Page 49 - Leadership in the Indian Army

was the last thing of which he would have liked to be accused. In the event,
he recommended the proposal and Nehru accepted it without going into its
implications. Had he opposed it, perhaps the Indian Army would not have

suffered the infamy of 1962, since Thimayya as well as Thorat would still
have been around to say ‘no’ to Nehru and Krishna Menon, as Sam
Manekshaw did to Indira Gandhi in April 1971, when she wanted to go to
war with Pakistan.
The welfare of ex-servicemen always remained Cariappa’s prime concern.
In 1964, he founded the Indian Ex-Servicemen’s League (IESL) by
amalgamating the Federation and the Association, which were rival

organisations often working at cross-purposes. He was also responsible for
the creation of the Directorate of Resettlement. In 1957, he took up cudgels
on behalf of Major General Tara Singh Bal—who had been unjustly retired
by the government—and had him reinstated. Keeping the IESL free from
politics was another one of his major achievements.
Cariappa also made a brief foray into politics in early 1971. Convinced

that the country could not be governed by the present system of elections,
he recommended that the general elections scheduled for 1971 be cancelled
and President’s rule be imposed for a few years, keeping the Constitution in
suspended animation. Political parties were to be abolished and martial law
imposed in disturbed states. Once the situation had stabilised, elections
could be held with just two or three parties, as in the UK or USA. As could
be expected, the political parties reacted violently and Y.B. Chavan, the

Home Minister, denounced in Parliament the call for ‘Army Rule by an ex
C-in-C’. Cariappa wrote an angry letter to Chavan, berating him for
misleading the House, and demanded an apology, which never came.
A number of his friends and admirers had been trying to persuade him to
join politics and stand for elections so that he could contribute to the
nation’s development. After deep reflection, he agreed and decided to

contest the Lok Sabha seat from north-east Bombay. Lieutenant General
S.P.P. Thorat and several other retired officers came forward to assist him in
his campaign, as did many well-known industrialists and the erstwhile
Maharaja of Mysore. Cariappa declined to join any political party and stood
as an independent candidate. Unfortunately, his two opponents were V.K.
Krishna Menon and Acharya J.B. Kripalani, both veterans and political
heavyweights. Cariappa, though widely respected, was a novice in the

rough and tumble world of politics. He refused to use money or muscle to