'Nehru wanted Army scrapped'

'Nehru wanted Army scrapped'

Biography of a major general says Kashmir war saved Army from being abolished.

 

The Kashmir war saved the Indian Army from being scrapped, seems strange? Well, a biography of Major General AA "Jick" Rudra of the Indian Army by Major General DK "Monty" Palit claims so.

According to the book, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru blew his top when Lt General Sir Robert Lockhart, the first commander in chief of India took a strategic plan for a Government directive on defence policy.

"Shortly after independence, General Lockhart as the army chief took a strategic plan to the prime minister, asking for a government directive on the defence policy. He came back to Jick's office shell-shocked. When asked what happened, he replied, The PM took one look at my paper and blew his top. 'Rubbish! Total rubbish!' he shouted. 'We don't need a defence plan. Our policy is ahimsa (non-violence). We foresee no military threats. Scrap the army! The police are good enough to meet our security needs'," the Daily Times quotes the book as saying.

According to the book, Jick believed the Kashmir war saved the Indian Army.

"General Sir Douglas Gracie had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Army and he and General Lockhart daily exchanged information about refugees traversing Punjab in both directions. One day in late October 1947, Gracie mentioned that he had had reports of tribesmen massing in the area of Attock-Rawalpindi. Both men knew that cross-border raids from Pakistan had been mounted against Poonch. Kashmir was not a part of the dominion of India and Lockhart felt that the tribesmen posed no threat to India. He did not pass on the information to the ministry or general staff," the paper said.

"When confronted by Nehru three months later, he admitted this and added that he may have been remiss. Nehru turned to him and asked the general if his sympathies were with Pakistan? Aghast, Lockhart replied, 'Mr prime minister if you have to ask me that question, I have no business being the commander-in-chief of your forces. I know that there is a boat leaving Bombay in a few days, carrying British officers and their families to England. I shall be on it'," it added.

According to the biography General Lockhart called up his Military Secretary Jick Rudra the next day, January 26 1948, and suggested he start looking around for a successor since he had resigned from his post.

First Published: Aug 26, 2006 00:00 IST

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/nehru-wanted-army-scrapped/story-4pCTLAT4tXlKRnBUtJqz9O.html

 

 

Here We Go Again

Posted on July 14, 2009 by Atanu Dey

https://deeshaa.org/2009/07/14/here-we-go-again/

Why was the Indian Army ill-prepared? Because Nehru thought that there was no need for an army — just a competent police force was sufficient for India because India’s policy was one of non-violence. Can one be so disconnected with ground reality without actually being in a different planet?

https://asiancorrespondent.com/2009/07/here-we-go-again/

Customer’s Review on amazon.com

of 5 starsI enjoyed the excerpt and ordered the book

January 18, 2015

I had read an excerpt of this book for a unit on WWI. I should say here the Major General A.A. Rudra's great-nephew was in the seminar and provided the excerpt. I enjoyed the excerpt and ordered the book. I was not disappointed. Rudra had an interesting military career and life. His experience spans World War I in Europe, the border conflicts in India between the world wars, World War II, India's move to independence and finally the partitioning of India and Pakistan. Gandhi, Nehru, and Mountbatten are a few of the leaders Jick knew in his life. He was a friend of the Lawrence family (as in Lawrence of Arabia).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1G691OLLCASTQ?ref=pf_vv_at_pdctrvw_srp

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Rudra

Library of Congress, U.S.A

https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=96906610&searchType=1&permalink=y

http://indiaww1.in/BIBLIOGRAPHY-COMPILATION.aspx

Commissioned into the elite Baloch Regiment in 1939 out of the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, Palit at the time of Partition won a prized billet with the (3/9) Gurkhas – a regiment the British scrupulously avoided posting Indian officers to – and which unit he led in a hard-fought action to capture the crestline above the Haji Pir salient in the Poonch sector in the 1947-48 Kashmir operations. Palit was wounded and won the Vir Chakra. Thereafter, he rose swiftly to command the 7 Infantry Brigade stationed in NEFA (North East Frontier Agency) and only a year or so into his tenure, was rushed into the job of Director, Military Operations, at the Army Headquarters, manifestly the most coveted post in the army for a Brigadier-ranked officer and that too a relatively newly minted one. After retirement, Maj. Gen. Palit produced one of the most engaging biographies – that of Major General A.A. ‘Jicks’ Rudra, and a more affectionate monograph on his father Col. Palit, of the Indian Medical Service. Perhaps to promote such writing, the General established a publishing house (‘Palit and Palit’). General Palit was possibly more active in retirement than in service. A prolific writer and original thinker, he has had a profound influence on the strategic thinking and polices in the last two to three decades. He was indeed an exception to the general drought of military intellectuals that India has always suffered from. He wanted more serving and retired officers from India and Britain to do research and write military history of colonial India. For that purpose, he founded the ‘General Palit Military Studies Trust’ in the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in 1988, which he funded. The Trust moved to the more appropriate United Service Institution of India in 2003. 

Three books under ‘General Palit Military Studies Trust’ were published under Reliance Publishing House; 

Bajirao I- An Outstanding Cavalry General by Col. R.D. Palsokar, M.C. 1995 

Major General AA Rudra by Maj. Gen. D.K. Palit, Vr.C. 1997 

Rifleman To Colonel (The Memoirs of Major Gajendra Malla 9th Gurkha Riffles) by Tony Mains and Elizabeth Talbot Rice 1999. 

‘Monty’ Palit died on 3 April 2008 at the age of 89

Short link https://rb.gy/mu1bol

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