Armed impressions – My reflections on terrorism, war and realities!

The Pulwama suicide attack which took the lives of 40 of our brave hearts of the CRPF has the entire nation in deep mourning. Not only is there great sadness about the loss of lives but also a great sense of anger. How we channel this mass public anger is very important since rash actions could further exacerbate the situation. 

On deeper reflection slowly a feeling of déjà vu started taking over. Feelings which I had not felt for some time came back to me. We have experienced such pain before. This piece is an attempt to capture the feelings one has had at major points of India’s battle with terror. I have also tried to capture my own experiences and observations of the harsh realities faced by soldiers at work and at home. That is, when there is no Pulwama, no air strikes and when the hungry media is chewing some other story to feed its evil, insatiable hunger.   

One of the first things of relevance I knew about my family what that my grandfather, Colonel Khushal Chand, was a decorated war soldier. He was awarded the Mahavir Chakra for a major role in defending Ladakh from the Pakistani intruders in 1947-48. He died young at 39, serving with the United Nations Mission in Indo China.  The second major influence, looking back, was a series run by Doordarshan in the early 90s on Paramvir Chakra Awardees. This is the highest military decoration for acts of exceptional valour during wartime. 

Those were days of a single TV channel, where for most parts of the day if you switched on the television a giant watch indicating the time stared back at you. For the kids today, it is unthinkable. We waited the whole week to watch this series. Just like the economy of the time, TV watching was a highly rationed and regulated activity in our house. However, this was was different. My father actually nudged us into watching this. The world looked forward to the weekly Sunday movie but that did not hold any importance for us. Somnath Sharma, Arun Kheterpal, Dhan Singh Thapa , Albert Ekka , Jadunath Singh are some of the decorated brave hearts whose names come back to me instantly. For me as a six year the honour associated with martyrdom in the battlefield was at a pedestal, placed in a special sacred, romantic corner of my heart.

During the Mandal Commission agitation, our school shut down for close to 6 weeks in the middle of the year. A cousin came to stay with us. To keep us busy we were told to write short essays. The favourite topic was always “What I want to be when I grow up”. No prizes for guessing! We all wanted to join the army!

A few years later I went away to boarding school. The years rolled by. When I was 14, I read about the massacre of villagers in Kehar in Chamba, Himachal Pradesh. The following year, during the footloose days after completing our matriculation examinations, the Kargil War broke out. One day, the newspapers reported the intrusion as “Operation Flushout” which would take 48 hours, but ended up taking more than 48 days. I went home for the summer, and watching the 9PM news with the entire family became a ritual. Every day, pictures of coffins wrapped in the tricolour coming back from the front made for painful watching. Captain Vikram Batra, Major Saurav Kalia, Lt Haneefuddin, Captain Sonam Wangchuk and Major Sarvanan are some of the great national heroes of this war. The story of Captain Batra sacrificing his own life in order to shield his subordinate or a young Gurkha using his Khukri to single handedly slay 3 Afghans twice his size still give me goosebumps!!  I have missed out many names but these are the ones which come to my mind instantly. 

One of the days after heavy casualties, I was feeling very hurt. I strongly felt that Pakistan was a villain who needed to be taught a lesson – once and for all. I asked my father, “Papa, if the war escalates and we all have to undergo conscription, would you volunteer?” He looked back at me, with his eyes fixed firmly on mine. “Yes son. If the country needs me, I will go to the front.” For a 15 year old, this was highly impressionable. The idea of a war fought for truth, justice and self-respect had taken firm roots inside me. Later in life, in tricky situations I always reminded myself that to run away from taking a firm strand is only delaying the inevitable!

The India Pakistan cricket match in the 1999 Cricket World Cup was played in an unusually tense environment.  The soldiers were fighting a war, and yet the two teams were playing cricket. I watched every minute of that match and even remember vividly the dinner we had that evening. When we won the match, boy, we celebrated like never before!

That year I left boarding school and started studying in Delhi. I had more time to read the newspapers now. It was around this time that I became very consistent with the newspapers – a habit which continues till today. I also started developing a political opinion around this time. I felt that we were too soft and the army was not being given a ‘free hand’ to operate in the valley. Hindsight and good 20 years later I realise, how incomplete my understanding was then. My understanding of politics, human dynamics, media and the myriad other forces at play. I don’t claim to know them perfectly today as well but better than when I was 15 years old.

I wouldn’t want to comment on MJ Akbar the Minister but one thing for which I would credit him was a book he wrote. It is “India – the Siege within”. I liked the book so much that I read it twice. It laid the foundations of my view about my country, specially how nationalism fitted in perfectly within its secular ethos – the perfect embodiment of which are our armed forces!   

Over the next decade, we had the Chattisinghpora massacre, IC 814 hijacking, attack on parliament, Mumbai train blasts, Mumbai attacks and countless attacks on our soldiers in Kashmir and some even in the north east. With each of them I associate a place and a feeling. I remember ushering in the new millennium in Agra. The government had decided to hand over the terrorists in return for the hostages of the IC-814. I remember feeling a sense of dejection. It was again a reminder that we were a ‘soft’ state. Looking back I think it was a sensible decision. We were not a ‘soft’ state. I think we were a ‘humane’ state. With age, one discerns the fine lines separating the two.  

Later when I was in college I remember seeing a picture in the newspapers which made my blood boil. It was picture of two of our BSF Jawans who had been tortured, possibly mutilated by the Bangladesh forces and then strung upside down on a pole. Why were we allowing this to pass? Pakistan first and now Bangladesh. Maybe we were too ‘humane’.

During the Mumbai train attacks, I had joined my first job with the Tatas right after business school. I was away on a business tour to Mysore. I was rather fortunate to be put up close to office but I remember my friends taking those trains in and out of work every day. We checked on each of them. Fortunately, they were all safe.

I left Mumbai a couple of years later to prepare for my long cherished ambition of joining the IAS. I finished my exams and went to spend a fortnight in London with my brother. On the evening of the 26^th of November, we had planned to go out for dinner. The moment we heard of the attacks in Mumbai, the first thing my brother and I decided we were not going out for dinner. Sitting thousands of miles away, this was the small way of showing our solidarity with the victims.

The following year before joining the Academy I had the chance to visit Tawang. I actually had the chance to spend a few days with the ITBP. I remember driving to Sangaster lake from Tawang. In those extremely harsh conditions our soldiers seemed to be carrying on with their daily chores. I remember thinking if life here was so difficult what would it be in places like Siachen. The road from Balukpong to Tawang was in a bad shape with the average speed being 20 kms per hour. The journey was never ending. Every moment of that 12 hour journey, I was only thinking about the role of the armed forces in actively resuscitating the idea of India by serving in such harsh, extreme conditions.

Later that year, as IAS officer Trainees, we embarked on our Bharat Darshan. We were in groups of 16 each and were further subdivided into groups of 4 for our ten day attachment with the army. We started from Jammu for Kishtwar where 11RR had its brigade headquarters. From there we moved to Bhanderkote where we met the Commanding Officer. Here we were told that we would have to drive on further to a small village called Mughal Maidaan, and then trek up into the mountains for about 4 hours to reach the company where we would be deployed. We were told it was a “sensitive zone”. 

It was here that we met a dashing young officer, Major Pant. He was exactly as we wanted him. Extremely fit, affable, with no pretences which made him come across as extremely genuine. He tried to involve us in whatever activity he could. Apart from anything else, far from civilisation with whatever resource limitations he had, he was a great host. He was a good 5-6 years older than us.  One evening, when we were chatting, he received information about the whereabouts of a dreaded terrorist. There and then, he picked up his weapon and left for the search. It was pitch dark outside with sub zero temperature, as expected in late December. We were in an isolated army camp of about 50 soldiers atop a hill side at about 2000 meters above sea level. The probability of him finding the terrorist was in single digits and to successfully catch him was probably in decimals. One of us who was in a mild inebriated state, volunteered to go. The Major gently turned him down with a smile saying that he would take him the following day. We carried on with dinner and went to sleep. 

The next morning when we awoke he was still not back. It had been close to 9 hours and the four us looked at each other. Before we could really begin to worry too much, we saw him treading up the hill side. Ofcourse, the ‘target’ could not be found.

Later we asked him whether this frustrated him. He laughed. It was his duty and he was doing it. If he got such news the following night, he would do the same. Acts of such devotion were happening every night by our security. Wing Commander Abhinandan did his duty and fame followed him. There are hundreds of others who are doing the same but without the fame or reward.

We got to know him quite well in the 7 odd days we spend with him. He told us about a personal tragedy he had suffered a year back when he lost his new born child. Now that I am a father of two children myself I can understand the emotional impact of such an event much better. Miles away from home, in a high stress environment, it surely could not have been easy for his wife and him. Professionally too, he said he had to clear certain examination and courses and showed us his little study room. It had been fired upon by terrorists a few months ago. I told him the biggest challenge while studying for me was fighting drooping eyelids. Here, that would be the last thing on his mind. We all laughed.

We kept in touch with each other for a couple of years. I hope he is still in the army. It would be a pleasure meeting him again.

During the darshan, we also visited Koraput district in Orissa for the “Naxalite Attachment”. I remember visiting a post of the CISF which was in a broken, bombed building. The tension here was more palpable than what I had seen during our stay with the Army. This building was in the CISF camp which had been attacked and largely damaged by a Naxal attack a few months ago. This was no movie. This was reality. Just as the Army and ITBP were guarding the borders, many of our armed forces were fighting the internal challenges. At that time I remember feeling that maybe, this was an even more complex challenge.  

A few years later when I was posted as the Sub Divisional Magistrate in Bilaspur, I remember attending the funeral of a soldier who died due to some medical complication on the front. To see his father breakdown was one of the most painful memories of my tenure there. They say the worst that can happen to a person is when he or she outlives his or her own children. My father’s grandfather lived 12 years more than his war decorated soldier son. Everytime he drank, he would cry remembering his dead son. That is what armed conflict does. It makes people outlive their own children on a grand scale.

During my brief tenure of a year in Dharamsala, it was heartening to see pictures of gallantry award winners displayed in government schools. I had the opportunity to meet Major Saurav Kalia’s parents. Major Kalia had been captured during the Kargil War and keeping all civilizational norms aside, had been horrifically tortured and killed. His parents had been given a petrol pump in Palampur, as a recognition of their son’s supreme sacrifice. A year later when I moved to Hamirpur, his mother contested the Lok Sabha election. She got a mere 17000 votes and lost her deposit. Public memory is short lived.  My grandmother was a widow for 55 years of her life. She often said that in the bad times there are no friends. For the fickle media and social media warriors, it is the here and now which matters. For every day, a new story, a new hero and a new villain.  After the funeral fire has gone out and the camera men have gone home, it is the immediate family which has to contend with the daily struggles associated with loss of a braveheart and nobody else.  

Hamirpur has a rich martial tradition with almost every family having one person in the armed forces. It is also a recruitment Center for the army. The Army Recruitment Officer and I were on good personal terms. He knew my family history and allowed me the honour of doing the “Rahgiri” ( farewell) ceremony for the young soldier recruits. 

Proud parents and family members come all the way from the villages to bid farewell to their young sons who are going into the service of the nation. The recruits were mostly in their late teens. A quiet hope with a dash of nervousness showed on their visages. It was obvious that most of them had just begun to shave. They were not only moving away from home but also from their boyhood. They are Jawans of the Indian army now.  A few months after the Rahgiri ceremony there was a terrible attack on an army convoy in Manipur. The young faces of the young soldiers I had met during the Rahgiri came back to me. Many of the dead were from adjoining districts of Kangra and Bilaspur. The only thing I wanted to be sure about was that the young boys who had left their homes a couple of months back were all safe. Atleast for the time being they were.

Another telling story is again from my days in Hamirpur. One morning when I was holding a meeting in my office, the peon who managed the flow of people into my office entered with a chit with a visitor’s name. He said, “Sir, there is this khiladi (sportsperson) who wants to meet you.” I told him that as soon as the meeting finishes we could meet. However, as is often the case in district offices, there are too many things happening at the same time. I got preoccupied with some other task till the peon gently reminded me a couple of hours later that the ‘khiladi’ was still waiting to meet me. I asked him to tell me who this ‘khiladi’ was. He said he had no clue and would ask him his name. I had cameras installed outside my office chamber through which I could view who was standing outside. The peon pointed out the ‘khiladi’ on the screen. It was then that I realised who it was! It was Vijay Kumar, a Silver Medal winning shooter in the London Olympics. I knew he was an army man and immediately called him into my room. All he needed was a licence for a gun he was importing. I issued all permissions at my end immediately. He also told me that since he was about to retire from the army, he had applied to the state government for a job. He had won the medal in 2012 and now it was 2015 and he was still waiting. Most medal winners from other states had been rewarded with government jobs. I personally felt very bad because a world beating sportsman soldier should not need to wait like this – neither for his license nor for his job.

The most likeable part was his behaviour. I apologised for him having to wait.  He was not expecting any apology. It was so obvious since he was at a loss of words on how to respond. On the contrary he thanked me for patiently hearing him out.  Forget arrogance, I felt he was rather subdued. One got a sense that he knew how blind and brutal the system could be.  He did not want to antagonise anybody. When he was leaving, I requested him for a selfie. He did not know how to respond. In the end it was his father, who enthusiastically accepted my request.

My peon did not know him. If he did he would at least have taken his name with me. Looking back, my more than average sports awareness helped that day. It is highly likely that many would not have made the connection between the London Olympics and the person standing outside my office that day. Incidentally, I met Vijay in Shimla a couple of years later. It was in the corridors of the Secretariat. His job issue had still not been resolved.

The last time I met him last year he was still looking for the ‘promised’ job. When I started writing this piece, I decided to touch base with him again. He was pleasantly surprised to hear from me. The good news was that a good six and a half years after winning the Olympic medal, he had atlast been appointed as a DSP in the State police. Thank god for little mercies!

We must understand the pivotal role the armed forces have played around the world in keeping the idea of the nation alive. They do it without consciously realising it. A soldier by making the supreme sacrifice of his life reinforces the idea that there is an amorphous concept of nation that comes before all else. A cataclysmic scene from the movie Dr Zhivago covers this aspect particularly well. When the defeated Tsarist troops are coming back from the front, worn and tired,  they are ordered by an officer to return to the battlefield for Russia’s prestige and glory. One of the soldiers says, “It’s not my Russia. It’s yours”. This marks the beginning of the revolution and the collapse of the Tsarist state. In short, the nation exists as long as the soldiers and armed forces feel there is value in its existence. If that fundamental is shaken, there is no nation.

At least none worth talking about anyway.