Retired lieutenant general D.S. Hooda, former northern army commander in Jammu and Kashmir and the officer who steered the surgical strikes against Pakistan in 2016, is one of the most exemplary soldiers I have had the honour to know.
This week, he reminded us again of the extraordinary ethos of the Indian military.
Speaking at the military literature festival in Chandigarh, the general was blunt: Overhyping the strikes and politicising military operations was unproductive and dangerous. “There was too much political banter on both sides,” he remarked dryly on the unseemly slugfest, point-scoring and bickering that followed the strikes. Had anyone else made these comments, he or she would have been called an anti-national. But, no one could dare question the wisdom of general Hooda, who had always led from the front.
His trenchant truths were one more illustration of how our military is so often more measured and moderate than our politicians.
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