Letters: General's knowledge

This refers to the edit “No ceasefire in sight” (March 29). I am amused at our political class’ reaction to the army chief’s leaked letter on “top defence secrets”. It appears that MPs are worried about people getting to know the truth about the state of our armed forces more than anything else. Perhaps it is because they fear that now that the knowledge of the gaps in our military preparedness is in the public domain, the common man will begin asking questions as to where the thousands of crores collected from taxpayers goes. Also, why should politicians ask for the removal of the army chief simply for stating facts? These turn of events remind me of joke in which a man supposedly ran through the Kremlin shouting “Stalin is a fool, Stalin is a fool”. He was sentenced to 30 years — five years for insulting the head of state and 25 years for revealing a state secret!

T R Ramaswami Mumbai

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