Make Your Voice Heard: Change may come from within!

I doubt the politicians in India realize the frustrations of the ordinary people as to how they are behaving and governing the country!  They do not realize how disillusioned the businesses are of them at messing things up repeatedly.

Worse, they do not realize how mad even our Defense Forces are at the treatment they are meted out.  The long tradition has kept the officers strong but quiet.  But those who shed blood thanklessly, will eventually start asking – WHY?

I got this from my Brother-in-law, who is in the Army.  It is a talk that Maj Ashish Khanna gave at DSSC (Defense Services Staff College – an elite Defense Institution in India) few days back.  His thoughts expressed here narrate to the present situation in the country and the status of our Armed Forces as they stand today in the political scenario.

You may like to send it across to other colleagues/friends.  He did convey few words and feelings for his Dear Friends whom he lost so early in life.

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1.      Gentlemen & Friends!! I want you to consider what a failed state is?  Visualise events which would happen in a failed state and then think about certain events in a country, say “X”.

a.      One state which was limping to normalcy is now entirely divided on communal lines like never before, due to sheer blunders made by X’s politicians and bureaucrats. 16 years of the sheer blood price that the Army has paid in stabilising this state has been wasted in one fell swoop.
b.      In one state, 25 lakhs have been rendered homeless and on the brink of starvation while politicians squabble over votes and relief rations.
c.      In one state, Hindus and Christians are killing each other over the murder of a minor politician who probably never deserved to live.
d.     Eight states are helpless in the grip of Naxalites with an inefficient police cowering in their own police stations.
e.      Four states have been swamped with forty years of insurgency. The entire demography is being changed forever. Still, major ldrs in power, consider all Bangladeshi immigrants as votebanks to fill their coffers. They refuse to see that if even one in a thousand, decides to plant a bomb in a rickshaw, you will have ten thousand bombs exploding in “X” country!
f.      A recent trust vote in this country called “X”, saw cash thrown in its parliament and politicians being bought like cattle. All for a deal dying its own death in the NSG.
g.     Serial bomb explosions in “X” do not count if there are less than three and if the total killed is less than 30.      We move on.

2.      What is “X” today? Where is it shining?? Why has so much rot set in??? If the Defence Services of “X” were not shedding blood, what would the size of “X” be after sixty years of independence????

3.       We have all fought and risked our lives, lots of times.  While I have a family today, I will certainly do it again. At the very least, for the game and to retain the respect of the men I command. I have lost a lot of comrades, some in front of me.  Two very dear friends, Paddy and Ganapathy died this very Independence Day, on a daring rescue mission in the North.  They were brilliant, decent and brave soldiers, (coursemates of many of us here), who volunteered and died. They left behind three kids, all less than three years old. Paddy’s son is one month elder than mine. One day he will grow up to be as brilliant as Paddy was. The only tragedy is that no one, no one except their families will ever actually mourn them.  In this, our very own premier Defence Institution, no mention whatsoever was made of this tragic loss and we all went back to our classes and joined the daily grind. Our rat race, to become good staff officers to cdrs, looking for Governor Appointments continues.

4.      I have so much more to say about both, but I won’t digress. Suffice to say, that in our DSSC context, they did not give the entrance exam last year because they wanted to fly in Siachen as long as they could. Ganapathy was to move out on posting with his family in two days, on 17 Aug. Paddy’s posting was due. Yet, they both volunteered leaving behind broken wives to pack their last belongings and children who will never know their father, or what he died for in a thankless service and a callous country.

5.     Spare a moment from your mule and VTKM calculations. You could be next!  Ask why the Services have been downtrodden over the years. Why was the Northerm Army Command not consulted on the ramifications of the Land Transfer Blunder?  Why have more great soldiers like Sam Manekshaw, PS Bhagat and Arjan Singh never come out of our great army? If after Vietnam, the US middle level Officer Cadre could force a change in the entire country’s war doctrine, why can’t we? Who has perpetuated the post colonial myth, that the Army should always remain apolitical, something the British used, so effectively to slaughter our own native revolutionaries?  Who answers to the sacrifices made by us, all these years?  Who has allowed dirty, stinking politicians and corrupt bureaucrats to decide our own destinies??

6.      The answer is us. This rot is endemic. We have done it in our own system and allowed it in our own callous nation.  Make your voice heard.  If you just can’t, then at the very least say a prayer for Maj Padmnabhan KE, Maj S Ganapathy and all our forgotten brothers. Goodbye my friends. I miss you.

Maj Ashish Khanna, SM