Page 64 - Leadership in the Indian Army

Director, Brigadier Duke, which necessitated the transfer of one of them. Under
normal circumstances, Nathu Singh would have been the one to go, but the Auk
decided to transfer Brigadier Duke instead, and Nathu Singh was promoted
Brigadier and appointed Director in his place. Nathu Singh pleaded with the C-in-
C to transfer him, rather than Brigadier Duke, but the Auk was adamant. Perhaps
he felt that Nathu Singh was in the right or perhaps it was his fondness for Singh
that led him to take this decision.
Nathu Singh’s closeness to the Auk can be gauged from the fact that when the
latter heard about his differences with Brigadier Duke, he called Singh to Delhi
and invited him to stay at his own house. This house was later renamed Teen
Murti Bhavan and became the Prime Minister’s house in Nehru’s time. The Auk
even took Singh to England so that he could study the selection procedure for
officers in the British Army. When the time came for Nathu Singh to return to
Meerut, he asked the ADC for the bill for the drinks he had, while staying with the
C-in-C. The ADC told him to take it up with the C-in-C himself, which he did.
The Auk said: ‘Don’t be silly, Nathu. You are my guest.’ To which Nathu replied:
‘Sir, I wish I had known this earlier. I would have had a few more drinks.’
Soon after becoming Director, Nathu Singh submitted a paper on reorganising
the army and its officer cadre, which was approved by Auchinleck. A training
school was immediately set up at Yol for emergency commissioned officers
(ECOs), so that they could be granted permanent regular commission (PRC). This
helped about 4,000 ECOs to get absorbed in the regular army as ICOs. It was
around this time that he was offered the post of C-in-C after Independence. Sardar
Baldev Singh, the Defence Minister in the Interim Government, made this offer at
a tea party that he was hosting, in the presence of several other leaders, including
the premiers of Punjab and the NWFP. He followed it up with a letter on 22
November 1946:

Your letter of 21st November has reached me. You have been selected and earmarked to be the first C-in-
C of India, with command over the three Defence Services. This decision has been arrived at after the
Muslim League joined the ‘Interim Government’, and with the consent of all the Political Parties
comprising the Government. It is on the recommendation of the present C-in-C, and with the approval of
the Governor General, the Viceroy, and may be the HMG. The approval of the officers senior to you
does not arise.

The letter goes on to answer several other questions raised by Nathu Singh, such
as the acceleration of nationalisation, the integration of the three defence services,
‘dominion status’ for the country, and the appointment of an Indian as the next
Governor General after Lord Wavell. Baldev Singh also made it clear that after the
‘transfer of power’, the C-in-C would be answerable to the Ministry of Defence.
Nathu Singh is said to have declined the offer, since he felt that the appointment
should rightfully go to Cariappa, who was his senior. In fact, the next letter from
Nathu Singh to Baldev Singh contains no reference at all to the offer of