One national daily newspaper went to town devoting its entire front page to a single news report. The report made a thinly veiled suggestion of a threatened coup by the army. It was based upon troop movements without notification in the Capital on the day that Army Chief General VK Singh filed a petition in the Supreme Court related to his dispute with the government regarding his date of birth. Although this report may have been based on investigations by the newspaper’s staff, it can be reliably stated that other media outlets had been approached earlier by sources in the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to carry a report about a threatened army coup. These efforts had not succeeded.

There are two possibilities. Either there was the real threat of a coup. Or, there was no real threat of a coup. If there was a real threat the government would have been exceedingly stupid to highlight the fact. Since the coup was never actually attempted the government had every opportunity to question the army personnel involved and quietly take appropriate action to defuse the threat. It would have been crucial for the nation’s and the army’s morale to prevent the spread of panic. It would also have been in national interest to keep such information guarded from foreign powers. 

If there was no real threat of a coup it would mean that the government was interested in creating the scare for a political purpose. If such turns out to be the case the government is beyond stupid. It is insane. It might resort to such a dangerously desperate stratagem in order to prepare public opinion for action against the Army Chief. It could either follow former National Security Adviser Mr. Brajesh Mishra’s intemperate and somewhat hysterical demand that General VK Singh be ordered to go on forced leave. Or it could take the extreme step of sacking the Army Chief.

The government is understandably desperate as the noose of corruption tightens unrelentingly around its neck. But if any such action is being contemplated in order to win over public opinion, the government could be making a huge miscalculation. It might end up jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Rightly or wrongly opinion among the public as well as in the army is overwhelmingly against the government. Any lapses of conduct by the Army Chief are all overlooked by the public in its nauseous disgust with the government’s corruption. 

If the government takes any reckless action based upon innuendo it may spell not only its own doom but also destruction of the political system. Never since the dark days of the Emergency has India been so perilously close to destroying its democratic system.