HATS OFF TO GENERAL VK SINGH

Army Chief General VK Singh, if his supporters are to be believed, achieved the following by his Trishul of Date of Birth assertion, Allegation of 14 Crore Bribe, and Letter to PM regarding Poor Preparedness of Army:

1. He has increased the prestige of the Army and armed forces.

2. He has become a respected and respectable person in public eyes.

3. He has brought increased focus on the ever present corruption in defence procurement deals.

4. He has covered himself in glory by his own honesty, and accountability towards the state of affairs of the Army that he controls (The more mud-slinging you do about your own service, the more the country is convinced you are the right person to command it).

5. He is like a lotus in the filth of senior officers before and after him.

Pic courtesy: blogs.outlookindia.com

6. Now when any fauji visits the bureaucracy and district administration (say on leave), they would stand and salute him for being member of the same armed forces as have produced role models like Gen VK Singh.

7. The country has emerged stronger because of him.

8. There was no other method left for him to expose all the corruption and deficiencies except through assertions about his date of birth, which he himself said was a purely personal matter.

9. People who oppose him are either corrupt or don't have country's best interests in their minds or know nothing about nothing.

10. He averted a situation like that existed before the 1962 Indo-China war simply by asserting his date of birth.

Anyone feels differently? Well don't. Please consider that when you become a Chief there are hardly any options available to you to expose corruption, inefficiency etc except through a "personal issue" of date of birth.

And thank God, he had two dates of birth. A person with just one date of birth would be hard-pressed to start public debates about these extremely important issues of national security.

What changes do we expect due to the relentless campaign by Gen VK Singh to battle evil forces through the controversy regarding his date of birth? Here is a short list:

1. From now onwards, MoD has to carefully scrutinise the dates of birth of all army officers of the rank of Colonel and above.

2. When your dossier is called for by the Ministry to check your date of birth, you can start patting yourself on the back for having credible chance of becoming the Chief in future.

3. All new homeland security equipment including spy cameras and hidden machines should then onwards be utilised to record all conversations with shady officers, that is, all those other than you.

4. Anywhere and everywhere you go, you have to carry the proof of your date of birth with you; particularly when dealing with babus and netas.

5. When anyone says that it is a "purely personal matter", we should know that he wants to "awaken the conscience of the nation".