POSSIBILITY OF ARMY COUP IN INDIA WAS SPECULATED WHEN GENERAL THIMAYYA WAS ARMY CHIEF

By P.T. Bopanna

The statement of Congress leader Salman Khurshid that there was a possibility of a coup in India has triggered a storm. Former Union minister Khurshid was quoted as saying: “What’s happening in Bangladesh can happen here… The spread of our country prevents things from blowing up in the manner in which they have blown up in Bangladesh.”

When I was researching for my book Dateline Coorg on the career of two generals from Kodagu (Coorg) in Karnataka, Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa, and General K.S. Thimayya, I felt the only time the threat of a coup was in the air was when Gen. Thimayya was the army chief in 1958.

It will not be wrong to say the so-called coup threat was more in the imagination of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

 Nehru’s apprehension of a military take-over in India became acute following a military coup in neighbouring Pakistan after General Ayub Khan overthrew the civilian government in 1958.

General Thimayya, who was appointed the Army chief in 1957, was very popular with the ranks, and was loved by the public. This was apparently not to the liking of Nehru and his Defence Minister Krishna Menon.

General Thimayya had a brilliant military career. The British, as a matter of policy had always avoided giving higher command to Indian officers. General Thimayya was the only Indian officer to be made a brigadier and given command of an operational brigade during the Second World War.

During the 1947-48 Kashmir war with Pakistan, Major-General Thimayya gave an excellent account of himself. He was perhaps the most popular general, loved by men of all ranks in the Army.

It was unfortunate that the cantankerous Krishna Menon was the Defence Minister when General Thimayya took over as the Chief of Army Staff.

Writer Khushwant Singh has narrated  humorous anecdotes about Krishna Menon’s penchant for one-upmanship. To embarrass General Thimayya, Menon would often go and sit in the front seat of the car next to the driver on ceremonial occasions. General Thimayya would be made to sit in the back seat of the car.

According to Khushwant Singh, General Thimayya would ask the driver to sit behind and take the wheel of the car himself to overcome the one-upmanship of Menon.

The misunderstanding between the Defence Minister and the General came to the fore when General Thimayya sent in his resignation letter to Nehru in August, 1959, following his differences with the Defence Minister over promotions in the Army and the Indian government’s policy of appeasing China.

There was a major difference between the Army Chief and the Defence Minister over the promotion involving Lieutenant-General B.M. Kaul, a favourite of both Nehru and Menon. The Defence Minister and the General were also poles apart on the issue of threat from China.

The other two service chiefs, Vice-Admiral Ramdas Katari and Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee, were also unhappy with the political interference, and it was decided by them that Thimayya should meet Nehru and apprise him of their disappointment with the situation.

Accordingly, Thimayya met Nehru in August, 1959, at a garden party first and then at the Prime Minister’s house at Teen Murti Bhavan. Nobody knows what transpired at the meeting, but it was believed that the Prime Minister promised to take up the matter with the Defence Minister.

Three days later, Menon met General Thimayya and strongly criticised him for taking the matter to the Prime Minister. The Defence Minister felt that the issues should have been “resolved privately and bilaterally”. After this meeting the General sent in his resignation.

General Thimayya’s resignation letter reached Teen Murti Bhavan in the afternoon of August 31. The Prime Minister read the letter in the evening, asked the General to meet him at 7 p.m., where he persuaded him to withdraw the resignation.

The next morning Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan made a stopover at Delhi to speak to Nehru at the airport. Hours prior to the arrival of the Pakistani President, the news of General Thimayya’s resignation was published in banner headlines. The newspapers were apparently unaware that the resignation had been withdrawn. The news reports also hinted that the other two chiefs “would follow suit”.

A report from London quoted Air Marshal Mukherjee, then visiting Britain, saying that he “knew nothing” about these events.

The next day saw stormy scenes in the Parliament. A spate of adjournment motions were moved in both the Houses. Sentiments were against the Minister and in favour of the General because he was an officer of great reputation and his performance as Chairman of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission in Korea had enhanced his prestige both at home and abroad. There was great support for General Thimayya even from the ruling Congress party benches.

Nehru informed the House that the issues involved were “rather trivial and of no consequence”. They arose “from temperamental differences and did not involve promotions”. However, Nehru declined to place the General’s letter of resignation on the table of Parliament. The letter has not been made public since.

The thrust of Nehru’s speech was the “supremacy of the civilian authority.” The tenor of the Prime Minister’s speech was in favour of Menon and critical of the General. Nehru went on to say that he “could not congratulate the General on the manner in which he has acted.”

In the Thimayya-Menon face-off, the General received tremendous support from Parliamentarians, the press and the public. The demand for Menon’s dismissal grew and the Defence Minister was finally forced to quit after India faced a humiliating defeat in the 1962 India-China war.

The late Lieutenant General Harbaksh Singh, who had served as the staff officer for General Thimayya, had once narrated his experiences working for the General: “I had an exceptional opportunity to study General Thimayya not only as a soldier on the battlefield in Jammu & Kashmir, but also during peace time as his Principal Staff Officer, when he was Army Commander, Western Command. I was able to see him both as a military leader as well as a man.

In his official dealings, he would not let his personal interests or prejudices weigh with him. Yet whether in office or outside, he was always relaxed, jovial, friendly and freely exuding goodwill and bonhomie. People were generally fond of him as a man. He was fond of the nicer things of life and was often seen enjoying himself in five-star hotels and restaurants in the metropolis of Delhi.

 He once told me, when he was Chief Of Army Staff in Delhi, that one morning Prime Minister Nehru sent for him in his office, and obviously tutored by Intelligence Staff, suggested that he should not be seen at public places late at nights as it created a bad impression. To this he humorously replied, ‘Panditji, isn’t that better than planning a coup in the middle of the night?’ Panditji, I believe, laughed it off – such was his confidence in the General’s integrity.”

Source: Dateline Coorg by journalist P.T. Bopanna. Paperback copy of the book available on Amazon: