In a letter published recently in a local daily,former Chief Justice Rajinder Sachar criticised the Army Chief,General Deepak Kapoor,for his statement,We have kept all options open. If diplomatic and economic options fail,then war is the last resort, which he had made during the Sena Diwas press conference. Sachar further said: I feel the Army Chief has crossed the parameters of his role. He was,perhaps,trying to copy Home Minister P Chidambaram who had made a similar provocative statement earlier. There is no denying the fact that the Army Chief should not have made the statement. But since he said so in a press conference on the eve of Sena Diwas,it is obvious that his brief was prepared in consultation with his PRO,who should have known better about the rules on the subject. Even in the past,there have been instances where Service Chiefs made statements that landed them in trouble. During Operation Parakram in 2002,the then Army Chief General S Padmanabhan had commented on Indias nuclear capability and resolve,if attacked with N-weapons by Pakistan. For having said so,he was snubbed by the then defence minister. In 1992,the then Army Chief General S F Rodrigues (now Governor of Punjab and Administrator of Chandigarh) received severe criticism for some statements made in an interview. Some of the politicians went to the extent of demanding his resignation. However,the then defence minister Sharad Pawar had saved the situation when he said: Some remarks,that could have gone in the Army language but need not have appeared in print,were actually made by General Rodrigues and carried by the newspaper. As per the Army Rule 21,no person subject to the Army Act can communicate directly or indirectly to the press any matter in relation to a political question or service subject or containing any service information without the prior sanction of the Central Government or any officer specified by the Central Government on its behalf. Surprisingly,the government has not devised any media policy for the Armed Forces even after over 61 years of independence. The Army,therefore,cannot decide what should be communicated to the media. It is time that the government laid down a clear-cut media policy for the Army so that the senior military officers could steer clear of the pitfalls while interacting with the media.
