NEW DELHI: Was it published or not? This question has been at the heart of an ongoing controversy surrounding a book authored by a retired Indian Army chief – one that has raised concerns over attempts by the Indian government to censor inconvenient storytelling.
Four Stars Of Destiny, an autobiography by General Manoj Mukund Naravane, who retired as chief of the army staff in April 2022, hit the headlines on Feb 2 after opposition leader Rahul Gandhi of the Indian National Congress attempted to cite passages from the memoir during a Parliament session.
He was blocked from doing so by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and Speaker of the House Om Birla, who directed Gandhi, amid uproarious scenes, not to quote from the memoir, describing it as unauthenticated and unpublished.
The book has not been officially cleared for release, with reports indicating the draft manuscript has been stuck with the government since 2023, when the Press Trust of India first reported on these excerpts.
One of the controversial passages the opposition leader wanted to read aloud refers to behind-the-scenes events from 2020 during the tense India-China border stand-off in Ladakh – particularly on Aug 31 when Chinese troops and tanks were believed to have advanced significantly towards Indian positions.
Indian troops manoeuvred while awaiting government orders. Gen (Ret) Naravane reportedly notes in the memoir that he tried seeking clear directives from the Indian political leadership, including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Rajnath reportedly replied that he had “spoken to the Prime Minister” and that Gen (Ret) Naravane should “do whatever you deem appropriate”.
In his words, Gen (Ret) Naravane felt as if he had been “handed a hot potato”, which has been interpreted by many as an indication that the government had left a critical decision entirely in the general’s hands and failed to fully back the Indian Army.
Bilateral tensions between India and China had already escalated in 2020 as their troops clashed in June that year, leading to the deaths of at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.
A few days after Gandhi was stopped from quoting the book, he walked into the Parliament complex with a hardbound copy. Addressing a media conference, he said that he would “go physically and hand (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) this book so he can read it and the country can get to know the truth”.
As the controversy raged, Penguin Random House, the book’s publisher, broke its silence on Feb 9 and posted on X that the book has not been published and, as the publisher, it holds its “sole publishing rights”.
This further heightened speculation, with questions swirling over the origin of the book Gandhi brandished outside Parliament. Was it a pirated copy? Or a pre-print copy, sent out in advance for review? Or was clearance expected and some published copies sent out to bookstores ahead of a scheduled launch date?
Both Gen (Ret) Naravane and Penguin Random House had tweeted in December 2023 that the book was ready for “pre-order”, and several online retailers, including Amazon in Singapore, listed it as “published” in January 2024.
However, Penguin Random House, which deleted its 2023 tweet, put out another statement on Feb 10, clarifying that a book may have been “announced” or made available for “pre-order” but this does not mean it has been “published”.
Penguin Random House did not respond to a query from The Straits Times. Representatives from the publisher have, meanwhile, already been questioned by the Delhi Police, which has launched an inquiry into a possible leak that has been described as an attempt to bypass mandatory government clearance.
Gen (Ret) Naravane has also not commented publicly on the controversy but neither has he denied the passages quoted. He simply reposted Penguin Random House’s statement on X with a terse seven-word comment: “This is the status of the book.”
A senior publishing professional from another firm, who spoke to ST but requested anonymity, said the most plausible explanation for the fiasco was that Penguin Random House had already legally vetted the manuscript and was confident of securing government clearance.
Possibly, a publishing date had also been finalised and advance copies sent out, which then had to be pulled back following the controversy.
“I think they just assumed that they would get the clearance and proceeded with the usual publicity that a publisher does a little ahead of time, especially for a book that you know is going to do really well commercially,” the person said.
Since the controversy, there have been several Indian media reports indicating that the government is mulling over stricter control on how much retired Indian Army and other government officials can divulge and how soon.
This includes sending the manuscript to the Ministry of Defence before it is given to the publisher and formally incorporating the Official Secrets Act (OSA) into the clearance process.
India currently does not have a single clearly defined process to regulate the writing of books by retired military officials. But retired officers are expected to adhere to the OSA, which criminalises disclosure of classified information or sensitive operational details.
In May 2021, the government also amended its pension rules, requiring retired officials who served in certain security or intelligence roles to obtain prior clearance before publishing material about their former organisation or work. Not doing so could affect their pension benefits.
Hindustan Times also reported on Feb 14 that the government is considering introducing a cooling-off period of 20 years for senior officials in positions of power, including military officers, before they can author books after retirement.
The government has, however, refuted this, with some speculating its denial may have been prompted by widespread public criticism.
Squadron Leader Rana Chhina, a military historian and a retired Indian Air Force pilot, acknowledges that in today’s social media-driven world, as well as heightened sensitivities, factual statements can often get blown out of proportion, very often even taking “things off on a tangent”.
“But if on that basis, we are going to limit legitimate freedoms of expression or critical analysis, then obviously, it’s not just the military but society as a whole that suffers,” he told ST. “If you restrict access to critical views, you can’t always have an honest assessment of things.”
“The point is political sensitivities can be applied to just about anything… I don’t think it is healthy for a democracy to be oversensitive about personal views unless they impinge upon national security, something the establishment has a legitimate right to express its concern on,” he said.
The Henderson Brooks-Bhagat report, which looks into India’s military debacle against China in 1962, still remains officially unreleased. That year, India suffered crippling losses to China in a war, including the death of at least nearly 1,400 of its soldiers.
India also lacks a structured automatic declassification system. Decisions to declassify documents remain largely discretionary.
Another former Indian Army chief, General Ved Prakash Malik, wrote a book that looks back at his stint in the army. Published in 2006, six years after his retirement, Kargil: From Surprise To Victory, reviews India’s intelligence and surveillance failures in detecting infiltration by Pakistani troops into Ladakh, which led to a nearly three-month-long war in 1999.
Gen (Ret) Malik, who served as chief of the army staff during the Kargil War, told ST there were no rules for retired officers on writing books back then. “However, we ensured ourselves that classified information or anything against national interest was not included,” he said.
While he did not wish to comment on Gen (Ret) Naravane’s book or the controversy around it, Gen (Ret) Malik said he is “not in favour of much delayed military history writing”, adding that the timeframe for such stocktaking should not be more than five years in “the current geopolitical and strategic environment”. - The Straits Times/ANN
