Friday, March 29, 2024

‘Veterans gang’ get a befitting reply from one of their own





General S G Vombatkere (Retd), yesterday jumped into the cesspool of controversy created by the letter supposedly mailed to the ‘Rashtrapati Bhawan’, expressing concern over the politicization of armed forces. S G Vombatkere, who holds PhD degree in  ‘Structural Dynamics’ from IIT Madras and with 450 published papers in international and national journals, raised his share of concern about the issue and who is said to have endorsed the letter and also coordinated the whole exercise.

“The focus of the whole exercise was to request the President to advise all political parties not to use the army in furtherance of their political agenda as it will affect its apolitical character and adversely affect national security,” Major General Vombatkere told The Hindu.

However, he was silent on the denial of the two former Chiefs’ signing of those letters. However, he added another effort to collect 100 signatures would be made and sent to President. He added, “…the draft was written, re-written and the sent off. .. the initial exercise was initiated and coordinated by  Navy Admiral L Ramdas, Major  Priyadarshini Chowdhry and myself”. 

On Thursday, about 150 defense veterans had mailed a letter to the President raising concerns about the increasing politicization of Indian Armed forces. But the top most signatory in the list Gen SF Rodriguez denied having signing the letter. Air Marshal NC Suri  too denied his involvement.

However, Major General Dhruv C Katoch, Director, India Foundation, which is an independent research centre, has decimated the efforts of a handful of veterans playing into the hands of anonymous inimical forces to the nation and our armed forces.

Maj. Gen. Katoch questioned the whole intent of this ‘letter” and silence by the same veterans when the army was riled, rebuked and abused by the other power centres. He was amazed that a special creed of veterans, in search of finding some relevance after being faded away under the dusty pages of history, may have found a platform to be heard loud and clear when they oppose BJP. And to give the relevance to such voices, many a platforms in form of funded news websites are too ready to offer their space and microphones.

Maj. Gen. Katoch’s facebook post needs to be read in full to drill holes into the motivated “letters” of armed veterans.

He questioned the very coterie of ‘awakened veterans’ about their silence when proof of Balakot was asked by Congress and its followers. Nobody winced when the Army Chief was called ‘Sadak Ka Gunda’.  He doubted the veterans’ intent when they acted deaf at the politicians’ comments that people join army when they don’t have anything to eat at home.

Major General Katoch  asked the flag-bearers of ‘apolitical forces’ whether they have the proofs and records  of emails attached and sent to Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Furthering his concern and doubting the intent of the ‘e-mailers’, he questioned the release of letter on social media and Congress, and wondered if this wasn’t politicizing the armed forces.  

Readers would recall we had earlier raised doubts about the real instigators of the letter.


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