[The situation has created the uncomfortable appearance of India
By Jim Yardley
 |
Sajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Vijay Kumar Singh, India’s Army chief, center, insists that
he was born on May 10, 1951. But India’s government
claims he was instead born on May 10, 1950.
|
Yet for
weeks, the Indian Army has been embroiled in an achingly public dispute not
about national security but about the birth date of its chief. In a drama that
has set off emotional sparring on television talk shows and condemnation in
newspaper editorials, the army chief, Gen. Vijay Kumar Singh, has insisted that
he was born on May 10, 1951 .
But India May 10, 1950 .
The answer
to the dispute could determine whether General Singh retires in May or 10
months later, as military regulations stipulate that the army chief must step
down after three years on the job or upon his 62nd birthday, whichever comes
first.
The
controversy, which has direct bearing on the succession schedule of India India
“This is
about his pride, integrity and honor,” said Puneet Bali, one of the lawyers
involved in the general’s petition.
It is a
tale of pride and paperwork, of honor and hubris (and clerical typos) that has
become an embarrassment to India
The
situation has created the uncomfortable appearance of India
“There was
an element of surprise,” said Ashok Mehta, a retired general who has been
critical of General Singh’s actions. “One of the principles of war is
deception. I think he let people believe he wasn’t actually going to court.”
The
practical impact of the case concerns the schedule for leadership changes
within the Indian Army. General Singh, who served with distinction in the 1971
war against Pakistan March 31, 2010 . By this timetable, General Singh is scheduled to step
down in May, based on the 1950 birth date cited by the government.
However,
General Singh’s contention that he is actually younger, if upheld, could make
him eligible to remain on the job and complete a full three-year term.
In his few
public comments, General Singh has dismissed accusations that he is trying to
cling to his position and has denied that he is fighting with the Defense
Ministry. “It is not something for personal gains, so far as I’m concerned,”
General Singh recently told the news channel NDTV.
For all
the juicy media appeal of the country’s top general suing the government he is
sworn to defend, the case is also about one of the banes of Indian life: the
mountains of paperwork required by the country’s bureaucracy. It is not
definitively clear how, when or why the conflicting dates began to appear, but
as the general began to rise through the ranks, he had two birthdays registered
in the army’s clerical system. The adjutant general’s branch listed his birth
year as 1951. The military secretary’s branch put the year as 1950. Somewhere,
a typo occurred.
The
general himself seemingly accepted the 1950 birth date at critical moments in
his career. In his last three promotions, culminating in his 2010 appointment
as army chief, his birth year was listed as 1950 on official records. But
General Singh has argued that he was pressured to accept that false date,
according to Indian media accounts. Last year, the general filed an
administrative complaint, seeking to have the date changed to 1951; the
complaint wended through the system until the Defense Ministry issued a final
rejection.
As the
controversy percolated in recent months, India India
“Rules are
rules,” Salman Khurshid, the law minister, told the Indian media.
The
Supreme Court could choose not to accept General Singh’s petition, thus neither
ruling nor interfering in the matter. Or it could hold a full-blown hearing in
which the general would be allowed to present evidence supporting his claims to
a 1951 birth date.
For many
retired military leaders, the whole messy spectacle has been disheartening.
Many have blamed both the army and the Ministry of Defense for not correcting
the problem years ago. Criticism against General Singh has also been harsh, as
some have blamed him for failing to heed the military credo that an officer
should always put service before self.
“He may be
right, in terms of procedure,” said Uday Bhaskar, a retired Indian Navy
commodore. “But what this has done is diminish the institution and tarnish the
individual, no matter how unwarranted it may be.”
@ The New York Times
CRACKDOWN CONTINUES ON ACTIVISTS IN CHINA
Li Bibo contributed research.
CRACKDOWN CONTINUES ON ACTIVISTS IN CHINA
[Mr. Liu was convicted of subversion in December 2009, and in 2010, while serving an 11-year prison sentence, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Last March, a court in Sichuan Province Sichuan Guizhou Province
By Michael Wines
In the
latest case, Zhu Yufu, 58, a writer and democracy advocate, was charged with
subversion in Hangzhou
Contacted
by telephone on Tuesday, Mr. Zhu’s lawyer, Li Dunyong, said a date for Mr. Zhu’s
trial had not been set. Reuters quoted Mr. Li as saying his client was in good
condition.
Mr. Li
said Mr. Zhu wrote the poem early last year, as uprisings in the Middle East
led a small number of activists outside China to issue an Internet call for a
“Jasmine Revolution.” The Chinese authorities have responded by drastically
intensifying a crackdown on rights activists that dated from December 2008,
when the writer and intellectual Liu Xiaobo was
detained after helping write the Charter 08 democracy manifesto.
Mr. Liu
was convicted of subversion in December 2009, and in 2010, while serving an
11-year prison sentence, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Last March, a court in Sichuan Province Sichuan Guizhou Province
Human
rights experts say most of the sentences exceed those imposed for similar
crimes in years past. In part, that may reflect the fact that those convicted
have previous prison records for rights activism, many stretching back to their
involvement in the Tiananmen Squarestudent protests in 1989.
Mr. Zhu
spent seven years in prison for subversion after being convicted in 1999 for helping to found an opposition
political group, the China Democracy Party, during President Bill Clinton’s
state visit to China in
June 1998.
In 2007, a
year after his release, he was detained and later sentenced to more than two
years in prison after pushing a police officer while being arrested.
The poem
at the heart of the indictment, “It’s Time,” appears to have drawn the
authorities’ attention for its timing around the Jasmine Revolution
controversy. By one translation, it states, in part:
It’s time
It’s time,
Chinese people!
It’s time,
The square
is ours,
The feet
are ours,
It’s time
to use our feet to go to the square and make a choice.
Other
published reports say the poem called for citizens to take a stroll, the same
language used when organizers of the Jasmine protests urged demonstrators
simply to walk around protest locations rather than demonstrate, carry signs or
perform other acts that would identify them as dissidents.
Mr. Zhu
was detained on March 5 after being trailed for weeks by security officers.
Speaking on Tuesday by telephone, Mr. Zhu’s former wife, Jiang Hangli, said she
had not seen the indictment. But she said she was told that it also cited Mr.
Zhu’s annual collection of donations to assist the families of imprisoned
dissidents and the fact that he had granted interviews to foreign media
organizations.
