With salutes and flowing tears,
Lifeless Jawans lying were many,
Draped in uniform and flag,
Few Coffins dearly became heavy,
As the threat in the air looms and lingers,
They protect us we being deep down in slumber
As those soldiers charred or riddled with bullets will be laid to rest, a glittering flow of tributes will be on the horizon. A heightened urge to retaliate will be demanded and with the advent of time the roar for vengeance will disappear into a whimper of everyday nothingness.
Unfortunately these real heroes never really get their due here. If compared with stars and glitz not even infinitesimal. And as the soldiers gather limelight when they die, they are not accustomed with that finesse pomp and respect they really deserve when they are alive and fighting.
When I say they protect us when we are slumbering, it encompasses a broad segment of people in our country and society who are somehow apathetic to the military. That word is apt as we fundamentally become a tad granted with respect to the armed forces and this feeling is highly resonated across classes, masses and established institutions.
Military has been the onus in coups and bringing down of democracies world over, over stepping sacred boundaries to splurge for spoils of power and control.
On the contrary when we emphasize the role of military here, the vastness of our sovereign being has been duly preserved by this very institution at not just the emboldened border or line of control but also along other lines splintered across various spectrum. (When they refused to comply with Indira Gandhi’s proposed martial law and they successfully rescued stranded from Yemen).
Military here can be depicted like a cake, where its role has been layered into many flavors with the icing being its benevolent stature and cherry being not fiddling with other democratic institutions. (Not somewhere like Islamabad where the military wields power over an elected state).
Primarily founded to provide national security and ensuing war preparedness, its role along with its numerous forms has invigorated into other complex challenges.
May it be so a proxy war along the borders, rescuing hostages as the Taj seemingly burned in Mumbai or even facing the Naxal wrath with tooth and nail and even acclimatizing to all elevated Siachen.
Another facet to their aura is going all out of their way to rescue flora and fauna when nature unleashes its fury in form of natural disasters.
However their multi-tasking efforts of working on many fronts is somewhere subdued by a counter reaction of demoralizing forces which somewhere adulterates their ever heroic character.
As a matter of fact when Kashmir was burning in the midst of slaying Hizbul commander Burhan Wani, the subsequent protests saw a lot of flak and criticism in the army’s handling of the same.
Pellet guns was made as a symbol of their brutality as human rights and so called civic society intellectuals (Even one time wonders from JNU) were on the forefront to demonize them.
However a little would be spoken or highlighted when the same security forces jumped into the fray to push the valley out of unprecedented perils of floods and natural disasters. Pellet guns which became a poster for dismembering their reputation could not cater to the army saving separatist Yaseen Malik when he was flowing into his death.
This very criticism levelled by those intellectuals becomes the foundation over which a certain section of leftist media thrive in to make a morale dousing combination.
I very much was appalled when Indian express published a story about the army movement during the UPA which emphasized a purported coup of sort, which clearly seemed a politically motivated concoction.
But when it comes to an institution that should act as the center point directive for the military deriving its mechanism based on their policies, the words of erstwhile Kerala CM Achutanandan echo and sum up the feeling.
The political class had ebbed at its lowest point. ‘Not even a dog will visit here’ he had remarked when father of an NGS commando who was martyred on 26/11 had given him an unceremonious reception.
Unfortunately sacrifices of Jawans just become ‘kadi ninda’ in a sea of condemnations. And with tweets it becomes more than easy. The galvanizing political will has never aggrandized and matched the shattering bravery of our armed forces with their deaths just becoming mere statistics of sorts to politicize and play blame game cutting across party lines.
Political class here has never seen a unified front when it comes to a soldier losing his life on the battle fields or may be even in a friendly fire.
As a matter of fact it takes 17 deaths to perceive an impromptu retaliation when death of one soldier in Israel would have sent shudders down the corridors of power come together and act from the surface.
What about the masses whose patriotic fervor gets charged up or fluctuate with the news and lightening coverage of the media?
A common man on the street may be intrinsically grateful to the armed forces but that long term necessary flare and fire somewhere goes missing. I always wonder what would be the outcome if that same pandemonium you see when Sachin comes to bat from the pavilion was replicated here.
That same maddening frenzy, that same bombastic explosion for the martyrs. Just as we are well versed with the names of all the players in the cricket squad, we ought to know the names of those martyrs too.
That realization has to set in. Their valor necessitates to soak in to us. Those flurry of emotions need to outburst. Every soldier we lose has to evoke those far reaching ramifications.