Aug. 25: The army chief, General V.K. Singh, has taken the unusual step of commenting on Anna Hazare’s campaign, saying the nation is in a “morass” and that the wide support for the anti-corruption movement reflects the “power of democracy, the power of the people”.

It is rare for a service chief to speak on current developments that are not his immediate concern. But at an interaction with the entertainment industry in Mumbai last night, General Singh did not baulk at mentioning the battle that Hazare, a former soldier, is leading in the streets of the capital.

He rued that the country was passing through “an interesting and turbulent period”.

“Interesting in terms of how we are witnessing the power of democracy, the power of the people. Interesting in terms of how we are seeing our leadership cope with these things,” he said.

“A lot of things are happening, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Gujarat to the most northeastern part. There is a certain amount of unrest in the country, for various reasons — some sponsored, some genuine, some which started with a genuine thing (grievance) and then got into something else.”

He added: “The theme is only one: how do we take the nation forward from the morass that we are in.... It is not who is leading the movement; it is why it has come to this stage.”

The army chief is seeing a million mutinies in India, indicating how difficult it has become for policy-makers in Delhi to administer the country. The government is yet to respond to the army’s rejection of the order determining the chief’s age.

When he took over as the chief last year, General Singh had promised to clean up the service that was facing questions from within and without after the Adarsh and Sukna scams in which lieutenant generals were allegedly involved. Now, with the row over his date of birth getting resurrected, he is concerned about his image in the battle of perceptions. General Singh does not want to be seen as the chief who used his position to tweak his records.

“The task we defined for ourselves after I took over as the army chief was that we would restore the value system that we had,” he said.

“Whenever the values of a society, of a system, of an organisation get whittled away, then that institution suffers. What is important for us is, how can we revive these values?”

General Singh compared corruption to a hydra-headed monster. “Because we all are involved in its thriving. If we introspect, we will see that at one point or another, we are all involved in it,” he said.

He made it clear he believed that the army had a limited role in the nation’s affairs.

PM on date row

The Prime Minister today declined to accept a memorandum from a team of MPs who wanted him to intervene in the controversy over the army chief’s date of birth. Manmohan Singh told the MPs that the army was a professional organisation and lawmakers should not get involved in its affairs, sources said.