Newsletter 2011

VEEKAYS NEWSLETTER – 2011

Dear Friends,

It has been an eventful year, full of joy and sorrow. On balance, perhaps the downswings were more numerous than the upswings. But I take heart from the knowledge that in a roller coaster, the start and finish points are at the same level, irrespective of the number of times one goes up or down. This year, the Dam Busters (26the NDA Course) have been added to the list of addressees. Since some of them may not have received my previous newsletters, I will give a bit of past history, as I go along. Of course, all of you can read all the newsletters on my blog http://veekaysnewsletter.blogspot.com/.


As can be imagined, the activity that takes up much of my time, energy and finances, as it has done for the last four years, are the court cases associated with my book India’s External Intelligence – Secrets of the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), which was published in June 2007. I wrote the book to highlight the serious lacunae that exist in our premier intelligence agency, such as corruption, indiscipline, malfeasance and lack of leadership. For ‘blowing the whistle’, I was charged with revealing ‘secret’ information in my book, and the CBI promptly slapped a case under the Official Secrets Act against me. Though I was never arrested, officially I am on bail and the case is yet to start. There are a slew of associated cases in the High Court and lower courts, including many filed by me, requesting for similar action against the authors of books and articles that I have used as reference material for my book. Just for the record, during 2011 there were 39 hearings in the court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, 8 in the High Court and three in the Information Commission. I cannot even hazard a guess when it will all end. Though I have not been found guilty, and God willing, will never be, the punishment has already started. Rajiv Dhawan, a senior supreme court lawyer, summed it up very succinctly in his piece titled Stop the Prosecution of Maj Gen VK Singh in the Mail Today of April 19, 2008, when he wrote:“Major General Singh will find out that the process is the punishment. He will spend the rest of his life and his savings to fight the criminal case. ... Singh will be punished by the process even if he wins his case.” Dhawan was right on both counts - I am not very far from the end of my life and almost near the end my savings.
Incidentally, the instances of corruption pointed out in the book have also been officially reported to the CVC and the CBI. Both have not even held an enquiry or investigation, let alone initiate prosecution. It just shows the clout RAW has in the corridors of power. Can there be a stronger argument for putting the CBI under the Lokpal?
The other major activity that took up a lot of my time was the History of the Corps of Signals, Volume III, covering the period 1947-72. The book was formally released during the centenary celebrations of the Corps in February at Jabalpur. But it has still not been printed because of problems associated with clearance by the military intelligence directorate. I had finished the manuscript in September 2010. Since then, it is going up and down, between three directorates – Signals, MI and MO. Initially, MI cleared the book only as a RESTRICTED publication, on the ground that the 1962, 1965 and 1971 operations had still not been declassified. We told them that the History Division of the Ministry of Defence had already written the official histories of the histories of the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars. Though these had not been printed, they were available on the website of Bharat Rakshak. But they were still not convinced and asked us to remove all references to war diaries and official records. We did this, but they were still not happy, and sent it to MO, for their opinion. As was to be expected, MO refused to clear it.
Then there was an unexpected windfall. A book titled The India-Pakistan War of 1965: A History, was published by Natraj Publishers, Dehradun. Except for some cosmetic changes, the book was a verbatim reproduction of the official 1965 history produced by the History Division in 1992. The copyright was in the name of the Ministry of Defence and the first page mentions that the book has been published on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. I went across to the History Division and tried to find out how this had come about. I came to know that Boards of Officers conducted in 2005 had downgraded the war diaries pertaining to the 1962, 1965 and 1971 operations, in order to facilitate the publication of the book. Armed with this information, we again took up the matter with MI and MO. They told us that they were not aware of this development, even though the boards had members from MI as well as MO! As on date, the book has still not been cleared. If it is printed as a RESTRICTED document, no veteran can keep a copy and that includes the author. After my brush with RAW, I would not like to add MI to my list of prosecutors.

The other area of concern is the problems connected with my health. In May this year I had to spend 16 days in hospital, where I had gone to get an abscess removed on the side of my chest. It was later found that one my ribs had been eaten away. There were two likely culprits – cancer and tuberculosis. A biopsy revealed that it was the latter, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. I was promptly put on ATT, a nine month course which will end in February. Till then, I will remain a teetotaller.

In September, I suffered a back injury on a roller coaster in Disneyland in Paris, when I tried to emulate my grand children. Fortunately, I was able to find a good orthopaedic belt which sustained me on the return flight to India. Several rounds of physiotherapy – SWD, IFT and ultra sound - did wonders and I was I was back on my feet after about four weeks. But the worst was still to come. Even while I was getting my back treated, I found some loss of vision in my right eye, in which a cataract had been removed about a year back. I went to RR Hospital, where I was told that there had a haemorrhage in my retina. I was given a Lucentis injection, followed by a second one after 4 weeks followed by laser scatter after another 4 weeks. There has not been much improvement, and I have to go back after 4-6 weeks. I had also gone to Centre for Sight and Shroff Clinic for a second opinion, and they endorsed the treatment already given. Dr Darius Shroff was quite candid - he told me that there may be some improvement, but it will not return to normal. I suspect this was also a result of the roller coaster ride.

Another tragedy that occurred was a death in the family. My wife’s nephew, Major Aditya Singh, died in Srinagar on 5th November. (His father, Colonel Jitendra Singh, who retired a few years ago, had to get his leg amputated after an operation in Apollo Hospital a few years ago). His body was brought to Delhi on 7th and the funeral held in Jaipur on 8th. He left behind a young wife and four year old son. Almost at the same time, my brother-in-law, Colonel Abhai Singh (the golfer) was diagnosed with blocks in all the arteries in his heart. He underwent bypass surgery at Escorts even as we were attending the funeral in Jaipur.

This year, we could not go on our annual sojourn to the hills. But this was more than made up by the trip to East Europe in September. There were seven of us – my wife and I, my daughter, son-in-law, their two children and my son-in-law’s mother. The countries we planned to visit were Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. The duration was to be two weeks. Subsequently, Poland was dropped and Paris added to the list because the kids wanted to see Disneyland. The final itinerary was Vienna, Salzburg, Budapest, Bratislava, Prague and Paris. Naturally, the most important consideration was the cost, which we agreed should not exceed one lakh rupees per person, including all expenses such as air fare, visa fees, cost of train/coach travel, hotel expenses, food, sightseeing and local transport.

We got quotes from almost all well known travel operators in India (Thomas Cook, SOTC, Make My Trip, Carnation) and abroad (Globus, Cosmos, ITBC, WWD and Gate). In our budgeted cost, the maximum we were able to get was 7-8 days. Finally, we decided on a do-it-yourself holiday. Having already done a back packers’ trip to Europe almost 25 years back, I was sure it would work out. Of course, we were younger then, and there were no children. At the end of the trip, when we calculated the cost, we were pleasantly surprised. The expenditure per adult was Rs. 80,000 while for the children, it was around 60,000. If we had excluded Paris, perhaps it would have been even lesser.
How did we manage this? First, we stayed in Youth Hostels, instead of hotels. The International Youth Hostels Association, now known as Hostels International, has hostels in every major city in Europe. For a family, this is the ideal option as one can get a room with 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 beds. The rooms have bunk beds (the children loved it), with some having attached toilets. Breakfast is usually provided. One can become a member of Hostels International by paying just Rs 100 for a year. One can make reservations on the net, by paying just 5% of the cost by credit card, with the balance being paid on arrival. If the reservation is cancelled more than 24 hours in advance, the reservation fee is refunded. This is a boon, when one considers that travel agents rarely refund the booking amounts at short notice.
We were a party of seven, which included two children. If we could not get a room with 6 or 7 beds, we were given two rooms, one with 3 and the other with 4 beds or 2 and 5 bed respectively. The average cost was about Rs. 1000 per person per day. One cannot get a room in a hotel for this price. The other good thing about hostels is the informal atmosphere and facilities. One can use the kitchen to cook his own food or brew tea/coffee, use the washing machine to wash clothes and there is usually a bar and restaurant where the food is not expensive. The persons manning the hostels are usually students who are ever ready to give advice and tips about the city, including free sightseeing tours.
For inter-city travel, we used the rail network, using the East Europe Rail Pass, which offers 5 days of unlimited travel on the national rail networks of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and is valid for one month from the date of first use. The cost of the pass is Rs. 10,000, with children paying half this amount. Reservation charges have to be paid in addition. However, our experience was that this is not essential, except in the holiday season. In fact, when I went to make a reservation at Budapest, the girl at the counter waved me off, telling me that it is not necessary!
Almost all cities have an excellent transport network, comprising the metro, bus, and tram. The best option is to buy a three or four day travel card, which is valid for all modes of transport. One needs to carry a map, so that one knows where exactly he has to change from one mode to the other. Of course, the HI Hostel sent us detailed instructions on how to reach the hostel from the airport, rail station or bus terminus.
One area where one can save a lot of money is the airfare, which varies from day to day. Sometimes, an open jaw ticket costs less than a return ticket. This is exactly what we did –we flew to Vienna by Royal Jordanian and returned from Paris, using the same airline.
Naturally, sightseeing was the whole purpose of the trip. Almost every city has free walking tours, which last 2-3 hours. These are usually conducted 2 or 3 times a day, starting from the city centre or a prominent landmark. The guides are normally students, who volunteer for the work to earn some extra money. The tours are free, but the guides do not mind a small tip. Another option is the hop on hop off bus. These have a fixed fare, and stop at major tourist spots. One can get on and off anywhere and at any time. We found conducted tours by coach not only expensive, but the buses could not enter the narrow streets of the old town, where the best monuments were located.
Another important event was the Dam Busters’ Golden Jubilee Reunion, at Khadakvasla, from 5 - 7 December. (The 26th NDA course, to which I belong, joined the NDA on 12th July 1961, the day the Khadakvasla dam broke, flooding large parts of Poona. Ever since, our course is known as the dam busters). There were almost 150 of us at the Reunion, including about 60 spouses. Preparations had begun more than a year earlier, and everything went off like clockwork. My job was to make the brochure, which I accepted in a moment of weakness. I later realised that it took up a lot of my time, which I could ill afford, keeping in mind my legal and medical problems. Just before I left for Poona I had another scare- there was a sudden pain in my chest. A visit to the nearest hospital revealed some aberration in my ECG, and I was advised admission. I got another ECG done in the ECHS clinic after a few hours, where the result was the same. We compared them with ECGs done several years earlier and found that the problem was not new. So I decided to go ahead with the trip to Poona. On my return I consulted a cardiologist who did a stress echo test, before clearing me. I still have not been able to find out the reason for the pain, which lasted for 4-5 days.

We are still staying in Gurgaon, in Palam Vihar. My son Abhimanyu, his wife Jasmine and their two children, Bhuvanyu (9) and Khushi (7) live on the first floor. They have shifted from DPS to Sun City School. My daughter Mauravi has shifted from Ikon Tower to Hextex Commune. Her two daughters, Mriggya (9) and Eshaana (7) go to the American Excelsior School which is located nearby. Her hubby, Vaibhav is in the merchant navy and is presently sailing. Mauravi and the kids usually come over to Palam Vihar on Friday evening after the children return from school. With the onset of winter, we have resumed the practice of Sunday family outings. This month, we visited Jantar Mantar, Lotus Temple, the Rose Garden and the Deer Park.

There is little change in our routine. I go to the gym in the DSOI, which is a stone’s throw from my house, at 0645, returning at 0730 or so. Kumud goes at 0830 and returns only when the gym closes at 1000. By this time I have gone through my newspapers, had my bath and my breakfast and am ready to leave for Signals Enclave, where the Corps History Cell is located or to the hospital or on some other errand. On the days I have a court hearing, I have to give the gym a miss. The Ansal Plaza is next door and Kumud religiously watches every movie that is released, irrespective of the star grading. After Mauravi moved out, we had two rooms to spare, and have begun to let them out to working girls as paying guests. It keeps Kumud occupied and gives her some company, especially when I am not at home.

I think I must end this here before all of you doze off. I can almost hear some of you stifling a yawn. I am sorry for the long letter, but there are some things which one must get off one’s chest.

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Vinay and Kumud Singh
G-31, Palam Vihar, Gurgaon – 122017
Tele: 0124- 4074077, 9873494521, 9810618599, 9899110913
20th December 2011