INDIA SUMMARIZED

                                                           NO SECRETS HERE A true story: In 1957, the then Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, visiting the office of general Thimayya, the chief of the army staff, saw a steel cabinet behind his desk, and asked the general what it contained. The general replied that the top drawer contained the nation’s defence plans. And the second drawer contained the confidential files of the nation’s top generals. And what about the third drawer, enquired Nehru. Ah, said the general with a straight face, the third drawer contains my secret plans for a military coup against you. Nehru laughed, but there was apparently a tinge of nervousness to his laughter. Military dictatorships have been a common phenomenon in the post-colonial states of Asia and Africa, and in the 1950s and 1960s, a di...