'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
