Army reviews Gen Naravane’s book: What Rules govern writing by serving and retired personnel?

The book, titled Four Stars of Destiny, is scheduled for release this month.

What information does the book contain on the LAC standoff with China?

The published excerpts described a communication between Gen Naravane and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on August 31, 2020, when Chinese troops were moving tanks and men in Rechin La pass on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

Singh told Gen Naravane that he had spoken with the Prime Minister, and that the Army was free to act as it deemed fit. “Jo ucchit samjho woh karo,” Singh said, according to the excerpts.

The former Chief recalled that “a hundred different thoughts flashed through my mind”, and he called then Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Y K Joshi. “’We cannot be the first ones to fire,’ I told him… Instead, I told him to move a troop of our tanks right to the forward slopes of the Pass and depress their guns so that the PLA would be staring down the barrels of our guns,” Gen Naravane has written.

The excerpts also gave some details about the deadly clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers that took place in the Galwan Valley during the night of June 15-16, 2020. China’s President Xi Jinping would not forget the incident easily because PLA troops had suffered “fatal casualties” for the first time in more than two decades, Gen Naravane wrote.

Why is the book being reviewed by the Army?

Under Section 21 of The Army Rules, 1954, serving personnel are not allowed to “publish in any form whatever or communicate directly or indirectly to the press any matter in relation to a political question or on a service subject or containing any service information”.

Also, it is prohibited to “publish or cause to be published any book or letter or article or other document on such question or matter or containing such information without the prior sanction of the Central Government”.

Serving officers also cannot “deliver a lecture or wireless address on a matter relating to a political question or on a service subject or containing any information or views on any service subject” without prior sanction.

The Rules explain that “’service information’ and ‘service subject’ include information or subject…concerning the forces, the defence or the external relation of the Union”.

Officials said the rule may not apply if an Armed Forces personnel writes a book that is unrelated to his/ her work, or is of a literary or artistic nature.

Do these Rules also apply to a retired officer such as Gen Naravane?

The Rules do not explicitly state the process that is to be followed by retired defence services officers while publishing a book.

Some officials told The Indian Express that the review process for books to be published by Armed Forces personnel can draw from the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972, which were amended in June 2021 by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

This is despite the fact that the Armed Forces do not come under the purview of these Rules.

The amended Rules barred retired government servants who have served in intelligence or security-related organisations from publishing any information related to the organisation after retirement without prior permission.

Retired civil servants who do not belong to this category do not require government sanction to publish a book, the officials said.

Have other Army officers written books earlier?

Yes, several serving and retired Army officers have written books on various military-related subjects in the past.

Books written by former Army Chiefs include Kargil: From Surprise To Victory by Gen V P Malik (retd), and Courage and Conviction: An Autobiography by Gen V K Singh (retd).

Former Chief Gen K Sundarji wrote Blind Men of Hindoostan: Indo-Pak Nuclear War and Of Some Consequence: A soldier Remembers.