Manekshaw, insiders say, enjoyed the full confidence of the PM at a time when some thought the Army would take over the country. He is believed to have told Gandhi that he would not poke his long nose into other people’s affairs in reply to a question on whether the Army was looking at assuming power.

Of course, this was not the officer’s first brush with controversy during his seven-decade career. In 1961, he was almost sacked for ‘anti-national activities’ — mostly ‘loose talk’ about the then-defence minister at social gatherings. However, one of the first things that Chavan did after taking over as Defence Minister in 1962 was to quash the proceedings against the General.

Manekshaw was born on April 1914 in Amritsar to Parsi parents who had settled in Punjab in 1899. Army records say that Sam Manekshaw was the fifth of six children. After completing his schooling at Sherwood College (Nainital), he joined the first batch of the newly opened Indian Military Academy at Dehradun and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in February 1934.