Ex-Army Chief Naravane’s first reaction to memoir row; shares publisher’s clarification

Ex-Army chief Manoj Naravane

Former Army chief General (Retd.) MM Naravane on Tuesday endorsed the stand taken by his publisher, Penguin India amid the ongoing controversy over his unpublished memoir, Four Stars of Destiny.

In his first public reaction since the row erupted, Naravane, in a post on X, said 'This is the statue of the book, aligning with the publisher’s clarification.

This is the status of the book. https://t.co/atLtwhJvl0

— Manoj Naravane (@ManojNaravane) February 10, 2026

According to a report in India Today, physical copies of the book were found in bookstores in Delhi before being recalled, raising fresh questions about how the manuscript, still under review by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), was printed and bound at all.

However, last week Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi was seen holding a hardcover copy of the book inside the Parliament complex.

What he waved was not a manuscript or a draft, but a printed hardback. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had said in Lok Sabha that the book “does not exist”.

The memoir, chronicling four decades of Gen Naravane’s service from Second Lieutenant to Army Chief during the India-China standoff at the Line of Actual Control, was slated for release in April 2024.

Penguin Random House India (PRHI), the publisher, had opened pre-orders on platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart, which were later cancelled after the release was stalled.

A staffer at a legacy New Delhi bookstore told India Today: “We took hundreds of pre-orders for the book… But a controversy happened, and we had to return the books to the publisher".

This indicates that the book had been printed well ahead of its planned launch.

However, Penguin issued a statement on Tuesday saying that the book had not gone into publication.

It added that no copies of the book, "in print or digital form, have been "published, distributed, sold, or otherwise made available to the public" by the publisher.

The company said a book is considered published only when it is available for purchase across retail channels.

“A book is considered published only when it is available for purchase at retail channels for purchase,” the publisher said on X, reiterating that Four Stars of Destiny has not been published in any format so far.