THE reported call by the Indian army chief, General J. J. Singh, that the records of wars the country had fought with China (1962) and Pakistan (1965 and 1971) should be declassified and made public is a highly pragmatic suggestion. It is noteworthy that in Pakistan while the media and politically conscious people have been asking their government to reveal the facts related to wars, there has been resistance from army circles and, as a result, unverified stories have been doing the rounds. The Kargil incident, with sharply varying accounts of the then Prime Minister and the army, reinforced the logic behind this demand for the disclosure of the actual position.
The revelation of the rationale behind these wars and performance of the fighting force in the battlefields would remove plenty of doubt in the public mind and certainly help both soldiers and others draw lessons from these conflicts, as General Singh argued on the occasion of the release of a 'coffee table book' on the army at New Delhi on Thursday. Besides, bringing out the facts in the open would be consistent with the requirements of transparency and democratic practice of the people's right to know whether their governments had been acting in the national interest. And after all, wars cost a great deal of money and the sacrifice of soldiers and could carry serious implications for foreign relations.
Apparently, the Indian government has been ready with its version of the history of these wars, but the Ministry of Defence is reluctant to make it public. However, there is a possibility that General Singh's lament that though 45 years had elapsed since the war with China was fought, the bureaucracy was yet hesitant to let the people know the whole story, might be heeded and its story of the wars with Pakistan also comes out. It would do a lot of good if Pakistan were to take the world into confidence precisely for the same reasons the Indian army chief has advanced in his country's case.