Nehru was paranoid about military coup, says VK Singh

India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was paranoid about a military coup, and the country’s leadership failed to keep the army prepared in the eventuality of the Chinese attack in 1962, former army chief Gen V K Singh has said.

VK Singh’s last few months in office saw him in a legal tussle with the government concerning his age.

In his autobiography Courage and Conviction, which was released on Friday, VK Singh said Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi not only inherited the leadership of the country from her father but also never stopped looking over her shoulder.

‘Since Independence, the top political leadership in the country has been haunted by the possibility of a military takeover. It is no secret that people around Nehru exploited his paranoia of a military coup and started chipping away at the army in an evolving civil-military relationship,’ Singh wrote in his book.

Singh has written the book with writer-filmmaker Kunal Verma.

He said the appointment of Sardar Baldev Singh as India’s ‘first defence minister – a man known for his political ‘fix it’ ability rather than military acumen – set the tone for the future’.