We were eating together when the phone rang. Dad asked me to pick it up. I was in college at the time—it used to be trunk calls then. When I asked who was on the line, the answer came, ‘the defence minister’,” recalled Yashwant Thorat, son of late Lieutenant General S.P.P. Thorat.
The call, sometime in 1962, was from Yashwantrao Chavan, who had become defence minister in Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet following India’s debacle against China.
“Dad took the call. We were listening from behind. We heard him ask, ‘The prime minister has so many generals better than me—why is he inviting me for advice? In any case, he may not want to hear what I have to say’,” said Yashwant Thorat.
India, caught off guard by the Chinese in 1962, was reeling. Chavan told Lt Gen Thorat that he was calling on Nehru’s behalf and had given him his word. Lt Gen Thorat, then chairman of the Maharashtra Public Service Commission, said he would finish pending work and come to Delhi in two days. “But, suddenly, he said loudly, ‘What Yashwantrao? All right’. He kept the phone and told us there was a plane waiting at Santacruz to take him to Delhi,” recalled Yashwant Thorat, who later headed NABARD.
Nehru wanted advice from the man who had a year ago been in charge of the eastern command. In fact, Lt Gen Thorat had foreseen the Chinese attack. Back in 1959, he had warned the government and drawn a plan to counter it.
But his report was dismissed by the then defence minister V.K. Krishna Menon as alarmist. When Lt Gen Thorat later showed Nehru those papers, the prime minister was reportedly stunned and wondered why he had never seen them before.
The foresight—and the pain of being ignored—forms a crucial part of the autobiography—From Reveille to Retreat, re-released in September in Pune. The 1985 classic now includes unpublished documents, records and photographs.
Born in 1906, Lt Gen Thorat was commissioned from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1926. He led from the front against the Japanese in Burma’s Battle of Kangaw, one of World War II’s bloodiest confrontations. Later, during the Korean War, he commanded the Custodian Force of India that managed prisoners of war (PoWs) and was awarded the Kirti Chakra for his courage.
When a group of Chinese PoWs revolted after their leader’s repatriation, Lt Gen Thorat personally entered the compound to rescue a captured officer, Major Grewal, and defused the situation over tea and cigarettes.
“Courage,” he wrote in the book, “is not the act performed when adrenaline is high. It is the choice you make when fully aware of the consequences. It arises when you face your fear…. That is what being a soldier is all about—when you face fear and still refuse to betray the truth.”
When Lt Gen Thorat returned from Korea, the entire Maharashtra cabinet came to receive him at Nagpur station. “Lt Gen [retd] Thorat exemplifies what true leadership means—leading by principle, by example, and with unshakeable commitment,” said Lt Gen Dhiraj Seth, general officer commanding-in-chief, southern command.
FROM REVEILLE TO RETREAT: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
By Lt Gen (retd) S.P.P. Thorat
Published by Hedwig Media House
Pages 330; price Rs650