Citizens are responsible for their country and their army

Let's kick some butt. India and Indian Army are too important to be left to the wrong people.

Global friend. Help me improve my India and Indian Army. I’ll help with yours.

I am a retired soldier of India, age 70.

Criticizing one’s country and one’s army is always fraught with danger. If I have chosen to do so here, I must have good reasons for that.

I served in India’s combat arm, its infantry, for over 26 years and left honorably. My tenures were mainly in counterinsurgency areas when insurgency was at its peak. I am not a chocolate cream soldier. That alone is enough to show that I am a good citizen, if not a model one. It is my love for my country and army that prompts me to take the risk of criticizing both.  Only a lover will point out the faults. To him, it becomes a sacrilege to let his loved ones degrade.

India and the Indian army have great potential. The forces that nurture them from the inside are far more substantial than the few that presently plague them. The evil are few, but they operate from a position of strength. Fundamental strengths will, by themselves, not be able to break through this cauldron of iniquity. We, as concerned citizens, must help them break through.

In times of war, young officers and soldiers of the Indian army put in herculean efforts and achieve results that make the running of multi-million-dollar enterprises look like child’s play. But isn’t that itself an excellent reason to do all that is possible to give them a fighting chance of coming out of the war alive?

Read through the book with an attitude of inquiry. Mostly, I have provided facts that you can check. I insist you agree with my points or find your own on the same topic. That must be your first step.

Beyond the facts, I have provided some explanations too. These expand on the points already fed and are, thus, expected to be neutral. However, the mindset of the author invariably seeps through. I, too, must be guilty of it in some places. When you discern that, disregard my opinions, and form your own, based on the facts you believe to be true.

But base your opinions on your facts, not someone else’s views.

It is not that I’ve always been so critical of India and the Indian army. Being from the infantry, I served mainly in rural areas and lived with the Indian jawan. I saw both as excellent human beings with adorable philosophies to live by. Simple, content, and god-fearing. In the first 50 years of my life, I saw the country as not prosperous but quite livable. There was a tacit acknowledgment that we are a struggling nation.  Socially, there was harmony. The government had some morals, They were inefficient but not crook.

Then it all changed. Suddenly, we were being told more about our past than our future. Hate among communities started to be engineered at a massive scale. Alongside, the national narrative changed from being a slow runner to being the unfortunate No.1, which was not acknowledged as the champ by the player itself. Media – government and private – started projecting a larger-than-life image of the top leadership of India.

Things started deteriorating at a breakneck pace. The government began taking advantage of the small print of the law and constitution to help deepen its hold on the mind and rights of citizens. For example, they said that Hindi must be forced on all, as the constitution required it. But what is not shared was that this was merely a directive principle, not an act of the constitution.

On the other hand, the government kept overlooking its obligation toward a fundamental right of Indians- Education. Article 21 A of the constitution enjoins the Indian state to ensure that children aged 6 to 14 are provided education – freely and compulsorily. How much this fundamental right of the people, and hence the fundamental duty of the government, is being implemented is visible to all when they find children of 10 years knocking on their car doors at a traffic light, trying to sell balloons. Or children rummaging through their garbage to find something they can sell for pennies.

India has failed to comply with what its own constitution demands on almost all fronts. Of those. I am pointing out the failure on education because it is the most critical. The world over, development has occurred only after the education level was increased and women were taken into the workforce. Look around the developed world. You’ll find no exceptions. Not even one. So, India’s failure on this front – from PM Nehru to PM Modi – is inexcusable. To not take up education, even when the constitution explicitly demands it, is pure sin.

Suppose India was to take all its Directive Principles seriously. In that case, it is also reminded of the Directive principle of State policy (article 19 f) – ‘That children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in a condition of freedom and dignity’.

Once I became of this duplicity, it changed me, and I decided to do something about it. And here I am, doing what I must. The plastic veneer is choking breathing. It must be removed, else we die.

My biggest disillusion came at two critical times in modern India’s history – Demonetization and Covid.

The coldness and cruelty with which the state handled them would change anyone. Demonetization was a self-inflicted wound followed by a complete lack of planning. The migration of the homeless worker to his home in the village has been considered one of the worst in the world. Covid was a natural calamity, but its pain would have been significantly lesser if the state had procured medicines and taken other preventive measures in time.

It was as if the state enjoyed punishing its poor and helpless.

As for the army, I’ve served it for 26 years. The public saw little of it, so it got good press. Indeed, it has always been better than all other institutions in India.  But I never found it effective or efficient enough, and it has been declining steadily at an increasingly rapid pace.  Ironically, it was at its best when officers were mostly British-trained.

My criticism is not aimed at those who did all they could when bullets were flying. Doing is far superior to criticizing.

 

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither knows victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt

I start by bowing to my country and my army. The former has given me my very existence, and the latter has given me king-sized cups of joy whenever I served with troops. I invite you to a discovery, or rediscovery, of India and the Indian Army. Wherever you may be, both must be well known to you. The media is going crazy, reminding everyone of the excellence of these two, particularly after 2015.

How much of the praise is true and well-deserved? That’s my theme.

What’s the situation today

In the last few years, there has been a concerted effort to show that everything about today’s India is golden. After all, today’s India is the progeny of the world's famous sone ki chiriya (Golden bird). Starting from such a glorious past, we are well on our way to becoming the Vishwaguru (Teacher to the world) – self-reliant, confident, prosperous, and the apple of all eyes. The narrative adds that, unfortunately, dark forces are out to besmirch our good name. Unless we unhesitatingly allow the Supreme Leader to do as he wants, these forces will succeed.

I will show you the mirror. In a way, it is the Red Pill. The rabbit hole goes deep. Things are not very healthy now, nor have they been so in most of our past. While there have been bright spots, overall, our achievements have never been very laudable.  As for the present, we are doing quite poorly.

Much wool is being pulled over our eyes to add to our woes. This makes us complacent. Pulling wool over our eyes is being done by manipulating where we are looking on a 24/7 basis.

When an emperor cannot provide the needed bread to his citizens, he must take his people to a circus. This effectively diverts their attention and makes them feel good. Dancing elephants, cavorting nymphs, and jugglers spinning colorful plates can make anyone forget that he is hungry, under-protected, and ill-educated. If this were mere entertainment, I would not soil your fun. But if the circus is also the cause of further deterioration, hence must be resisted.

We must look at achievements about the core need of the masses, not those on peripheral matters. Substance, not glitter.

The real need of the masses is roti, kapda, and makaan (food, clothes, and a house), not stories of past glory. Prosperity today, and tomorrow, is what matters most. Self-esteem, pride, and happiness all come from prosperity. Any narrative that if we can somehow feel proud of ourselves, everything else will follow must be false. If we are indeed happy, there is no need to prop up a narrative of pride.

Amplifying what ‘prosperity’ should mean to us will be helpful. What should India aspire to be? That is not an open question. It is in our constitution -

WE, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic, and political. 

LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship;

EQUALITY of status and of opportunity.

and to promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation.

It is clear. We are to ‘secure to its citizens’ justice in matters of our social, economic, and political lives, liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship, equality of status and opportunity, and fraternity that assures the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation. Nothing less. Anything else shown to be our core need must be coming from false consensus. The only consensus is about justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity. These four are all that nationalism and patriotism are all about.

While these four are the minimum requirements, anything additional is welcome. If we also have the highest statue in the world, the tallest national flag hoisted on the highest mountain, the most sacred scriptures, and the most spiritual past possible, who should resent them? However, they are useless without justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity. And if these become hindrances to achieving the big four, they are also anti-national.

We have consciously chosen to be a sovereign socialist, secular democratic republic, not a Hindu Rashtra (a nation of Hindus).

On the demand of a Hindu Rashtra, Kunal Kamra, the political satirist, put things in perspective. A father promises a new bike to his son as a reward for coming first in class. The son replies, ‘No, daddy, I don’t want a bike. I’d much rather have the Hindu Rashtra.’ Kunal is telling us that no one wants the things our leaders project as coming deep from within Indian society. All they want is a new bike.

Just give me prosperity for fellow Indians.  That done, I’ll happily go along even with the additional pride of the tallest statue and thundering Rafales in the Indian Air Force.

We will also be talking about national security and the Indian Army. I’ll focus on how Indian defense has fared since our independence. We must discuss this because the present narrative is that our pride must emerge from our muscularity, not our economy. 

It is essential to differentiate between inputs and outputs.  You can go on investing in new fire tenders, but what matters is reduced casualties in case of fire, not the number of fire tenders you have.  Similarly, you can go on announcing new schemes for the economy and social cohesiveness but what matters is data showing a good economy and lesser cases of social conflict. Inputs can be managed, but hard data  – on matters that matter – cannot be. A show of muscularity can be managed, but the per capita GDP ranking cannot be.

The Indian army has acquired a status above even the PM of India. Indians are happy to question their PM. But question the army? Absolutely not, unless you want to be lynched. The army has itself started believing in the myth that everything they do, or do not do, must be treated as Top Secret. They deny all attempts by citizens to hold them accountable for how they spend about 13.3 % of their national budget and deal with their children’s lives.  

It is also important to talk of the army because not holding the guilty accountable has resulted in too many who should have been made to resign, to rise to the top like sour cream.

However, I won’t be talking about the 7th successive poll victory of the Bhartiya Janta Party in Gujarat. The slogan rending the air is – Modi Brand and Shah strategy. Can that be doubted, much less contradicted? The short answer is – No. Electorally, they’ve produced the best results till now. But Cui Bono? Who benefits? The BJP does, so let it rejoice.  Does the nation benefit? If it does, it will show up in the data. Let’s disregard the inputs and focus on the output. Output, for the nation, not for a political party.

I’ll start with some data as diagnostics, then follow up with explanations.

Those in power are incentivized to mispresent reality if the data shows them in poor light. In 2018, the Indian government found itself in several controversies over issues of national statistics, particularly over the release of the back-series GDP data. They held up the release of the new NSSO employment survey data, which was already vetted by the statistical body. This prompted the only two non-government members of India’s National Statistical Commission to resign. Further, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released its annual ‘Crime in India’ report for 2017, a year behind schedule. Even with that, the NCRB report is not a correct representation of the state of crime. There are extensive issues with data collection and the methodology used to compare two time periods. It is due to such a state that our data must, mostly, be taken from agencies globally acclaimed for their credibility.  

All agencies presenting India in poor light are not conspirators. If the world respects them for their integrity and we don’t, the onus is on us to prove that they are indeed rigged. We must then also introspect as to why everyone is out to malign the World Teacher, including the countries with whom we have the most profound ties and trade.  

So, how deep does the rabbit hole go?

How you can help?

Just engage with me and other readers. Let me know the fault lines in my logic and mindset. Happy to get corrected. Maybe I am too cynical. Correct me.

Also, add additional stuff. Share facts, opinions and ideas from your country.

Shortly, we’ll start discussing - ‘What is the real problem? What can we citizens do something about it?’ From my knowledge of innovation and other thinking techniques, I’ll add some ideas. You’ll add to them. Good thinking is all about collaborations.

Let’s kick some butt.

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