The UPA government’s paralysis is not confined to the policy sphere any more. It has grown into the degenerating NMD (neuron motor disease) that doesn’t allow its comatose ministries to even drive away flies so indolently perched on the piles of matters of utmost attention. One such is the age row involving army chief General VK Singh.

According to a news report published in the Hindustan Times, General Singh has told the defence secretary that he believes he is being treated in a manner as if he were the army chief of Pakistan. This is for the first time in Independent India that an army chief has made such a harsh statement.

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Singh said this to defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma, sources said, over a week before defence minister AK Antony last month turned down his statutory complaint on his date of birth controversy. Sharma had met General Singh on December 21 last year and wanted to know from him what his future plans are on the age row. Probably, the ministry doesn’t want the general to move court, where it fears he is more likely to win.

Primarily, politics in army is bad. Things should not have been allowed to come to such a pass, or more rightly impasse, in the first place. Second, while there are a flurry of suggestions from the top-notches in the establishment for a harried general (including one from finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who advised Singh against moving the court), there is none for the defence ministry which has been so doggedly procrastinating on the issue.

Two different dates of birth exist in army records for the army chief: May 10, 1950 and May 10, 1951. If the defence ministry accepts May 10, 1951 as his date of birth as contended by the army chief, he would then be entitled to an extra year in office before he retires. However, Singh has emphatically maintained, according to government sources, that the age issue was only related to his honour as the leader of the 1.1-million-strong army and had nothing to do with an extra year in office.

It is so coincidental that the esteemed Congress party always gets it right when the government it heads gets it all wrong. In this case also, that party has already expressed concern over the turn of event. End of matter from its side.

General Singh enjoys support from vast majority, which includes army, a section of politicians as well as judges. According to news reports, at least three former chief justices of India have supported General Singh’s argument while former Punjab chief minister and current Congress state chief, Captain Amarinder Singh, wrote a letter to the defence minister, dated December 17, pledging his support for the embattled general and that the controversy was affecting the army’s morale.

The army chief has argued that the confusion over his age arose from a form he filled at the age of 15. The clerk handling his papers for the national defence academy exam listed his age as 16 instead of 15. However, he was vindicated later and all his promotions were decided on the basis of him being born in 1951.