As Narendra Modi becomes India’s second-longest consecutively serving Prime Minister, we look at how he compares with Indira Gandhi across four key dimensions.
Let’s start with the glasses—
thick-rimmed, professorial,
as if he might pause the artillery
and explain Clausewitz
on a chalkboard in Ladakh.
General K. Sundarji,
who moved like a scholar
trapped in a warrior’s epaulets,
toting strategy maps
and Eliot verses
through the heat of Rajasthan.
He didn’t bark orders,
he briefed them,
delivered with such clarity
that even the tanks
might have nodded
before rolling forward.
Operation Blue Star,
Brass Tacks, and nuclear brinkmanship—
all in a day’s duty.
Though one suspects
he preferred thinking
to posturing,
and would rather game a war
than wage one.
Imagine him at his desk—
papers fanned like a poker hand,
a Montblanc dancing,
chess on one side,
Mahabharata on the other,
a general tuned to both
missiles and metaphors.
They said he was too modern,
too blunt,
too fond of ideas
that didn’t salute.
Yet still he marched,
a loyalist in a house of doubts,
redefining command
with a question mark.
And when the salutes ended,
he found himself in Alcatraz—
not the island,
but a Z-security bungalow,
retirement wrapped in watchmen,
visitors filtered like contraband,
and silence clanging in the halls
like a distant bugle call.
There, he read,
wrote,
remembered,
and opened his past like a file:
Of Some Consequence – A Soldier Remembers,
not a boast,
but a reckoning—
a slow, precise inventory
of what it meant to command,
and sometimes to regret.
He wrote of men and machines,
of clarity lost in the fog,
of moments he replayed in silence:
“When I erred, it was not for lack of thought,
but from believing thought was enough.”
He watched the world spin sideways,
and still tried to teach
from the margins of power.
So here’s to Sunderji—
the soldier who scribbled,
the tactician who questioned,
the man who wrote
to be remembered
not as a hero,
but as someone
of some consequence.
Great piece Shekhar. Very appropriate. I would add two points to his lasting contributions. Firstly, the severest fighting of Op Meghdoot happened during his tenure as COAS. In fact India Quaid Post in this period, and bestowed the only Siachen PVC. Secondly, and as important militarily, I think the roots of India’s Cold Start Doctrine emanate from late Gen Sundarji’s vision. And that doctrine continues to drop temperatures in Pakistan even today.
Nice.With a large amount of exaggeration about his writing. He was perhaps not as good a writer as Shekhar is. Butnot a bad one either. And certainly a General who researched his moves on the battlefield even if he seemed “reckless” to defence journalists covering his work. BTW and speaking of research-this was his death anniversary. He was born in April.
This is a reprint of the piece written on 10 Feb 1999. For those famioliar with the earlier print, and the man, would have been saved some bother. Otherwise worth recounting.
Clausewitz in India
Let’s start with the glasses—
thick-rimmed, professorial,
as if he might pause the artillery
and explain Clausewitz
on a chalkboard in Ladakh.
General K. Sundarji,
who moved like a scholar
trapped in a warrior’s epaulets,
toting strategy maps
and Eliot verses
through the heat of Rajasthan.
He didn’t bark orders,
he briefed them,
delivered with such clarity
that even the tanks
might have nodded
before rolling forward.
Operation Blue Star,
Brass Tacks, and nuclear brinkmanship—
all in a day’s duty.
Though one suspects
he preferred thinking
to posturing,
and would rather game a war
than wage one.
Imagine him at his desk—
papers fanned like a poker hand,
a Montblanc dancing,
chess on one side,
Mahabharata on the other,
a general tuned to both
missiles and metaphors.
They said he was too modern,
too blunt,
too fond of ideas
that didn’t salute.
Yet still he marched,
a loyalist in a house of doubts,
redefining command
with a question mark.
And when the salutes ended,
he found himself in Alcatraz—
not the island,
but a Z-security bungalow,
retirement wrapped in watchmen,
visitors filtered like contraband,
and silence clanging in the halls
like a distant bugle call.
There, he read,
wrote,
remembered,
and opened his past like a file:
Of Some Consequence – A Soldier Remembers,
not a boast,
but a reckoning—
a slow, precise inventory
of what it meant to command,
and sometimes to regret.
He wrote of men and machines,
of clarity lost in the fog,
of moments he replayed in silence:
“When I erred, it was not for lack of thought,
but from believing thought was enough.”
He watched the world spin sideways,
and still tried to teach
from the margins of power.
So here’s to Sunderji—
the soldier who scribbled,
the tactician who questioned,
the man who wrote
to be remembered
not as a hero,
but as someone
of some consequence.
Great piece Shekhar. Very appropriate. I would add two points to his lasting contributions. Firstly, the severest fighting of Op Meghdoot happened during his tenure as COAS. In fact India Quaid Post in this period, and bestowed the only Siachen PVC. Secondly, and as important militarily, I think the roots of India’s Cold Start Doctrine emanate from late Gen Sundarji’s vision. And that doctrine continues to drop temperatures in Pakistan even today.
Nice.With a large amount of exaggeration about his writing. He was perhaps not as good a writer as Shekhar is. Butnot a bad one either. And certainly a General who researched his moves on the battlefield even if he seemed “reckless” to defence journalists covering his work. BTW and speaking of research-this was his death anniversary. He was born in April.
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For Colta read Coupta
Colta right on this one!???
This is a reprint of the piece written on 10 Feb 1999. For those famioliar with the earlier print, and the man, would have been saved some bother. Otherwise worth recounting.
With due regards, the generals contibution in Sumdorong Chu crisis is missing