The Hindu : Air Marshal decries political interference

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 20, 2002

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Air Marshal decries political interference

NEW DELHI AUG. 19. The first ever Marshal of the Air Force, Arjun Singh, today stirred a hornet's nest when he said there should be ``no political interference'' in the conduct of military operations declaring it was such an interference which had led to the 1962 military debacle.

Calling for insulation of forces from politicisation, Singh, speaking at a function here in the presence of the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, said ``the Government in case of war or any other operations should draw the parameter and fix the goal and then leave it to the military leadership to carry on.''

``If you interfere in war, things go wrong,'' the 84-year-old Marshal said looking towards Mr. Fernandes and cited that the armed forces got a bad name in 1962, not because the Army was defeated but the defeat was due to interference from the political side.

He said there was no such interference in the 1965 war adding ``we were given a task, we did it.'' However, for the first time he declared that as the then Air Force chief he had expressed unhappiness to the then Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, over the announcement of ceasefire.

Mr. Fernandes skirted the issue but said he was glad the Marshal had brought out for the first time the truth of what had happened in 1962. — PTI

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