Dear Shri Rajnath Singh Ji,

I was shocked when the 1971 Bangladesh War painting depicting the surrender of Lt. General AAK Niazi before Lt. General Jagjit Singh Aurora was removed from the Army Chief's lounge. It marked the surrender of 90,000 Pakistani troops deployed in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.

It was the single largest surrender of armed personnel anywhere in the world. At no time had India won such a decisive victory in any of the wars it fought. I was a student when the war occurred, leading to the creation of a new independent, sovereign nation with Dhaka as its capital. Incidentally, Bangladesh was chosen the Nation of the Year 2024 by the British journal The Economist.

Every Indian felt proud of the achievement. It is a small wonder that Jan Sangh leader and, later, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee felt impelled to call Indira Gandhi, who led the nation, "Maa Durga." It is a different matter that apologists of the Sangh Parivar claimed that he never called her so.

Of course, your party has been trying to erase history by changing the names of roads, buildings, towns, and railway stations. But I failed to understand what motivated you to remove the painting, which echoed the average Indian's pride. Was it your intention to obliterate the valiant effort of Indira Gandhi to counter the Pakistan-American-Chinese effort to corner India and to allow genocide in Dhaka?

I still remember the fear it evoked in me when I read that the American Seventh Fleet had been commanded by President Richard Nixon to head towards India. She cared two hoots for the threat, as she had already signed a treaty with the Soviet Union, just in case the US bombarded the Calcutta or Vizag ports.

When war veterans and common people protested, the news came that the painting would be installed at the Manekshaw Conference Centre. True, the Centre might attract a larger footfall, but it does not evoke the awe and prestige that the Army Chief of Staff's office in South Block, where the Prime Minister also sits, does. It is with hesitation that I say that the painting has been downgraded. It will be just one of the paintings there.

On the subject of Manekshaw, I am tempted to narrate an anecdote. I joined The Tribune in 2003. For the first three months, I was the Officiating Editor. The newspaper commanded tremendous respect, as the people, especially Sikhs, felt it was their own paper, maybe because it was founded by Dyal Singh Majithia, who was richer than Jamshedji Tata in his time.

I received an invitation for a one-on-one meeting, followed by dinner, from the then Punjab Governor, General JFR Jacob. I received such an invitation from the Chief Minister, Sardar Amarinder Singh too!

I was a disappointment for General Jacob. First, I preferred to have a glass of juice instead of the Scotch whisky he offered and sipped. I knew that General Jacob headed the Western Command during the 1971 war.

It is also true that actual fighting occurred there, not in the eastern sector, where the Pakistani Army was in a mood to surrender because it had no local support and no access to fresh arms and ammunition supplies from West Pakistan. There were also more casualties on the Western Front.

During the course of our conversation, I accidentally dropped the name of General SHFJ Manekshaw in glowing terms. I always believed that he was the architect of the 1971 victory. Of course, his statement that had he been on the other side of the war, the result would have been different not only shocked me but also forced me to bring him down from his pedestal by a notch or two.

After his statement, I even wondered whether he deserved the rank of Field Marshal that was conferred on him. As I said, my reference to him rattled General Jacob. For the next few minutes, he ranted and ranted against Manekshaw, claiming that he did nothing but take all the credit for the victory. The deep cuts the Army, Navy, and Air Force inflicted on West Pakistan led to the surrender.

General Jacob had nothing but scorn for Manekshaw. For once, I realised why the Congress government did not give adequate post-retirement recognition to General Jacob, who I thought was a Christian. He was a Jew. He was so angry hearing me praise Manekshaw that he refused to give me an autographed copy of his book. "Why should I give you a book when The Tribune is rich enough to buy a copy from the market?"

General Jacob was appointed Governor by the BJP government. Now you know what he thought about Manekshaw. He would be turning in his grave hearing the news that the iconic painting was installed at the Manekshaw Centre because he believed that the Field Marshal did nothing except corner all the glory of the war.

After the ranting, he gave me a nice, memorable dinner. Over the food, he told me how surprised he was when LK Advani called him to say that the government wanted him to serve in the gubernatorial post. I hoped against hope that he would give me the book.

A modern painting, which has several photographic elements, has replaced the surrender painting at the Army Chief's lounge in South Block. It is called Karam Kshetra (Field of Deeds). Your government has a fondness for using Sanskrit names for all and sundry. Thus, King's Path, built and named by the British Rajpath, a literal translation of the words, became Kartavya Path. Does the government have an aversion to the word Raj?

By the way, it was Prime Minister AB Vajpayee who reminded the then Gujarat Chief Minister of his Raj Dharma, when an anti-Muslim pogrom gripped the state. Your government renamed the road Kartavya Path. It is a different matter that the road remains the same, with the same asphalt cover.

The painting shows eastern Ladakh with Pangong Lake and the snow-capped Himalayas. It also depicts all-terrain army vehicles, boats, and the Apache helicopter. There is a statue of Chanakya and a depiction of Lord Krishna asking the reluctant Arjun to take up arms against his own cousins, elders, and relatives.

I was amused to know that the painting was done by Lt. Col. Thomas Jacob of the 28 Madras Regiment. Amused, because he chose to depict India's readiness to fight in this manner. I have since read the explanation given by the government's image builders that the painting is meant to tell the Chinese that India can take them on with both conventional and mythical weapons. India is no longer in the 1971 era when it had only tanks and Gnats to fight a war.

China is far ahead of India in terms of literacy, public health, and public cleanliness. It has lifted almost all its poor people out of poverty. How much does the government spend on enhancing literacy and public health? Is it even five per cent of the GDP? While the gap between the poor and the rich has been widening in India, China is at the top on several social and economic indices.

Yes, we have outpaced China in population. Despite that, the RSS chief has been advocating Hindus to procreate, with no admonition from anyone. States like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which did exceedingly well to control their population, are being penalised, while states like your own Uttar Pradesh stand to benefit from their overflowing population.

I do not know why Chanakya should find a place in this picture. Some upper-caste men have always taken credit for others' achievements, like the gentleman who asked Marthanda Varma in Kerala to surrender his state to Vishnu to continue in power. Thus, Kerala got the title "God's Own Country." What kind of warfare did Chanakya know?

The Artha??stra, which he is supposed to have written, was actually composed by many persons over many decades. In any case, Chanakya's doctrines did not help India. Every foreigner could easily capture parts of India, like, for instance, Goa, by deploying just a small shipload of navy personnel from Portugal. Do you think Chanakya's statue will impress anyone, let alone the Chinese?

What does the Mahabharata teach us? The Kurukshetra war ended with the decimation of one and all. The only ones who survived the war were the Pandavas. They had no kingdom to rule afterwards, and all left for their heavenly abode. Was that the victory of dharma? If anyone is impressed by the juxtaposition of the mythical and the momentary, I will admire the painter more than the painting.

We can discuss the painting for eternity. For the present, I am more worried about certain defence-related events. A few months ago, a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji at Sindhudurg collapsed within 10 months of its erection and unveiling by the Prime Minister. The idea for the statue came from the then-Navy Chief. He was deeply involved in the project, and it caused disgrace to the Navy and the nation. Statue-making is not the job of the armed forces, whether on land, in the air, or on water.

Recently, I read about India acquiring the capability to launch nuclear-tipped missiles from underwater. We had already acquired the capability to launch such warheads from land, water, air, and other mobile platforms. I presume that our submarines are equipped to handle such sophisticated and deadly weapons. By the way, I spent a day on INS Vela, a submarine off the Mumbai coast in the late seventies.

What shocked me was a report from Goa that a submarine of the Kalvari class collided with a fishing boat while surfacing from underwater. I am not sure whether the two fishermen were saved. One report said that repairing the submarine would cost Rs 10 crore.

It took nearly eight years for the country to locate the debris of an Air Force transport aircraft that took off from Tambaram in Chennai to Port Blair in the Andamans in 2016. However, it takes only a few minutes to locate temples under mosques and temple artefacts inside the premises of mosques and tombs.

As you know, December 4 is celebrated as Navy Day. It was on that day in 1971, during Operation Trident, that the Indian Navy sank four Pakistani vessels, including PNS Khaibar, defeating the Pakistani Navy. I was lucky to participate in a Day at Sea when N. Sanjeeva Reddy was the President of India and Jagjivan Ram the Defence Minister. I was also lucky to move from INS Dunagiri to INS Vikrant using a jackstay. I had no fear as I knew I was safe in the hands of the Navy personnel.

You can imagine how surprised I was to read that 13 people were killed and several injured when a rapid inflatable boat (RIB) of the Indian Navy rammed into a tourist ferry on the way to Elephanta Caves off the Gateway of India in Mumbai three days ago. How come a crowded area was chosen to test a faulty RIB whose engine had undergone some major repairs?

True, about 85 persons were rescued from the waters by the Navy and Coast Guard personnel. That most of them wore life jackets helped in the rescue operation. What kind of image does this kind of accident create among the people in India and outside?

Needless to say, these incidents do not show the country's defence forces in a good light. You, as Defence Minister, should have greater faith in the defence personnel and their protocols. Safety, not mantras and pujas, should be their guiding force. I hope you will ask your defence colleagues to spend their time improving preparedness to meet all eventualities instead of wasting it on paintings that won't receive even a second glance.

Yours, etc.