Mahesh Chander Sudan
We, the people of India, are highly indebted to our soldiers for their act of bravery and sacrosanctity that holds them high and esteemed throughout their lives owing to the service they rendered in safeguarding their mother land. They are a privileged few to possess rare quality of bravery that enables them to honour their mother land with supreme sacrifice and attain martyrdom for her. This class of noble citizens never demands anything from the nation but is always ready to face any adversity for the wellbeing of their countrymen. They are incomparable. Having served with Indian Air Force for almost four decades, it is really a matter of pride for soldiers like me who were blessed to be part of this team that not only safeguarded our motherland from external threats but ensured peaceful life for countrymen to lead nation to peace and prosperity. No doubt, a soldier does his duty and is really duty bound to do so but he enjoys the sole status of being a soldier of the nation and that should remain his sole proprietary. The literal meaning of the word soldier as per Oxford dictionary is a person serving in the army, hence any casual usage of the word soldier for any other cadre lowers our respect for these soldiers.
It is quite disturbing to note that the word soldier is being used by responsible office bearers of political entities to refer to their cadre as soldiers of the Bharat Mata. It may earn them some dividend politically but it certainly hurts the feelings of a real soldier who wore pious uniform with a commitment duly administered in the form of an oath to protect the unity and integrity of the Indian Union even at the cost of his life and remains committed to it throughout his life. It may be noted that a soldier struggles with utmost hardships to serve his motherland not only for himself, his family or any political party of his affiliation unlike political workers especially in the present context where head of a political party of JKUT details his party cadre publicly to work for development of party offices at the cost of millions of poor people who sleep empty stomach. Besides this, these workers have choice to change their affiliation to any political ideologies at the slightest indication of missing their rise in the cadre with sole consideration of personal interest but still they are being referred soldiers of the nation. There are number of examples especially in the present context where a party is known for poaching leaders from others’ court and carry out their ideological purification for serving nation where as most of them are redundant or exited from the party concerned for anti-party activities. Leaving it to the wisdom of my esteemed readers as to whom they consider to be referred as soldier and do they accept casual and wrong usage of the word soldier.
Though, this trivial issue does not deserve much attention in itself but the intent behind usage of this word to create false public image about a political cadre is inimical for the state at large. Indian soldiers are not meant to be equated or compared with any other worker or profession what so ever, as they have the onerous task of defending territorial integrity of country both from external and internal dangers.
They form ultimate line of defense as envisaged by supreme law of land to strengthen its democratic, republic and socialist functions for larger welfare of the state. The political parties therefore try to extract public mandate by playing such tricks on poor people and this requires a close public scrutiny through media with possible clarity in the interest of state. A political worker of any ideology works for furthering the interest of his cadre, and that rarely compliments national interest. However, it is served in a blended form by equating party workers with soldiers of the nation that moots fake nationalism to prevail and rule the mind of poor people; it needs real time dissection and cure of such political moves.
It is therefore in the right earnest to bid the evil in the bud by raising the issue for public consumption so that ill intended move of equating or comparing party workers with soldiers is not encouraged and the due sanctity is accorded to the uniform donned by our soldiers who lay their lives while defending their motherland not only from external aggressors but also from hidden internal threats designed to handicap our national growth. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.
The author is WgCdr (Retd)
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