Inaccurate report about Field Marshal KM Cariappa

Leadership in the Indian Army
Biographies of Twelve Soldiers

V K Singh Retired Major General

© March 2005 417 pages

Sage Publications Pvt Ltd

Paperback ISBN: 9780761933229 £15.99




Dear Brig Kamboj,

Inder Malhotra has got his facts wrong in his piece KHAKI VS KHADI in last week's newspaper. Cariappa did not make the preposterous suggestion to Mounbatten, as suggested in the article. The remark of Ismay was in a diifferent context. The true story is given below.

In January 1947, Cariappa was sent to UK, to attend the Imperial Defence College. Realising the dangers of dividing the Army, and the lack of experience of officers, at senior levels, he made a statement that it would take at least five years before the Indian Army could stand on its feet, without the help of British officers. This was picked up by the press, and caused a furore in India. Liaquat Ali Khan, of the Muslim League, felt that Cariappa's intentions, in keeping an undivided Army, were suspect, and took up the issue with Mountbatten. Cariappa was summoned to India House, in London, where Lord Ismay, Mountbatten's Chief of Staff, was present. Cariappa clarified that he had made the suggestion only because he felt that an undivided Army could help the two newly independent nations in getting over their teething problems. He was admonished, told to knock the idea out of his mind, and not to mention it again. In a telegram to Mountbatten, on 4 May 1947, Ismay wrote: "It is hard to know whether Cariappa in putting forward his idea was ingenious and ignorant or disingenious and dangerous, or both."

I would recommend Shri Malhotra should read Cariappa's biography, which is part of my book LEADERSHIP IN THE INDIAN ARMY (Sage, 2005).
I had sent this correction in a letter to the Editor but it was not published. Apparently, senior journalists in India can literally get away with murder, especially when it comes to denigrating the Armed Forces.

VK Singh
(Maj Gen VK Singh,Veteran, OIC Corps of Signals History Cell)

Extract from Inder Malhotra article in IE:
There was no occasion or need to propound the doctrine of civilian control publicly until 1959 when the Thimayya-Krishna Menon clash erupted. Yet, strangely enough, the first example of woolly and unacceptable military thinking had come to light even before the dawn of independence. Nobody knew whether there would be one successor to the departing British or two. In the midst of intense negotiations over this issue, on May 9, 1947, Brigadier (later the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army) K.M. Cariappa called on Mountbatten’s chief of staff, Lord Ismay, to suggest that the power be transferred to the “Indian Army with either Nehru or Jinnah as the commander-in-Chief”. Taken aback by this “amazing” and, “highly dangerous” proposal, Ismay, himself a distinguished General, remonstrated with Cariappa and reported the conversation to the Viceroy, saying: “It is hard to know whether Cariappa ... was ingenuous and ignorant or ingenuous and dangerous”.
Inder Malhotra
Indian Express 17 Oct 2008
Khaki vs Khadi by Inder Malhotra

Additional reading links
Unending stranglehold of seniority
Merit versus seniority in civil services