budget.

Over the years since Independence, much like the Indian society, the fauji life has undergone much change in the past six decades. And yet fundamentally, many things remain constant.

This book will chronicle the wonderful, varied, exasperating triumphs and tragedies of fauji families. Their struggle, their achievements and more importantly the unique life that makes the military stand out in the mosaic that is India.

The book will not be possible without contribution from all the faujis and their spouses; the parents and the children who grow up to be as resilient as anyone possibly can.

So here's calling every fellow fauji brat, fauji spouse and fauji mothers and last but not the least, the fauji father to get in touch with me with your stories, anecdotes, unforgettable experiences--the works.

Please email your stories/contacts/suggestions to thefaujiway@gmail.com and I will take as many on board as possible.

Let's show the world what we are made up of!

Getting to know the PLA better: aim of military CBMs

Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh leaves for China late tonight as part of the new emphasis on increased military to military contacts between the armed forces of India and China. An Indian Army Chief is visiting China after a long gap of nine years. 

Gen Singh is scheduled to meet the Vice President but more importantly, the Indian Army Chief will have one-on-one meetings with the Vice Chairman of the all-powerful Central Military Commission and the Chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army.

 

The Indian Army Chief will also address China's National Defence University. But the three-day visit of the Army Chief is just part of the 2014 plan to enhance defence exchanges between the two countries that treat each other warily not the least because of the 1962 border war but also because of their long-standing border dispute. According to the plan drawn up at the beginning of this year, 10 Chinese and 9 Indian military delegations are to visit each other throughout this year. 

While a Chinese PLA delegation led by one of its top most military leaders, the deputy chief of general staff (operations)  Lieutenant General Qi Jianguo, visited India in April, a team from Indian Army's Eastern Command is scheduled to visit the Lanzhou Military Area Command. 

This week for the first time, a Chinese military-media delegation will be in India to hold talks with the Indian Defence Ministry's media's and publicity wing. Led by a Senior Col (equivalent to a Brigadier of the Indian Army), in charge of Information Affairs Bureau under the ministry of National Defence, this team will be briefed in details about media policies and media interaction model of the Indian armed forces by officers of the Indian Army's media and perception management wing. The Chinese delegation will also visit the Indian troops that have participated in the UN Peacekeeping missions and the Delhi-based National Defence College.  

As reported earlier, during the April visit of the high level Chinese delegation, India and China earmarked four locations along their contested border for holding emergency meetings to quickly resolve possible standoffs.  

These locations, all in Ladakh, are Track Junction, Pangang Tso Lake, Demchock and Chumar. The locations were finalized late last month when held day-long talks with an Indian Army team led by the vice Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Dalbir Singh.  All the four locations have been witness to standoffs and intrusions in recent times, leading to tension at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as the unsettled border between the two countries is known. 

In addition to the four flag meeting points, the two countries have also decided to open two more locations for holding scheduled annual meetings between senior field officers. So far these annual conferences known as Border Personnel Meetings take place at Bumla in Arunachal Pradesh, Nathula in Siukkim and Chushul in Ladakh. From now on, troops across the nearly 4,000-km long LAC will have two more places--Kibithoo in Eastern Arunachal Pradesh and Mana Pass in Uttarakhand--to meet at least four times a year, on the occasion of each others' national days. 

The two sides also decided to establish a hotline between the Indian Army's Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) and an equivalent officer in the PLA HQ in Beijing. 

All these decisions are part of the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) that New Delhi and Beijing have decided to pursue after the signing of the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) signed by the Prime Ministers of the two countries in October 2013. 

The plan to increase the frequency of military-to-military contacts will get a further boost when a two year plan to post Indian Naval and an Air Force Attaches is implemented by end-2014. So far only an Indian Army Colonel and a Lt Col were posted in the Indian Embassy in Beijing.
Indian security establishment is however not letting the CBMs come in the way of building and strengthening India's defences in Ladakh. Over the past one year, India has moved an additional infantry brigade (3,000) troops into Ladakh to primarily look after the security of Sub-Sector North (SSN) under which the Depsang plains fall.

Last year the Chinese troops had intruded in this area and created a standoff. India's presence was limited in the area till then. In addition to additional troops, India has also for the first time, moved a regiment of tanks in Ladakh to support the existing deployment. The Indian Army and the Indian Air Force has also speeded up the infrastructure development in Ladakh. For instance, many strategically important roads  have been taken up for faster completion and two important adavanced landing grounds at Nyoma and Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) have been upgraded to allow more landings by the bigger transport aircraft of the IAF including the C-130J Super Hercules.

Rafale deal ready for take off, awaits final thumbs up

The key subject matter of concern appears to be the slow pace of acquisition of whatever equipment and assets are required. Hope of the forces is that their requirements should be fulfilled and the process should also be expedited. The effort of the government would be to work in that direction--

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on 24 June

On the face of it, any defence minister would be expected to make such a statement, especially if he is meeting the media after addressing the military top brass. To that extent, Arun Jaitley's media interaction in the wake of Naval Commanders' conference was unexceptionable except that he has had extensive briefings and interaction with all the three services during the one month that the new BJP-led NDA government has been in power and if the brass at the Army, Navy and Air Force HQs is to be believed, both Jaitley and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are all set to give a booster dose to the military that it hasn't seen for at least five years.

The new sense of urgency in the Ministry of Defence is discernible, the brass says, by the very fact that bureaucrats are themselves calling up the service HQs and asking for meetings, quicker clarifications and pushing files faster than witnessed in recent times!

The biggest beneficiary of the new decisiveness could be the Indian Air Force, struggling to maintain its traditional conventional edge against Pakistan. Jaitley was told at an extensive briefing at the Air HQ how the IAF is in danger of losing that edge if the contract to buy 126 Rafale medium multirole combat aircraft (MMRCA), is not clinched immediately. The IAF, which ideally requires 44 squadrons but can do with 39, is down to 32 squadrons, 12 of them of the near-obsolete MiG-21s.

Apparently concerned, the minister had just one question to ask: how much money would be required once the contract is signed. The IAF's answer: Rs 100,000 crore spread over 10 years immediately evoked a positive reaction from Jaitley. 

This is not a surprise. Money was never a problem, decision-making or lack of it under former defence minister AK Antony was. 

Enthused IAF brass now says IF the government (read political leadership) gives the clearance, this massive and in many ways first-of-its-kind contract is ready to be clinched in the next six months. 

Those in the know told me three of the subsets of the complicated deal are over and done with. The committees that were in charge of Offsets, Maintenance, ToT (transfer of technology) have concluded their work. It has taken them over two years to prepare documents that run into thousands of pages. It includes details of work share between Dassault Aviation and HAL, liabilities, and costs to maintain and run the 126 jets that the IAF would like to use over the next four decades IF India decides to buy the Rafales from the French aviation major. 

Over 41 articles in the defence procurement procedure (DPP) have been taken on board in arriving at the final documentation. HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd) has been designated the lead domestic production agency. Eighteen of the 126 jets will be produced in France and rest 108 at Indian production facility.

The only committee that needs to finalise its report is the one responsible for costs and contract. The process of finalising the value of the contract has been long drawn and involves what is called life-cycle costs. Once the political clerance comes, this part of the contract can be ready for signing in less than two months, those in the know say.

There are of course lobbies that are against the MMRCA are hard at work. Some are pro-US, others are pro-Europeans and yet others are pro-HAL but none is pro-IAF.

There is a group that is pushing for inducting the HAL-made Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas instead of buying what it calls an expensive Rafale. But as the IAF brass has repeatedly told me, the final operational clearance (FOC) of the Tejas is yet to come despite the home-grown fighter being in the making for over 30 years now. As per revised timelines, the first full Tejas squadron in the IOC (initial operational clearance) configuration will be in place only by 2016-2017 at the earliest. The second Tejas squadron, in the FOC configuration, will come thereafter. The four Tejas Mark-II squadrons, with more powerful American GE F-414 engines, will start becoming a reality from 2021-2022 onwards.

 "We have been hand holding the LCA for long and will continue to support it but it is NOT a replacement for a medium, multirole fighter aircraft. Its reach is barely 200 km when we need at least a '1000-km reach' aircraft if we have pose any challenge in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) where India expects a major threat to its air combat power in case of a conflict with China," a top Air Force officer pointed out.

Meanwhile, as the French foreign minister Laurent Fabius arrives in New Delhi on Sunday on a two-day visit to India, the Rafale deal will surely be on the top of his agenda.  The question is: will Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence/finance minister Arun Jaitley make it their own priority too? 

Up on the 5th floor of the Air HQ the brass is hoping in hell they will.

But as they say it is not over until it is over. So for the sake of India, fingers crossed!

The 10 Pancham songs I love for no particular reason

It has been more than two decades since RD Burman died prematurely. 

Yesterday, on Friday 27 June, he would have been 75. 

Fifty-five is no age to die for anyone, leave alone a creative genious like Pancham, like RD was known. I did not know RD. 

As a fan, one of course didn't need to know him personally. His songs were enough to connect. 

He had made a name for himself much before I entered college but on Vividh Bharati and Radio Cylone's Binaca Geetmala hosted by the irreprsible Amin Sayani, one heard his melodies regularly.

There was one indirect connection though. 

In the early 1970s, my father was posted to INS Shivaji, the picturseque naval station near Lonavla. The Rajesh Khanna hit Kati Patang had been released in 1971 and the song 'Yeh shaam mastani' like all other numbers in the movie, was a big hit. The song had been picturised near Lonavla and whenever we went to town from the cantonment, excited mothers and teenagers in the military bus would invariably point to the spot where the shooting of the film had taken place! The song and the name of the music director remained at the back of the mind since Amin Sayani, in his sonorous voice would, grandly announce the details of every song on radio.

As one entered final years of school, sports, cycling and studies--in that order--took up all the time. There was no place for movies or music. 

That was to come in the early years of college in Pune. I don't remember the exact month or date but it was certainly in 1980 when a group of us college boys happened to stumble into a morning show on a weekend, hoping to enertain ourselves after a hectic exam week. The movie: Teesri Manzil.

One had watched Shammi Kapoor's movies earlier. Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Junglee, Kashmir ki Kali, to name just three. But Teesri Manzil was different. The movie plot was unique, the casting impeccable (Premnath in his early villian role before he epitomised evil in Johny Mera Naam, half a decade later). But the strongest point was the movie's music and the masterly situational build up to each song by that genious of a director Goldie Anand.

I fell in love with RD's music instantly. Those days there was no internet to search or watch RD's songs but there were footpath markets that sold old film magazines and booklets that compiled songs with lyrics. So I started scouring the bookshops and kabadiwalas for anything written on RD Burman. Raju Bhartan used to write brilliant, detailed pieces on music and music directors in the Illustrated Weekly of India and Times of India; Shrish Kanekar, a marathi writer of repute was another source although, if I remember correctly he was mostly critical of Pancham. So as the information trckled in and got stored into one's memory box, RD became ny favourite composer.

One of the best aspects of being in a college hostel in Pune in the early 1980s was the variety of movies one could watch. 

The morning shows (9 am to noon) invariably ran the muisicals, love-and-romance-peppered-with-separation-in-Kashmir-valley type movies, starring Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Rajendra Kumar and Joy Mukherjee; at noon in threatres like West End and Rahul, one could watch English movies, war, curry westerns and romantic by turn. and the 3-6-9 pm slots were reserved for current lot of movies which invariably meant Amitabh Bachchan or Dharmendra shows or multi-starrers which were in vogue in those years. So in a month our viewing would range from Phir wahi Dil laya hoon to Roman Holiday to Muqqadar ka Sikandar and from Aarzoo to Rear Window to Ram Balram! In those carefree days, one watched at least 300 movies of all types, a pleasure one never had an occasion to enjoy during the course of the past three decades and more!

An occasional rerun of Amar Prem, Aradhana, Mere Jeevan Saathi, Kati Patang, Yadon ki Baarat, to name films randomly, was the icing on the cake. 

Through all this RD's music lingered on although he wasn't as impactful in the 1980s as he was was during the Rajesh Khanna era. Its been over three decades since Pancham composed those ditties but I never tire of listening to these 10 songs. 

1. Rim jhim gire saawan from Manzil (the Lata Mangeshkar version, not the more popular Kishore number)

2. Diye jalte hain, phool khilte hain from Namak Haram

3. Diwana mujha sa nahin--Teesri Manzil

4. Tum bin jaaon kahan (the Rafi version, not Kishore's)--Pyaar ka mausam

5. Aaja piya tohe pyar doon--Baharon ke Sapne

6. Waddiyaan mera daaman--Abhilasha

7. Meri Jaan Meri Jaan Kehna Mano--Do Chor

8. Tum mile pyaar se--Aparadh

9. Deewana leke aaya hain--Mere Jeevan Saathi

10. Sharm aati hain magar--Padosan

Each one of us will have a different list but this is mine. Why, I can have 10 other equally melodius compositions to replace and then 10 more... so why quibble?

P.S. As a reader pointed out, the Aparadh composition is not RD's, it is Kalyanji-Anandji's. What the heck, it is still hummable and in the same class as Pancham's! Enjoy!

10 things that have almost disappeared from our lives

On Saturday, 21st June the stifling heat battering Delhi this summer forced us to stay home instead of going out for a customary lunch or dinner to celebrate our 26th marriage anniversary. 

Thankfully, the electricity board was benevolent with no power cuts to speak of through the day. A leisurely morning reading the newspapers and mails more thoroughly than usual;  a sumptuous breakfast and then the entire day lay ahead with no particular task on hand. 

For a quarter century, except in 1999 when I was in Kargil reporting the India-Pakistan conflict, the unwritten rule for this day has been to avoid professional work. So no writing, no phone calls and no talking shop.

The next best alternative was to riffle through old notebooks, papers and photo albums. As we sat reminiscing about early years of our marriage and the usual ups and downs I am sure all couples endure in life, it dawned on us how many things have almost gone out of our lives.

Here are 10 things that have more or less disappeared from our lives. At least this is what me and wife Neha could agree upon. There could be more, of course.

1. Landlines or fixed line phones. 

In an average family of 4, there are at least five if not more mobile phones these days. I remember using an MP's quota to obtain my first landline phone in 1988. Today, mobile connections have outnumbered landline connections in the country, if I am not mistaken.

2. VCR (Video Cassette Recorders) and VCP (Video Cassette Players).

Along with VHS cassettes of marriage and birthday functions. Now, one has an option of watching any video recording on a laptop, a tablet or a smart phone.

3. Typewriters. 

They were everywhere. The bulky Godrej and Remington brands in offices, portable Brother and Olivetti ones with individuals who could afford them.

4. The carbon paper. 

Most essential in sarkari offices and some times even at home to make copies in triplicate for every little application you made, be it for building a house, obtaining an air ticket from the chief minister's quota (yes, we had to do that when there used to be ONE Indian Airlines daily flight to Delhi from Guwahati) or simply to obtain a driving license.

5. The camera with a film. 

With digital technology taking over our lives, the Rolleiflex cameras with 12 or 24 exposures in black and white no longer limit our choices to click photographs. Now everyone--armed with smart phones and miniaturised digital cameras--no longer have to worry about running out of film!

6. The 'hold-all', that canvass-leather contraption we carried in our journeys.

To stuff a light mattress, a pillow and a bedsheets besides everything else that didn't fit into the steel trunk every time we travelled long distance on a trains that barely had one air conditioned bogey! It was our bed roll-cum-carry-all bag which has no modern equivalent or may be has metamorphosed into the rucksack!

7. The post cards and inland letters sold by Department of Posts. 

On which you wrote handwritten notes to your parents/wife/girlfriend/friend, folded them neatly and send them down the small slot on a funny looking red post box which had an inscription: Clearance at 10 am and 4 pm!

8. Money orders, telegrams and the man who brought them to you, the Postman. 

The most awaited person at the beginning of the month, if you were residing in a hostel. He would bring in those precious 200 rupees sent by your hardworking parents. The inevitable 5 rupees you had to part with as a tip. The telegram was not routine. It was reserved for receiving a job offer, announcement of death and many a times birth or for the most common purpose: Providing information. Most commonly used term being: 'Arrived safely.' Now the postman still brings registered post letters and occasionally the passport but most of the time we depend upon the courier, even if it is costly and unreliable.

9. The STD/ISD PCO:

Not to be confused with the disease. The ubiquitous PCO or Public Call Offices that used to dot every pavement and alleys and allowed you to make long distance calls. Inevitably a small, narrow cabin that could fit in just a telephone on a table, the person manning the booth and the caller. A third person had to squeeze in, if needed. In small towns and villages, you might see them even now but in urban centres they have invariably transformed themselves into photo-copying and lamination shops.

10. The telephone index diary:

With smart phones able to store an humongous amount of data, very few feel the need to note down telephone numbers in a specially designed diary. There was a time when one knew by heart at least 50-odd essential numbers. Today, I count myself lucky if I can still remember my wife's mobile number! Health warning: data on smart phone can disappear in a jiffy. In a notebook/diary it stays forever unless stolen or misplaced so like many of my generation do, do keep a hard copy back up! You will never regret it.