Nehru, Thimmaya and Menon
By Inder Malhotra
Since the issue of civilian control over the military has once again come to the fore, an account of the successive events in the evolution and establishment of this inviolable doctrine is in order. The most important and dramatic among these is what has come to be known as "the Thimayya Episode".
Until the end of the Raj, the commander-in-chief, India, was the second most important man in this country after the Viceroy. Sometimes — as in the famous case of Kitchener-Curzon confrontation — he could successfully challenge even the monarch's representative. He was also the commander-in-chief of the Indian army, and the C-in-Cs of the navy and the air force were his subordinates. The British had the knack of inflicting on their colonies systems that they would never tolerate in their own country.
All this came to an end on August 15, 1947 when all three C-in-Cs, all of them Englishmen still, were made equal. Their boss was the defence minister in the cabinet of the iconic Jawaharlal Nehru that included several towering leaders. On the commencement of the Constitution on January 26, 1950, the president became the supreme commander of the armed forces, acting, of course, through the council of ministers. On April 1, 1955, when only the navy chief was still a Briton, the designations of three C-in-Cs were changed to chiefs of staff.
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".
In 1957 General K.S. Thimayya, with an enviably outstanding professional record and popularity with the ranks, was appointed Chief of the Army Staff (COAS). Roughly at the same time, the brilliant but waspish Krishna Menon, who enjoyed Nehru's complete confidence, was appointed defence minister. Much was therefore expected of the Menon-Thimayya partnership. But the result was exactly the opposite because of Menon's penchant for "unpleasant bossiness and supercilious bullying", in the words of Nehru's biographer, S. Gopal.
According to the best available evidence, there were differences between the army chief and the defence minister over promotions (especially that of Lieutenant-General B.M. Kaul). On the issue of defence against China also, the two were poles apart. However, it was Menon's "rude", arrogant and off-putting behaviour that caused the greatest irritation to Thimayya.
The other two chiefs, Vice-Admiral Ramdas Katari and Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee, were also peeved, and it was decided that Thimayya whom Nehru should meet the prime minister and apprise him of the unhappy situation.
Sometime in August 1959, Thimayya met Nehru, casually at a garden party first and then at the prime minister's house. What exactly transpired at these meetings has never been fully known. But the general belief is that Nehru listened to the general and promised to speak to Menon. And speak to Menon he did. Again, no one really knows what happened during this conversation. What is definitely known, however, is that three days after Nehru's talk with him, Menon sent for Thimayya "in a highly excited state of mind" and strongly criticised him for taking the matter to the prime minister. Thimayya should have "resolved the problems, Menon said, "privately and bilaterally". Menon also warned the general of "possible political repercussions if the matter became public". After this meeting that Thimayya sent in his resignation.
Its timing could not have been more inappropriate and unfortunate. For Thimayya's resignation letter reached Teen Murti in the afternoon of August 31. The prime minister read it in the evening, asked the COAS to see him at 7 p.m., and persuaded him to withdraw the resignation. The next morning Pakistan's first military dictator, Ayub Khan, was making a stopover in Delhi to talk to Nehru at the airport. Only a few hours before Ayub's arrival, the news of Thimayya's resignation was published in banner headlines. The newspapers were unaware that the resignation had been withdrawn. Some of them had added, wrongly, that the other two chiefs "would follow suit". All hell broke loose.
Ayub came and went but New Delhi was convulsed. There were lurid rumours galore. At 4 p.m. on September 1, the Press Trust of India reported that Krishna Menon had resigned, only to withdraw the report a few hours later. Later still, an agency dispatch from London quoted Air Marshal Mukherjee, then visiting Britain, to the effect that he "knew nothing" about these events.
The next day , Parliamentwas expectedly stormy. On the Opposition benches there was great support for Thimayya and trenchant criticism of Menon. A number of Congress MPs were no less critical of the defence minister but they remained silent. Nehru would have nothing of this, however. He told the House that the issues involved in Thimayya's withdrawn resignation were "rather trivial and of no consequence", and that they arose "from temperamental differences and did not include promotions". However, he declined to place Thimayya's letter of resignation on the table of Parliament, nor has it been made public since.
The core of Nehru's speech was the "supremacy of the civilian authority" though he took care to add that "due heed be paid to the expert advice" the civilian authority received. Altogether the tenor of the prime minister's speech was favourable to Menon and critical of the COAS. Nehru said at one stage that he "could not congratulate the general on the manner in which he has acted."
For months on end thereafter there was tremendous support for Thimayya in Parliament, the press and the public. Even after he retired in early 1961, demands for Menon's dismissal were constant. So were expectations of a cabinet reshuffle during which Menon was likely to be divested of the defence portfolio. Some of Menon's cabinet colleagues were also hoping to see him go. But finally, it was left to the Chinese to drive the abrasive defence minister out.
S. Gopal perceived the Thimayya-Menon episode as "a comic-opera putsch". According to him, Nehru dealt with it in Parliament "in such a way as to strengthen Menon's position and shrink Thimayya's reputation. He stressed the importance of the government's control of the armed forces and hinted that Thimayya had acted irresponsibly."
Some military officers argue that the Thimayya resignation should not be brought in while discussing the present three service chiefs' refusal, initially at least, to notify a cabinet decision. The matter is debatable but in any case, it is no bar to remembrance of things past.
Comments
By Akshay K
It is a pity that even today kids know about \'Bharat Ratna\' Nehru and there are roads named after Krishna \'Traitor\' Menon but there is no mention of a great soul like Thimayya anywhere in India. On the other hand, Gen Thimayya was the only Indian military officer who has a biography written about him by a foreigner and streets named after him abroad.