VK Singh new Indian Army chief

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Kapoor’s nominee ignored: VK Singh new Indian Army chief

What was once a professional army is now besought with the same type of politicking as any third world country? It seems that the political wrangling on the promotion of General Singh has been overcome. General Kapoor had tried to bypass Lieutenant Genera Kapoor and had nominated his own candidate Lieutenant General P C Bhardwaj who later became embroiled in controversy.

Lt Gen VK Singh took charge as the 26th chief of the Indian Army after his predecessor General Deepak Kapoor retired on Wednesday. Singh, 59, will remain the army chief for the next two years. He has served the Rajput Regiment and is a graduate of the Wellington-based Defence Services Staff College, as well as the US Army War College at Carlisle. He has also done a Rangers Course at Fort Benning in the US. He was commissioned in the Indian Army, in June 1970.

General Kapoor’s turbulent tenure was punched by provocative statements and the establishment of very dangerous actions on the part of a nuclear armed country. Indian army chief General Deepak Kapoor had evolved a new military doctrine, and he outlined some of its key elements. The changes in the strategic environment held out by this pronouncement held significant implications for Pakistan and give the country’s security managers much pause for thought.

Transition of command in India used to be relatively smooth in earlier times but the current Army Chief, General Deepak Kapoor, has tried to rock the boat. His successor would have inevitably been the senior most Lieutenant Generals in the Indian Army, V K Singh, the Chief of Indian Army’s Eastern Command, but Kapoor promoted his junior, Lieutenant General P C Bhardwaj as his Vice Chief in September, ignoring Singh.

The differences between Kapoor and Singh emerged after the inquiry into a military land scam began. Findings indicate that the tension between the two officers of the Indian army reached to the extreme when a Court of Inquiry, convened by the Eastern army commander who is based in Fort William in Calcutta, started the proceedings and recommended the sacking of Kapoor’s Principal Staff Officer (PSO) and Military Secretary Lieutenant General Avadhesh Prakash, indicted in the land scam in Sukhna Cantonment in West Bengal. Therefore, the Indian army chief had to take action before Prakash retired on January 31, 2010. Kapoor had demurred over the decision, allowing time to his protégé to retire gracefully rather than face the extreme action of dismissal from service. General Kapoor would better serve his country in dousing the fires of corruption, sleaze and graft that have beset his army generals rather than shooting off threats to India’s neighbors.

Furthermore, like Kapoor the Indian Air Force Chief, Air Chief Marshal P V Naik, in October 2009 had decided to jump into the fray by announcing: “A repeat of the 1962 India-China war is not possible now as the Indian armed forces have enhanced their capability.” That statement was viewed with a pinch of salt.

India knows that it can never win a conventional warfare because of the Nuclear Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). However it still harbors notions of winning a sort of a mini war. India may think it has a Cold Start Strategy, but it may end as a hot nuclear war. Indian Defense planners cannot guarantee that a limited strike will not escalate into a full fledged war. A full fledged war with a nuclear armed labor may destroy both countries.