On The Armed Forces
Picture a man, early in the morning, preparing to leave. He prays to his
god, doesn’t matter which, for his religion is insignificant to the job he
knows he must do. He kisses his mother goodbye, not knowing whether he will
return. Such would be the life of many people in this country. Men and women
leading perilous lives, risking everything they have ever known for a cause
higher than them. For some, that cause is the welfare of their family. For some
others it’s a duty pressed onto them by society, and for others still, it’s the
protection of their country.
Who was it that you pictured? A man in uniform, leaving to serve in the
army, protecting our country? Was it the title that influenced your decision?
Or was it something else entirely? A bias you never knew you had?
I write what I write in the remainder of this piece not to enrage, but
to engage you in a dialogue of two parts; to further both our understandings of
the notion of respect in the first, and then the perils of glorification in the
second.
Part I
For the first time today, I looked up in the dictionary what the word
“respect” meant, having only a vague understanding of it before, from what was
taught to me as a child by my elders. The definitions, of which there are two
in the context of our discussion here, according to Google are -
- a feeling of deep admiration for someone or
something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements
- due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights
of others
Of these, I propose that the second definition refers to a standard
“amount” of respect that every person you come in contact with for the first
time deserves, for it can be thought of as being used interchangeably with
politeness.
The first of the definitions can then be thought of as a modifier to
that baseline level of respect. Simply put, if the actions of a person disturb
you, physically or mentally, that would have a negative impact on your
admiration for that person, and if their actions are in line with your beliefs,
your admiration for them would increase, meaning you respect them more. If that
doesn’t make sense, maybe an example would help.
You’re on a train. Next to you, a woman you have never met before. She
starts a conversation. You participate, because it would be rude to ask her to
stay quiet, thinking it’ll be over after exchanging pleasantries. You find out
she’s an established director on her way back from an award show where she was
honored. Your respect for her grows. You, an aspiring director yourself now
find yourself wanting to know more about her, to learn about her journey.
That’s when an old man shows up. He asks you for fifty rupees to pay the
porter, promising that his son will return it when he picks him up at the
station. You smile at him and oblige, your mom taught you to be polite with
elders. You then watch as he argues with the porter who claims the standard
rate set by the government is sixty rupees, not fifty. The old man doesn’t
think his labor worth more than fifty, and shoos him away after a long and loud
scuffle. Your respect for him diminishes. You probably won’t spend as much time
talking to him as you did with the lady.
Having some idea about what respect means, I now ask, who deserves
respect? This has been a question I have struggled with since childhood, much
to the dismay of my parents, whose only answer was “because they are elder to
you”. I don’t remember when exactly it happened, but I remember being inspiredTM by one of those
cheesy Facebook pages that regularly posted weird (in hindsight) quotes printed
on top of over the top, scenic photographs. “Respect isn’t given, it is
earned.” they said. My rebellious, teenage brain lost it.
So I stopped touching the feet of every random stranger I met that my
parents claimed was wiser than me because of the number of times they rode
around the sun on the earth.
What about people that provide an indispensable service to the
community? Do they deserve our respect? Of course, they do. Much more than the
baseline politeness too, for without them, we wouldn’t survive. When was the
last time you thanked your plumber when he fixed your toilet? Not out of habit,
but genuinely, with intent to say that if it weren’t for them, you’d be much
worse off, to put it politely.
“But they’re just doing their job, they get paid for it!” you say.
Well, aren’t the people who join the armed forces?
Ah, now I’ve crossed a line, haven’t I? How dare I, a twenty two year
old nobody, who has done nothing for the country, does nothing but complain
about how absolutely terrible it is to be stuck here, wants nothing more than
to just leave, who finds it an exercise in frivolity to stand up for the
national anthem before I watch a movie, question the honor of our men in
uniform?
Serving for their country earns a person the highest respect one could
get, and I agree that it is not fair to be comparing the two professions here.
The job of a soldier is much more dangerous and demanding than that of a
plumber. So let’s pick another largely ignored group of people, construction
workers. Bonus points for oppression too!
Believe it or not, all buildings, bridges, dams, and the rest of our
infrastructure actually took people to build. They live like nomads, taking
shelter wherever they are offered work, so that no time of the day is wasted
for their travel to and fro from their place of residence to their place of
work. This shelter is often in the form of temporary huts they build with
wooden sticks and tarp. No running water, often times no electricity. Once the
job is done, they either leave or are removed, for we wouldn’t want the
important people living in tall towers to be inconvenienced by the thought of
their sad existence.
Each morning, the construction worker prepares to go to work - a mere
minute’s walk away – he kisses his old, wrinkled mother goodbye, not knowing if
today he’ll see her again or slip and fall off the twelfth story. She would
have come too, in all her frail glory, had she not twisted her ankle the day
before trying to lift a sack of cement half her weight.
While it pains me to reduce the lives of people to statistics, it is the
only way I know to get a gauge on how dangerous a job really can be.
Even that isn’t easy to do in our country, as the government and the
contractors who hire the workers are incompetent (to say the least) when it
comes to keeping a record of how many people die working on infrastructure
every year. It’s for the best really. It allows the contractors to keep up the
sub-standard working conditions, it is less work for the bureaucracy, and apart
from characters in a horror story, who would ever want to buy a house if they
knew about how many people died on site?
There are NGOs that try to keep track of these deaths though.
Journalists reached out to them, corroborated with FIRs filed with local police
departments, and compiled the data[1]. The data for the number of deaths in
the armed forces, both operational and non-operational, is also readily
available on the internet[2].
Comparison shows that for all practical purposes, you’re really just as
likely to die on the job in both cases.
“But in the case of the workers, those deaths were accidents. Nobody
came at them with intent to kill.” I hear you say.
Is a soldier’s life worth less, if they die in a car accident? Or when
they commit suicide? (Best not ask those in power this question though,
they might slip-up and tell the truth). Moreover, those accidents the workers
die of, are often caused by the sub-standard working conditions mentioned
before. Not being given proper equipment or safety gear, because their lives
mean nothing to the contractor. Labor is cheap when you have a country of
almost 1.34 billion people. Just because he doesn’t actively try to kill those he
employs, doesn’t mean that their deaths were a stroke of bad luck.
“But the soldier does it in the name of the country. A construction
worker was just doing his job.”
First, that does not make their lives worth any less, or the risks they
take so we can enrich our lives any less real. Second, I don’t buy the argument
that everybody that serves in the armed forces is in it out of pure,
unadulterated patriotism. It is no secret that a job in the army comes with
some very impressive perks[3]. Personally, and I have no data to
support this claim because nobody would be foolish enough to fund research
questioning the army in the hyper-nationalist environment we live in today, I
don’t think that those enrolling for only patriotic reasons are in a majority.
Sure, once they join, it can be ingrained into them. After all, what good would
a soldier be if they weren’t ready to put their lives on the line for the
cause?
The respect and the privileges the army man enjoys come before, not
after their service. What I mean to say is that those things are offered to
them not as thanks for their service, but as a perk to entice them into
joining. For if they were tokens of appreciation, we would be conferring them
to every other profession that is equally deserving. It is easy to see why we
need to do this. When a worker dies, there are tens others waiting to take
their place instead. Soldiers however, are much harder to come by. To join the
armed forces, one needs to be in peak physical and mental condition, to be educated,
to take examinations, and on top of that one needs a strong will and
determination. Simple supply and demand.
One can also comment on the fact that all of these factors in
conjunction can lead to only the privileged few, those with the resources and
opportunities, to be given the choice of joining the armed forces. How can one
be in peak physical condition after all, if one struggles to put a single meal
on the table every day? But I don’t feel adequately equipped to properly
analyze that angle. I am a student of physics, not sociology.
Is it detrimental to be giving respect to the soldier? Of course not.
Using it like the tool that it is, this respect has blessed us with one of the
largest voluntary military forces in the world.
Is it wrong that the respect is not a token of thanks? I don’t think so.
But I do believe that it’s an important and interesting distinction. The
distinction between respect given, and respect earned.
Part II
We live today in an environment that is increasingly Orwellian. This may
seem like too cynical a position to some, but the increasing opaqueness in
governance, the ubiquity of false information, and the unchecked growth of
surveillance on civilians suggests otherwise.
In this environment, vigilance and criticism have become our greatest
allies, but in many cases are nowhere to be found. Compounded with toxic and
extreme flavors of nationalism and patriotism, it is a recipe for
disaster.
Some months ago, the Indian armed forces claimed to have conducted an
air strike in Pakistan as retaliation for the Pulwama attack. An air strike
that Reuters and the Pakistani government reported as being a failure[4].
News outlets wasted no time, quickly monetizing on the issue. Every
night you’d see screaming matches disguised as debates between one person who
had the audacity (how dare they) to question the army and several others
who called them anti-national.
Should a citizen of the country not be allowed to question the armed
forces? Is the selfless, altruistic, soldier absolved of all
accountability?
This was not the only time our media houses and public figures came to
the rescue of a claim made by the army. Some time ago, the army asserted that
they had found footprints belonging to the Yeti[5]. The outlandish
nature of this statement put aside, should we still not question the validity
of these claims? No, if people on the Internet are to be believed, for the
troll armies came out in droves against anybody who mocked the claim. Media
houses picked up the news and spread it like wildfire, never once questioning
the authenticity of the claim, but just passing it on to the public as if it had
been proven. How could the army be mistaken, after all?
Several Human Rights groups have released reports accusing the Indian
armed forces of human rights violations in areas where AFSPA is imposed[6]. The Armed Forces
Special Powers Act gives the gives the armed forces immunity against whatever
actions they take in the interests of national security, but where that line
gets drawn has been stated to be callous. Personnel have been alleged of
extra-judicial killings, fake encounters, rapes, and detaining prisoners
without trial. The Indian Army claims that the reports have been faked, based
on internal investigations conducted by the army[7]. Who are we to
believe? Both accounts are as unsubstantiated as the other, so it is just one
party’s word against the other’s. It is also worth noting however that,
internationally, the US state department, the British Parliament, and the UN
Human Rights Council have also expressed concern over India’s part in the issue[8][9][10].
It sets a dangerous precedent, when we come to view our men in uniform
as an incorruptible unit. How can we assume that they will always act in the
best interest of the citizens of a country?
Hierarchy is the keystone of the army. The soldier is trained to follow
orders, and the chain of command is supreme. So should we not be concerned that
the decisions of such a huge institution is dictated by the moral compasses of
a few people at the top? People who receive orders from elected politicians?
Especially politicians who of late have been stoking hyper-nationalist
sentiments with calls of increasing military action against Pakistan? Who is to
say the global authoritarian wave would not touch our country as it has taken
over China, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, The Philippines, Hungary or Venezuela? Army
Generals lead disciplined lives, yes, but they too are human, and humans can be
corrupted.
Every institution in the country needs to be held accountable to the
people, and it is the duty of the people to educate themselves, to not let
ourselves get carried away by politicians using the army for political gain, to
demand transparency from our leaders, and to critique instead of blindly
trusting in the name of patriotism.
By Parth
By Parth
References
- https://cavalier.in/pay-and-perks
- https://in.reuters.com/article/uk-india-kashmir-pakistan-airstrike-insi/satellite-images-show-madrasa-buildings-still-standing-at-scene-of-indian-bombing-idINKCN1QN02Z
- https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/yeti-legend-for-real-indian-army-captures-giant-footprints-in-himalayas-119043000146_1.html
- https://www.hrw.org/report/1999/07/01/behind-kashmir-conflict/abuses-indian-security-forces-and-militant-groups-continue
- https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-why-kashmiris-want-the-hated-afspa-to-go-1615040
- https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/sca/154480.htm
- https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/43703/kashmir-graves
- https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IN/DevelopmentsInKashmirJune2016ToApril2018.pdf
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