Top General speaks: Def Secy summoned me late night

[kurup]

Govt’s mistrust sparked coup fears: Ex-DGMO

The controversy over the alleged unauthorized movement of troops towards New Delhi in January 2012, when the then Army chief General V K Singh was dragging the government to Supreme Court over his age row, was a result of distrust and misconception, Lieutenant-General A K Choudhary, who was then the director general of military operations (DGMO), has said.

While asserting that the movement of the two “small” troop units was part of a “routine” exercise, Lt-Gen Choudhary, who retired a few weeks ago, however, admitted the incident did perturb the highest levels of government.

“There was misconception or there was perceptional difference or there may be was distrust (between Gen Singh and the government)… (But) the possibility of a coup was unimaginable,” he said, summing up the atmosphere that developed after Gen Singh got into a standoff with the government over his date of birth. While he claimed he was born in 1951, the official records accepted by the government showed that it was 1950.

Asked about the controversy rearing its head once again, defence minister A K Antony on Friday reiterated that the movement of the two Army units — one of paratroopers from Agra and the other of mechanised infantry from Hisar — was a “routine training programme” and there was “nothing wrong in it”.

The minister rejected Lt-Gen Choudhary’s claim that there was any “trust deficit” between the government and the Army. Both Antony and the PM had earlier dubbed media reports, which insinuated that the government got “spooked” since it thought a coup could be in the offing, as “alarmist” and “absolutely baseless”.

But Lt-Gen Choudhary said the then defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma, who is now the comptroller and auditor general, summoned him around 11 pm on January 16, just hours after Gen Singh had moved the apex court, to ask him to send the troops back as the government at the highest level was “worried”.

The former DGMO said he knew about the movement of the Hisar unit a day earlier after a senior colleague called him, alerting about concerns of intelligence agencies. Lt-Gen Choudhary said he had ordered this unit to halt and turn back.

The government did get a “little excited” about the “normal” troop movement, which was “uncalled for”, but immediately “understood” after he explained the matter, Lt-Gen Choudhary said.

Gen Singh, on his part, said certain sections of the media were determined to portray the sequence of events as a coup in the making by him. “It was a routine exercise and only a fable of a sick mind can imagine anything else,” he said, adding that a “senior bureaucrat linked to a Chandigarh think-tank” was behind the “plot to tarnish me”.

“What pains me most is that in their bid to tarnish me, they have denigrated the only institution which thinks of the nation first,” he posted on Facebook.

But expressing concern over Lt-Gen Choudhary’s remarks, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said though the government faced trust deficit in all sectors, distrust with the Army was never comprehended. “The distrust between the government and the Army is a matter of serious concern. Army protects the nation. If this type of reports come, it is a matter of serious concern,” he said.

National security advisor Shivshankar Menon, however, dismissed any talk of distrust between the Army and government. “I don’t see there is distrust. How can I comment on something that I don’t see. Because I am a civilian, I work very closely with the Army every day. I don’t see that,” he said.

Govt’s mistrust sparked coup fears: Ex-DGMO | idrw.org

 

[kurup]

Army said unit was headed for IAF drill, ex-Air Chief says this was due only a month later

Air Chief Marshal (retd) N A K Browne, who was heading the IAF during the controversial Army troop movements of January 2012, disclosed Friday that one of the two movements — that of para commandos from Agra — was actually planned for a month later as a joint exercise with the Air Force.

Browne also denied an explanation by the Army — given when The Indian Express had first reported on the troop movements on April 4, 2012 — that “the paras were being moved to check out the possibility of their ‘marrying’ with the C-130s in Hindon”.



He said the Air Force had nothing to do with that para movement.

The retired Air Chief’s revelation came a day after Lt Gen A K Choudhary, the then Director General of Military Operations, confirmed to The Indian Express that the defence secretary had called him on the night of January 16, 2012 and ordered him to send back the troops who had neared Delhi.

“We had just acquired the C-130s, and the paratroopers were scheduled to conduct an exercise to test the aircraft and its capabilities. This was scheduled a month after the issue of the troop movement came to light,” Browne said.



Browne underlined that the Air Force was never consulted ahead of the January 15-16 movement of para commandos from Agra — a deployment which happened just as the then Army Chief Gen V K Singh approached the Supreme Court on January 16 against the government on his birth date row.

“This (movement) happened in January and it was strictly to do with the Army, their unit never came anywhere near Hindon, so the Air Force had absolutely no role in this. The question does not arise,” he told The Indian Express.

The then DGMO Choudhary had told The Indian Express Thursday that Hindon was the destination only on paper. “The para guys were only going to the artillery unit in Gurgaon though on paper, they were to go to Hindon,” he had said.

The Indian Express report of April 2012 had also pointed out that the C-130s were not even in Hindon then. They were rehearsing at their staging base in Jaisalmer for the Republic Day flypast.

Choudhary, as he has now confirmed, was not even aware of the movement of para commandos when quizzed by then defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma at their late night meeting on January 16, 2012.

“I was initially not aware of it. They had been coming for training and going back. They used to come and go from that area in the past also. After the meeting, I also told them to carry out no further movement and asked them to go back in smaller groups,” he said on Thursday.

The former Air Chief’s revelation now raises the question why the para commandos were moved in January when a full-fledged exercise had been scheduled for a month later.

The stated purpose of the February exercise was to check the time the para detachment would take to make it to Hindon and get airborne for any urgent mission.

The para commandos detachment in Agra is kept ready to fly out on short notice to any neighbouring country in case a friendly government is under threat. This is one of their key military tasks and is therefore a joint effort with the Air Force.

Army said unit was headed for IAF drill, ex-Air Chief says this was due only a month later | The Indian Express | Page 99

 

[BanglaBhoot]

The aim of this thread is ....?

To cause trouble ....

 

[T90TankGuy]

Discussed ad nauseum,

 

[kurup]

To cause trouble ....

In that case you are doing poorly ......

 

[kurup]

Morning after DGMO meet, Govt chopper flew to check if troops were on way back

So rattled was the UPA government with the movement of troops on the night of January 16 that hours after the defence secretary had ordered Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen A K Choudhary to send them back, a helicopter took off from Palam’s technical area to check whether the troops had moved back.

Sources have confirmed to The Indian Express that on the morning of January 17, on board the chopper was an official of the Intelligence Bureau, one from the Research and Analysis Wing and a third intelligence official.Their mission: to ascertain the status of the armoured fighting vehicles which had moved from Hisar and were being carried on tank transporters.This airborne mission lasted about 45 minutes after which the intelligence chiefs were informed that the mechanised unit was indeed rolling back to its base.

This may have come as some comfort to the “highest seat of power” in government that — as the DGMO confirmed to The Indian Express — had met the previous morning, on January 16, to discuss an altogether different matter: the filing of the petition on the same day by the then Army Chief General V K Singh in the Supreme Court against the government on his date of birth controversy.

Sources said that the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary Pulok Chatterji convened a 9.30 am meeting in the PMO with Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth.They were joined by Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati.Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma, who was in Malaysia, was contacted the previous night, and told to arrange for “certain files” to reach the PMO.Sharma is said to have informed the PMO that since the operative part of his defence dialogue in Malaysia was over, he would cut short his visit and return to the capital.

Sources said that this morning meeting weighed the options of action against Singh — from dismissal to asking him to go on leave. In this context, files related to the 1998 sacking of Navy Chief Vishnu Bhagwat were referred to.

But there was no unanimity on what action to take. The Attorney General is said to have advised against taking any drastic step. After leaving the PMO, he proceeded to his residence to prepare a note on the legal points arising out of Singh’s petition.
By the time officials in the Defence Ministry received a copy of V K Singh’s petition, news had trickled in, first, via intelligence inputs, of unusual movement of a mechanised infantry unit from Hisar.

Subsequently, reports came in that a Para Brigade had left the cantonment in Agra. The Defence Secretary, who had, by then, landed in New Delhi, was asked to rush to 7, Race Course Road to attend another urgent meeting.The Prime Minister, according to accounts, sat grimly throughout this meeting, which began at around 7.30 pm. Among those attending this security conclave were National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon; Home Minister P Chidambaram and Intelligence Bureau Chief Nehchal Sandhu, who was constantly receiving inputs from his formations and had images of the deployment on his Ipad.

Around 9 pm, Sharma gave instructions for his South Block office to be opened and left the RCR meeting. At around 11 pm, he summoned DGMO Lt-Gen Choudhary and told him to order the troops to go back.The DGMO was told that since mobilization for the January 26 parade was already in progress, the movement of additional units should not have been permitted. He was asked to provide an update on the turnaround of the two units irrespective of how late it was. Close to midnight, the Defence Secretary returned home

Morning after DGMO meet, Govt chopper flew to check if troops were on way back | idrw.org

 

[Abingdonboy]

Indian media stirring sh!t......

 

[Rajaraja Chola]

Let's not fall for the Indian express' propoganda and actually believe that the govt was scared. Such stories only serve to throw suspicion on the excellent civil-military relations the country has enjoyed. Governments in India have many things to worry about - the army is not one of them. Like any healthy democracy, the govt is scared of its own people, but not of the armed forces. It is scared of the electorate, of the media, of public opinion. The army doesn't figure in their list of worries.


It was the first and last military coup in the landmass that is present day India, and happened 2200 years back.

Out of topic though: But didnt Sher Shah suri revolted against the Humayun and capture power?

 

[janon]

Out of topic though: But didnt Sher Shah suri revolted against the Humayun and capture power?

That was war, not a military coup. It was not Humayun's own army that deposed him, but Sher shah's army. Sher shah was once a military commander in the mughal army, but later he was an administrator/governor, when he raised an army and fought the mughals. People raising armies and defeating kings is the predominant theme of the medeival times, in europe and India. But the king's own army killing him and the army chief assuming power is a military coup, not a war.

 

[Slayer786]

this is the propaganda to tarnish relations between Military and civilian leadership in India .

India is the only glimmering example of Military -Civilian unity in subcontinent where otherwise military has routinely fiddled with statecraft ...

somebody who is not reconciled to this is cooking up and raking up these stories ...

Indian military is united with government to defend the nation...no way of Military to even think up of undermining government in India .

Well just blame it on the ISI.

 

[kurup]

The Fake Military Coup



Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should order investigations by a retired Supreme Court Judge into the fake military coup propagated by former Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma maligning and belittling the Indian Army.

It is becoming obvious that the ‘babus’ in MoD, who are unable to deliver modern weapon platforms efficiently to the military, are hell bent on lowering the image of the Indian Army, which in turn is demoralizing the troops and acts as a disincentive for the young to serve their country. This amounts to grave anti-India activity, weakening the sinews of the nation. With the political leadership clearly stating that there was no coup attempt, babu Shashi Kant Sharma and others need to be investigated and taken to task for creating a false alarm.

Imperative that we visit the contours of the military coup executed by General Musharraf in Pakistan on 12 October 1999. All militaries particularly the Army are highly trained to conduct ruthless operations against their adversary. Their speed and precision of movement with the weapons they wield make them unstoppable. When the military coup took place in Pakistan, the Army under directions from Lt Gen Usmani, seized the control tower to enable Musharraf to land, troops took over control of state-run television, put the prime minister Nawaz Sharif under house arrest by encircling his house, took over control of international airports and snapped the international phone lines. Thus, neutralizing the political leadership at one go and ensuring that the bureaucracy towed the line of the Pakistan Army. When armies move, whether in operational area or in civil areas, they have studied all aspects of the situation, readied adequate fire power to neutralize all dissent, and thought out the end game well in advance. All military coups will have similar patterns, no matter which army conducts it.

Compare the above with the picture that former Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma painted, and falsely implicated that the political leadership at the highest level was worried. If the Indian Army was executing a ‘coup’, then Shashi Kant Sharmas’ of this world would not have the luxury of inviting the former DGMO Lt Gen AK Chaudhary late at night to find out, ‘बताइए क्या हो रहा है’ (tell me what is happening?), because in a coup mode the Indian Army would be calling the shots and not the bureaucrat. The former Army Chief Gen VK Singh will not be going to the Supreme Court for redressal of the age controversy. Instead he would be at the helm of affairs and conducting the operations personally to takeover New Delhi.

The movement of a mechanized infantry unit from Hisar and a paratroopers detachment from Agra late at night on 16 January 2012 were normal and unrelated to each other troops on routine exercise. In a huge army, there is continuous training of local units, which are neither projected to the DGMO or to the Army HQs. At the same time, there are always sufficient well trained and armed troops available in the capital to take over a small city like New Delhi. It really does not require extra troops from outside. In fact, when a new Army Chief takes over, his battle hardened infantry battalion or one of the battalions from his regiment serve in Delhi as a personal honour – a battle hardened infantry battalion by itself is a very lethal force that can create mayhem. In addition, since this picture was painted by babu Sharma on 16 January 2012, a huge contingent of Indian Army had already moved into New Delhi for the 26 January parade. Hence, no extra troops were required in any case.

Therefore, this was a false alarm purposely created to malign the Indian Army as the Army Chief and the Ministry of Defence were at logger heads due to demand of General VK Singh to rectify incorrect entry of his date of birth. Further if the coup was actually taking place, the former Defence Secretary would not have had the luxury of leaking the information to a newspaper to create panic – he would have been effectively neutralized well in time because this is how a professional army executes its tasks. Indian Army despite all shortages created by politicians and bureaucrats in young human resources and vast equipment shortages, remains extraordinary professional in its approach of securing Indian borders but it is not in the business of military coups!

Otherwise also, military coup is not possible in India. India being a federal structure all state capitals will also simultaneously required to be brought under the Indian Army’s control, unlike Pakistan where merely Islamabad has to be taken over. This simply is impossible.

The continuous neglect of the Indian Army and insulting behavior of the civil administration towards the military is therefore a matter of shame. It is time that the Army Chief asserts his dignity to restore the honour of this great army by demanding from the Prime Minister to institute an inquiry into former defence secretary’s obnoxious behavior, the false alarm created and the insults heaped and thereby taking to task the guilty. This alone will help in calming down the rising frustrations and anger within rank and file of the Indian military.

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/the-fake-military-coup/