He is unique

Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw was one of the last remaining links with a different era, with a time when the institutions and memories that guide us still were being carved out by main strength, by men and women who seemed larger-than-life. He was 94 when he died early Friday morning, but the deaths of such men, who are emblematic of a different time, are always unexpected: because they force those who lived through that time to confront the changes in the world around them, and to deal with what they will inevitably conclude is the pettiness that has crept in since then; and because those who have lived with an iconic figure all their life will be astonished to discover how much that figure meant, not only to the generation before but, strangely, to their own.

The sense of loss will only be magnified because of Manekshaw8217;s personality. Few figures today are likely to exhibit the confident quirkiness that he had in abundance. A source of endless anecdote, he was adored within the services, even as he was respected. Indeed, such contradictions are central to his story: he was someone who had contempt for the unrestrained exercise of power, yet moved easily through the most hierarchical of systems to eventually embody authority himself; someone who had little patience with political short-sightedness but worked to strengthen the political establishment; an Indian military hero who was victorious. This last is part of why Manekshaw was and is special. In all recorded history, the Republic and its predecessors have fought mainly defensive wars. They have mostly been brief, some have been unheralded; our other military heroes are those who have been gallant in defence, those who died bravely in a hopeless cause 8212; Rani Laxmibai and Prithviraj Chauhan. Sam Manekshaw won. He won decisively. He is unique.

And then, conscious that that status alone could destabilise a young democracy, he gracefully left the stage, cementing for ever civilian control of the military. Throughout his career, and in his later life, he supported through his actions the idea of a liberal India, even as he was frustrated by illiberal policies that turned the brightest star of the next generation of officers 8212; the man who trained the Mukti Bahini and helped make Manekshaw8217;s victory possible 8212; into someone who died fighting his former comrades in the shattered ruins of the Golden Temple. It might be difficult for some today to comprehend the fragility of India8217;s traditions a quarter of a century after Independence: Manekshaw sealed the greatness of his career through the manner of his leaving it. Two nations, thus, will for ever be grateful to the man who just died: the one that he helped give birth to and the one that he preserved through his life.