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Meat on Hooves

5:42:19 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

General K. Sundarji's brilliance shaped India's 1980s, and his hubris shaped that decade's disasters.

  1. Anti-status quo, yet bound by his own dogmaSundarji militated against every inherited protocol but never questioned his own belief in the big conventional battle.
  2. Outcomes, not judgement, decide who is called brilliantManekshaw's monsoon delay in 1971 and Sagat Singh's stand at Nathu La were vindicated; the same defiance at Blue Star was called hubris.
  3. Nobody left in the room to say noWith the political leadership on his side and contemporaries he rated below himself, Sundarji had no one able to temper his certainty.
Executive Summary AI
  • Host Amit Verma introduces Prabal Dasgupta, a former army officer turned historian, whose book General Brasstacks is a biography of General K. Sundarji, a man present at five assassinations and an arms deal across the 1980s.1:33
  • Dasgupta opens with the story of Bandya, a lamb born to a pregnant sheep sent as 'meat on hooves' to the Mahar battalion, who drew a soldier's pay of one anna a month, rose to corporal and then sergeant, was rescued from a Baluchi cook's kitchen at Quetta at Partition, and was buried with a bugle call on the banks of the Dal Lake after dying in 1950.5:17
  • Dasgupta calls Sundarji the most anti-status-quo of all army chiefs, while Verma presses the counter-argument that Sundarji stayed rigidly wedded to his own doctrine of the big conventional battle even as warfare moved to counter-insurgency.18:32
  • On Sri Lanka, Dasgupta quotes General Ashok Mehta and Brigadier Pal Sokar to argue the IPKF went in with no objective, no exit plan and no cohesion with the government or intelligence agencies, because Sundarji thought it could be done in a couple of weeks.33:08
  • On Blue Star, Dasgupta says Sundarji overruled General Arun Vaidya's soft option of surrounding the Golden Temple, promised Indira Gandhi swift action lasting a few hours with no damage to the temple buildings, and came home at two in the night to confess self-doubt to his wife.1:03:31
Key Quote
“The 1980s had it all.”
— Amit Verma1:06
Key Quote
“that the smartest person has only a very, very tiny handle on it.”
— Amit Verma35:56
Key Quote
“If I were to look at a trade-off, I think brilliance is a curse”
— Prabal Dasgupta38:59