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The General's last journey

Suhasini Haidar in New Delhi

It was a farewell every soldier dreams of, and one that any chief would be proud of. As General Krishnaswamy Sundarrajan aka 'Sundarji' was cremated this evening with full honours at the Army Crematorium in Delhi, his mourners included representatives of every division of the armed forces, many former chiefs, and several veteran colleagues.

But Sundarji was no ordinary general, and that is why those that came to pay their respects today included academics, journalists, politicians, and civil servants, all of whom had interacted with him.

As his 10-year-old grandson Avram lit the pyre, the general was given a warm send-off from the Mechanised Infantry Regiment, an army division that he commanded as its first colonel after its formation in 1979. General Sundarji shaped the regiment in its early years, and as the soldiers grieved the loss of their patron, the general was given a farewell gun salute.

Earlier in the day, Sundarji's body was mounted on a gun carriage at his home in Delhi's cantonment area. His funeral cortege, numbering more than a hundred vehicles, then wound through the cantonment to the cremation grounds. Servicemen and officers lined the route of the funeral procession, and it seemed evident to them that this was no ordinary soldier they were laying to rest.

General Sundarji is survived by his wife and one son, and his entire family stood in grief as his body was taken up on the cortege. Sundarji had been in hospital for more than ten months, battling a disease in his nervous system that had left him paralysed. In his last few days he had slipped into a coma, and at his funeral today, those that knew him closely agreed that nothing would have made him more unhappy than the prolonged manner of his illness and death. "He must have been praying that he would go quickly," said his niece Nainika.

There are many legacies that Sundarji leaves behind. Perhaps the one he had the most distaste for was the controversy surrounding the Bofors gun. Although he was never involved in any direct confrontation with the bureaucracy or the politicians involved in procuring the weapon, it was well known that Sundarji was less than happy with that process. He had, in fact, made some guarded criticism of the Rajiv Gandhi administration on the issue in an interview to a leading magazine after his retirement. "There was no getting around it," said former home minister Rajesh Pilot, who attended Sundarji's funeral. "The general was an extremely straightforward man. The nation has lost a great soldier."

General Sundarji had a keen interest in the technical aspects of weaponry for his soldiers. As deputy chief of army staff, he was involved closely in the army's modernisation plan in 1982. And, say colleagues, he will leave his mark on the army for his work there. "If there is to be just one thing that Sundarji will always be remembered for," said Admiral K K Nayyar, who served as vice-chief of the navy at the time, "it will be his contribution to updating the army to modern times. He always had a keen interest in ways to improve facilities and equipment for the armed forces."

The admiral's wife, women's activist Veena Nayyar, knew the general personally as well as for his work for the welfare of families of the armed forces. As part of his mourners, she said today, "In any situation, war or peace, it is the families of our soldiers that suffer the most, and General Sundarji understood that. No matter how busy he was, he spared a lot of time and thought for the wives and children of the armed services."

In the years following his retirement, General Sundarji became a keen student of India's nuclear policy. Even during his years in service, he had published a paper on the nuclear question, something unusual for a serviceman. After retiring, he went on to publish a doctrine on the subject, exhorting India to test its nuclear powers. That said, he also advised that India should stick to a 'minimum nuclear deterrent' rather than trying to build a nuclear arsenal.

Experts say that if Sundarji had not been incapacitated this past year, he would definitely have pushed for India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty after the nuclear tests in May last. It is indeed ironic that Sundarji was hospitalised before India actually tested its nuclear weapons in Pokhran. In fact, Indian nuclear policy today seems to be veering towards just the tenets of Sundarji's own philosophy: from testing to restraint.

Academics who attended his funeral this afternoon said certain aspects to his character ensured that General Sundarji will always have a special place in the history of the Indian armed forces. "Sundarji belonged to a whole new breed of soldiers," said defence analyst K.Subrahmanyam. "In today's post-Cold War scenario, soldiers can no longer just be 'brawny'. They have to have an understanding of diplomacy and developing technologies as well. In that sense General Sundarji was truly a 'scholar warrior'."

As testament to that, his mourners today comprised both scholars and warriors.

EARLIER REPORT:
Gen Sundarji cremated with state honours

The Bofors scandal

The Pokhran tests and after

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