It is incredulous that the media can take so easily to chip away at the reputation of an icon, just to get more readership. That is what is so distressing in this episode of the scumbag Gohar Ayub casting aspersions on the character of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. Without doubt, one of India’s greatest infantrymen, and its first Field Marshal, Sam Manekshaw has been held in the greatest esteem right through his career and thereafter.
Now comes some jackass, who has no claim to fame, but that of being his fathers son. He makes stupid statements that have no basis of truth in them to corroborate them, and in doing so creates a certain amount of self doubt on the reputation of the one soldier who masterminded the defeat of Pakistan in the 1971 war.
What I find surprising is that the Indian Army is actually conducting an internal investigation to look into this. Tomorrow if some other asshole goes and says something about another great Indian, will we have another investigation too. If someone had said something on similar lines about Bal Thakeray, we know what would have happened. Then why in this case are we the Indian people and public playing “fair and nice” and actually tryin to see what level of truth is there in what Gohar Ayub says.
The Indian Army has launched an ‘in-house verification’ of the charge made by former Pakistani foreign minister Gohar Ayub Khan that an Indian Brigadier had sold 1965 war plans to Pakistan for Rs 20,000. [link]
The Indian Express has a wonderful editorial which touches on this issue
There’s an unhealthy bias against interrogating national icons in this country. The media can and should offer correctives. This newspaper certainly views with grave suspicion the thesis that some public figures have such an aura that to question is to automatically be wrong. ….
….Similarly, we surely should see that the ex-foreign minister son of the late Pakistani ruler — the son seems to have built a nice cottage industry out of his father’s career — is not the most fantastically credible interlocutor on the issues at hand; an assessment shared by many in his own country.
India should categorically “no comments” this episode and make sure that the scumbag never ever enters our country. By asking the military to have an in-house investigation, we are just lending credence to trash.
