By Dr. S.N. Bhagirath
Many of the top officers were being short-listed by the British to be groomed into future Commanders of the Indian Army with Independence just round the corner. Among these were J.N. Choudary, N.N. Vandu, N.T. Naqvi and K.M. Cariappa. These chosen few were sent to ‘Imperial Defence College (IDC)’, London, for further training. As luck would have it, General Slim was the Chief of IDC then. The increasing communal tensions in the months leading up to the Partition wore heavily on the minds of these Officers. In order to quell the communal tensions, K.M. Cariappa on his return from England mooted the idea to Nehru and Jinnah not to divide the Army between India and Pakistan, but to keep it status quo. This idea found favour with both Nehru and Mountbatten, but sadly not with Jinnah!
