Raja Bhattacharjee’s anecdote has reminded me of a similar experience which I had when I was a Major in a Base Workshop, and was appointed a Group Officer, many years ago.

The Commandant gave me a rather stiff target, and when I failed to achieve it, he called for my explanation. I told him about the shortage of trained manpower, lack of test equipment and inadequacy of spares. He gave me a standard lecture on how to manage my technicians and told me about how to improvise test equipment. As for spares he told me to identify substitutes and liaise with the Ordnance and the suppliers. A few weeks later, his boss from Delhi came to inspect our Base Workshop. When confronted with a similar question, the Commandant spoke my language and rued about the shortages which I had been grumbling about. He received a similar ‘Moral Lecture’

Those days I had befriended a senior officer, and I asked him why Senior Officers have double standards; one for their seniors and the other for their juniors. His answer was poignant. He said,

“Who says that Senior Officers have merely ‘double’ standards? Double means two, and for a senior officer to survive he needs many more standards: one for each situation!”

In my later years, I saw people in high places, in the military as well as the industry. And I saw how they change their stance, using cleverly crafted words, which have ambiguous meanings. When they speak, they keep enough room to manoeuvre, and change their stance, if the tide turns against them. The politicians do, indeed, take the cake. I recall a very specific instance.

Mr Vajpayee had been on the opposition benches for many years, before his party came to power in 1977. He was appointed the Minister for External Affairs in Mroarji Desai’s government. In his very first conference, he said, “Please do not quote what I may have said on a given subject when I was in the other side of the House. Those were the views of the opposition. Now I represent the government!!!”

In real life, it is not possible to strictly follow a set of rules. I think ‘flexibility’ is one of the fundamental principles of war. I once had a GOC who had put the following one-liner in his office for his staff to see.

“In the affairs of men, there is just one situation when RIGIDITY is an asset!”

I am impelled to conclude this little piece with an Urdu couplet which I got from Dr Harcharan:

Dushmani jam kar karo; magar yeh gunjaish rahe, ki
Phir kabhi, agar dost ban jaayeN to sharminda na HoN  (Note : N is silent, but adds a nasal sound)

(The word, ‘gunjaish’ in this couplet means ‘space’ )