After court defeat, Gen Singh should consider resigning early

Generals are supposed to be defeated in war, not courtrooms. But in the curious case of Gen VK Singh, Chief of the Army Staff, this is the ignominious reality. He fought a good fight to establish his “honour” and what, he says, is his real date of birth — 10 May 1951. And lost. In the Supreme Court on Friday, the good general tasted defeat when it refused to pronounce on his correct date of birth, leaving it to the government to decide. This vindication will come as a booster for the government, which has been tasting many embarrassments in court – including the latest one over the cancellation of 2G spectrum licences issued by A Raja in 2008. [caption id=“attachment_209737” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“General VK Singh fought a good fight to establish his “honour” and what, he says, is his real date of birth — 10 May 1951. And lost. AFP”] [/caption] Since the government has already decided that the general will have to retire on schedule by 10 May this year, the general has no leg left to stand on. The government says it does not have any issues with the general’s competence, and the Supreme Court also said it did not doubt Singh’s “integrity, honesty and honour”, but to salvage what pride he has left, it is perhaps right that the general should resign. Having taken on the government and failed, the only thing that will restore his honour is to accept defeat with grace and bow out with dignity. But this is really a war that has two losers. Without getting into whether the government or the general was right on his date of birth, the fact is the defence ministry under AK Antony did not cover itself with glory in the way it handled the affair. The court vindication is fine, but what if it had gone the other way? It lost the perception war when it failed to find a dignified solution to the crisis. In fact, if the ministry of defence was so sure of its ground, it should have quietly called the general aside, told him this was going to be their decision, and if it was not acceptable to him, he should resign. This should have been done before he was made army chief, but even assuming the issue blew up only after that event, there is no reason why it could not have done a deal with him and offered him a compromise. It could have issued an order to the army to clean up its records – not just for the general, but all its personnel. As Antony himself pointed out, and which Gen Singh agreed with, the mess started with the army not reconciling its two sets of records – the one maintained by the Military Secretary’s branch, and the one maintained by the Adjutant General’s. While it is the latter’s job to maintain career records, the army needs a process by which it can reconcile differences between the two, when they arise. As for the general, the main point to underscore is simple: a stitch in time saves nine. He knew the date of birth in his UPSC form had been filled wrong, but he did not chase the corrections till it was too late. As a career armyman, surely he knew the MS and AG branches needed to reconcile their differences. He did so only when the last phase of his career was in sight – and by then the stakes had gotten too high for everybody. The careers of several other army commanders depended on a last-minute change. One hopes that both the defence ministry and the army have learnt their lessons well and resolved: never again.