Gohar bombshell and India's China war debacle

When I first met Gohar Ayub, former foreign minister of Pakistan, in 1984 at his residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan, he said that his father General Mohammad Ayub, still in power, told him that he (Ayub) would get a copy of defence secret papers before they reached the table of Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister. Subsequently, Gohar changed the version slightly and said that a senior Indian army officer used to pass them defence secrets. In the latest interview to Karan Thapar, a distinguished anchor, Gohar claimed that a brigadier in the Directorate of Military Operations sold to Pakistan India's 1965 war plan for a paltry sum of Rs 20,000.

Gohar is publishing his book in India. He is feverishly looking for avenues to get publicity. His television interview with Karan is part of the same exercise. I would have put aside the allegation by Gohar but for the slanted and subjective questions by Karan, relating to Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw.

That Karan was "Devil's Advocate" was understandable. Some heat and rhetoric was in order. So was the badgering of Gohar. But what I object to is the manner in which Karan conducted the programme, almost suggesting that Manekshaw was the guilty officer. Even a thought on those lines is preposterous.

Karan is aggressive but largely fair. I could not understand how he could even mention Manekshaw's name in the context of someone passing on defence secrets to Pakistan. He is one of the most loved and revered military figures of India and his record of service is a testimony to his outstanding contribution to the nation. What shocked me was the way in which Karan would come again and again, charged like a wounded animal, to almost force Gohar say that Manekshaw was the officer concerned.

Gohar said repeatedly that he was not naming Manekshaw and that it was he (Karan) was doing so. Still Karan went on and on. I can imagine the reason for Karan's hurt. As a child, he must have seen his father, General P.N. Thapar, chief of army staff, suffering from the ignominy of having lost the war against China in 1962 when he was not to blame. But I can assure Karan that Manekshaw had no share in the campaign of vilification built against General Thapar. In fact, Manakshaw was himself at that time facing an inquiry on the framed-up charges. He was subsequently exonerated.

The person responsible for heaping all the blame on General Thapar was Nehru. In fact, it was Krishna Menon, the then defence minister, who had a knife against the general and wanted to see his back. Menon would call him a toothless old man. I talked to the general for two days before narrating the Indo-China war in my book, India After Nehru. I found that General Thapar had been made a scapegoat.

What the general told me was that he had warned both Nehru and Menon that to evict the Chinese from the post they had occupied in Indian territories would be like "disturbing a hornet's nest." The general had vainly argued that the Indian army did not have the strength needed: the ratio was six Chinese to one Indian. Still, as an honourable and duty-bound General, he offered to resign after the debacle in 1962.

When he met Nehru, who declined to accept the resignation, he assured him that he was not to blame and that the responsibility lay somewhere else. However, when parliament wanted Krishna Menon's head and when even Nehru was not spared for "protecting" the defence minister, the anger boiled over. A few Congress stalwarts felt so let down that they even held Nehru responsible and wanted him to go.

Nehru was so worried and upset over parliament's angry mood that he sent his cabinet secretary Khera to General Thapar's house to request him to give his resignation in writing to make his verbal request good. Khera assured the general that Prime Minister had promised not to use the latter.

Yet, the general's resignation was the first thing which Nehru announced in parliament to mollify the members. It is another matter that Menon too had to go. General Thapar felt upset and met Nehru to protest against the announcement of his resignation without telling parliament that he (Thapar) had warned the government against going to war against China at that time. The general said "a great wrong" had been done to him in the manner in which his letter of resignation had been released without giving the background of circumstances obtaining at that time, particularly when nothing was said in his defence.

Nehru promised him that one day he (Nehru) would undo the wrong done to him. That day never came and the general continued to suffer from the humiliation without having been allowed to tell his side of the story. Karan should know that after the debacle when Lt Gen Balmukund Kaul was removed from the Eastern Command, Manekshaw was the only officer who could retrieve the situation to the extent possible.

Menon, still the defence minister, opposed the proposal tooth and nail. But Nehru rejected Menon's objection and posted Manekshaw.
Reverting to Gohar's allegation, I doubt if there was any top Indian army officer selling secrets to Pakistan. I doubt the authenticity of his charge. Gohar should produce some concrete evidence other than his own statement if he wants India to take his allegation seriously.

I recall that at the Abbottabad meeting where Gohar told me about the leakage of defence secrets, he also said that Pakistan would have meaningful talks with India only when the latter would disintegrate into six parts. Twenty three years have gone by but India, however chaotic, is more united than ever before. And, willy-nilly, Pakistan is conducting meaningful talks to normalize relations with India.

If Karan were to take my advice, I would say that he should write a personal letter to Manekshaw regretting the impression his interview with Gohar had created as if he (General Thapar) was gunning for Manekshaw.