This biography chronicles the extraordinary life of General Satyavant Mallanah Shrinagesh who rose to the helm of Indian Army at the young age of 54. It can also be called an autobiography because General Shrinagesh had been in the process of writing his autobiography which he could not complete due to Parkinson’s disease and subsequent demise. However, he left behind notes and documents which have been used as the framework by the author of this biography, Brigadier Issar.
In this book, Brigadier Issar has also added a family angle by including the recollections of General Shrinagesh’s children of their father and the life story of his spouse who, at the ripe age of 94, is regarded as the Grand Old Lady of the Indian army. The fact that a person from South India married a girl from Punjab in the early 1930s must have been a revolutionary event in the social milieu of India of those days. The protagonist has been chosen also because General Shrinagesh was the first incumbent to the post of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) in 1955, when the designation of Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) was changed. Like the C-in-C, the Chief of the Army Staff presided over the headquarters functioning as a subordinate and separate entity attached to the Ministry of Defence.
Not many Indian Generals who were at the helm of the Indian Army could find time to pen their memoirs or experiences. The political turmoil in the decades prior to 1947 did not leave Shrinagesh and the other Indian officers serving under the Crown unaffected. How they coped with their duty to the Crown while preparing for the day when a free India would need its own armed forces to defend the newly attained freedom has been highlighted in this biography. The foresight with which Shrinagesh and his peers viewed the future of a free India and the Indian Army largely influenced their choice of a career and their keenness to acquire high knowledge and its application to assignments they held, whether on staff, regimental or command appointments.
General Shrinagesh’s is a remarkable life story of a young Indian born at Kolhapur in Maharashtra at the beginning of the 20th century, in a progressive family of a renowned physician in the court of the former Nizam of Hyderabad. He spent his early childhood in the company of children from affluent families associated with the nobility in the court of the Nizam. Later, he and his younger siblings were sent for schooling to West Buckland School, a public school in Devonshire (UK) at a time when Britain had entered the First World War which was raging in Europe. It was also the period when the seed of India’s Independence was being sown. While studying in Cambridge University, he met some Indians working for India’s freedom. He left his studies and took the examination to join the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, to free the country from British yoke. He gradually rose from the officers at the time of the country’s Independence.
Shrinagesh played a stellar role as a key commander in the operation during the Pakistan war in Jammu & Kashmir after acquiring skill and experience during the years of training and commanding in the Second World War in 1947-48. He played a major role in backing Poonch and Leh garrisons which helped to capture Zoji La by employing tanks on snow-bound heights. He applied meticulous logistics, placing stealth and secrecy in the movement of tanks from Akhnur to Baltal which lies north of Pir Panjal.
The author says that at the time of General KM Cariappa’s superannuation on completion of the four-year tenure as C-in-C, the Indian Government committed a serious policy blunder as Pakistan was in occupation of nearly one-third of Jammu & Kashmir and the Chinese had occupied Tibet since 1949. Continuity of four years in the tenure of Cariappa’s successor as C-in-C was of paramount importance. But the Indian government reduced the four-year tenure to two and a pliable General Maharaj Rajendrasinhji was brought in. Shrinagesh pointed it out that it was a wrong moment to bring about a change in command. Barely could the new incumbent settle down when C-in-C was “downgraded to the designation of Chief of the Army Staff.” General Shrinagesh had recoded in his analysis of this sad chapter of the country’s history in his personal papers. The author says that that this led largely to the diplomatic and military debacle against the Chinese in 1962.
With the void left by the departure of the British in the Indian Army, Shrinagesh did yeoman service in making the Indian politicians understand the strategic need for retaining a strong army.
The book presents an account of General Shrinagesh as a soldier, thinker, administrator, the head of a state and a man devoted to his family.
—MG
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