For a manuscript that has technically never seen the light of day, Four Stars of Destiny appears to have had an outsized impact. The unpublished memoirs of former army chief, General(retired) MM Naravane, first roiled Parliament for a week, resulting in the Prime Minister not being able to reply to the debate on the President’s speech — the first time this has happened after 2004. Then, it created grounds for a bizarre investigation by the Delhi Police that is hunting
For a manuscript that has technically never seen the light of day, Four Stars of Destiny appears to have had an outsized impact. The unpublished memoirs of former army chief, General(retired) MM Naravane, first roiled Parliament for a week, resulting in the Prime Minister not being able to reply to the debate on the President’s speech — the first time this has happened after 2004. Then, it created grounds for a bizarre investigation by the Delhi Police that is hunting down how copies of the manuscript found their way on to social media. Now, it appears to have pushed the government into considering a surreally long cooling-off period for officials in positions of power before they can author books. This newspaper reported last week that the government may consider introducing a cooling-off period of 20 years for senior officials in positions of power, including military officers, before they can author books after retirement. The controversial book appears to have come up at the Union cabinet meeting last Friday, and several ministers were of the view that there must be a cooling-off period after retirement for people who have held positions of power to write a book, the report added.
While no formal order on the 20-year cooling-off period has been issued yet and the government has not commented on it one way or the other, the proposal is misguided and an overreaction. It will stymie the still-nascent culture in India of powerful actors writing to explain to the public their actions and responses when in positions of responsibility. Such memoirs and books, however one-sided, have contributed significantly to our understanding of global events such as wars, international relations, statecraft and the thinking of powerful nations. These books are a valuable window into a justifiably opaque and closed-door decision-making system that not only enrich public debate but also enhance our understanding of society, politics, and international affairs.
A protracted cooling-off period threatens to stymie this debate and create a vacuum in our understanding of how nations behave. Instead, to avoid unseemly controversy, the government should consider streamlining the approval process and making it transparent, avoiding situations where a ministry can sit on a book for over two years — as happened with the Naravane memoir — without a decision. Instead of a blanket (or in-effect) ban, irritants should be sorted out on a case-to-case basis. And cooling-off periods should instead be mooted for judges or bureaucrats taking up positions (political or corporate) with potential conflicts of interest immediately after retirement.
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