Woe Betide a Polity ...
by H.N. Bali
... Whose Government Knows Not How to Honor Those Who Do it Proud.
Soldiers live and die for izzat – that untranslatable concept that symbolizes at once a sense of pride in one’s calling, a resolve to uphold professional traditions built over years by human sweat and blood, an unflinching determination to vanquish the aggressor and, above all, to live up to the exhortation of the Gita (IV:8): vinashaye cha dushkritam (for extermination of the evil deeds of the wicked). And nothing symbolizes all this better than the Bangladesh War in December 1971 under the leadership of Gen. Sam Manekshaw to end the repression and genocide in Eastern Pakistan. Read On
 The Man Who Exorcised the Specter of Coups
by H.N. Bali
If ever there was an Army Commander who, because of his huge popularity, could have effected a coup at any time, and yet most scrupulously not only refused to do so but laid the foundation of a new functional civil-military equation for which the nation should ever be grateful to him, it was India’s first Field Marshal, Sam Manekshaw. Posterity would, indeed, judge his role as of epochal importance, and that of the political leadership of the time as crassly petty-minded for treating him shabbily after his retirement. Read On
Building Crucial Civil-Military Equation
Gen. Cariappa’s Significant Contribution
 by H.N. Bali
On Gen. Roy Bucher’s retirement, K. M. Cariappa took over as the first Indian C-in-C. A great honor indeed! He also shares another distinction with the Father of the Nation to have maximum number of roads and townships in the country named after him. Before a brief assessment of Cariappa as the Army chief and his role in evolving a working civil-military equation, may I share with you a story I heard from an Army Commander about how he emerged at the top. Read On
Gravest Fault Line of our Polity
by H.N. Bali
It is ironic, historically speaking, that the one institution that was, at the time of transfer of power, in the best shape and form and whose services had almost immediately to be deployed to defend the State of Jammu and Kashmir, has taken an unconscionably long time to evolve an ironclad working equation with national political authority. Those who led the Independence struggle against the Raj tended to regard, to begin with, the Army created by the British as an instrument of oppression deployed by their colonial masters against the Independence movement. Read On
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