The Year of the Jawan

Fauji beat

By Pritam Bhullar

"TO create great armies is one thing; to lead them and to handle them is another", said Winston Churchill. Today, to lead and handle a jawan is not that easy as it was a few decades ago. For not only is he better educated now but is also well-informed. An officer, therefore, apart from being a good leader, has to be a good manager.

No wonder then, to bring focus on the jawan, General V.P. Malik, Chief of the Army Staff, has declared that the year 1999 will be observed as "The Year of the Jawan". While making this announcement at the last Army Commanders Conference, he had said: "The cutting edge of the Army is its rank and file and it is imperative that this segment is fighting fit".

We have not fought a war since 1971. But what has been seen in the ongoing counter-insurgency operations in the North and North-east and earlier in Sri Lanka is that officers have to lead the rank and file from the front. This is because the level of awareness of a jawan has gone up manifold over the years. Today, he expects more from his officers towards his management and welfare. So much so that when he is placed at the lowest rung by the Pay Commission, he blames his senior leadership for not taking up cudgels on his behalf.

New incentive for TA

How effective the Territorial Army (TA) personnel are in relieving the regular units of the Army from static duties or in assisting them during an emergency depends on how well trained they are. For this training, TA personnel must attend the annual training camps regularly.

In provincial units, TA personnel are called up for a two-month annual training camp every year. Some citizens join the TA to get certain concessions that accrue from this service, but do not attend the annual training camps regularly. In some cases, they are not spared by their civil departments.

To create an incentive for the TA personnel to attend training camps regularly, the Haryana Government has framed a new rule. According to this provision, which becomes effective from November 1994, a territorial on completion of three years service in the TA would be granted an additional increment by his department, provided he had attended all the annual training camps during the last three years.

The other states should also take a cue from Haryana to formulate a similar provision so that we can boost the regular Army with an effective citizens’ Army that can uphold the integrity of the country during an emergency.

Incidentally, an incentive already exists for the TA personnel when they are recruited for a national emergency. For, the service put in by them during the period of emergency counts as double in their civil departments.

Combat soldiering for women ?

No one should have any doubt about women becoming soldiers but should they become combat soldiers? To answer this question, we should seize upon the American experiment of the Gulf War.

The decision to induct women into its volunteer forces was taken by the US Congress in the early 80s at the instance of a strong women’s lobby. Among the US troops in the Gulf War, 8 per cent were women. They not only contributed their share to the victory of the allied forces, but also figured in the list of casualties and POWs.

The indecent assault of two women POWs — Major Rhonda L. Cornum and Specialist Melissa Coleman — has since become a major debating point in the issue whether women should be allowed to go to combat or not. No wonder then that there is a rethinking in the USA about drafting women into the combat arms.

Thinking in most countries is that women’s entry should be restricted to the administrative wings of the armed forces. Despite their enthusiasm, their biological disadvantage, it is felt, is a great handicap to them in battle. For, they not only become victims of sexual assault on becoming POWs but also run the risk of advances being made by their male comrades. This comradeship-in-arms between men and women, feel most senior officers in the US army, lowers the fighting potential of an army; not to speak of the administrative problems that it throws up.

We would do well to learn a lesson from the experience of other armies before deciding on drafting women into combat arms, notwithstanding allowing of six women officers to join the Corps of Engineers.

The glamour of bands

The beating of retreat at Vijay Chowk in New Delhi on January 29 each year by the massed bands (both brass and pipes and drums) from the Army, Navy and Air Force is considered to be one of the best functions of its kind in the world. What started worrying authorities in the 70s was the sharp decline in the standard of bands. This was because officers, unlike their counterparts of yore, did not know anything about band music.

Mercifully, corrective measures were adopted a couple of years ago to arrest the decline. A post of Inspector of Bands was created at each command headquarters. His job is to run short refresher courses for bands, apart from supervising them.

To improve the standard,band competitions have also been started. The Western Command band competition in which 12 selected bands (pipes and drums) took part was held at Ferozepore the other day.

Three Dogra band that won this competition was raised in 1900. It was adjudged as the best band at the Army Day parade in 1965 and was awarded the Chief of the Army Staff’s Commendation Card. Again in 1976 and 1977, it won the Eastern Command Championship and was awarded the Army Commander’s Commenda-tion Card.

Martial music is known to have inspired soldiers into battle in the ancient warfare. Today, bands form an essential part of ceremonial parades and other military functions. They also add glamour to mess functions and social gatherings. Band competitions should be held more often to improve the standard of bands.

Into the wasteland of our mind

By I.M. Soni

WE see waste products everywhere. There is a junkyard in every locality where glass bits, iron, paper and rags are dumped.

However, few of us ever imagine that there is a junkyard inside us which is seldom cleared. We keep heaping junk on it for years — mostly in the form of impressions of others. We dump countless human beings on this garbage heap.

These are the people who did not come up to our expectations. We find many friends of the past, some relatives, some acquaintances whom we threw out like rags.

Looking inwards, we discover that the rags and discarded ones our junkheap are those who failed to come up to our expectations. One friend throws another on the junkheap because he did not keep an appointment or has the nasty habit of backstabbing. Another is meted out the same treatment because he proves an ungrateful wretch.

If the litter-bugs care to pry into their mind, they find swarms of people who they thought had "finished". They had not vanished. These people chase them, as does a honest cop a thief without blowing warning whistles. Unpleasant instances, bits of dialogue and unsavoury incidents keep playing on the mental record as if it is stuck in the same groove.

We might dislike so-and-so because he is foul-mouthed. He stays with us during our quiet hours. The man who looks daggers at us and whom we had thrown at the dunghill of our mind is the one who stares at us when we want to get away from him the most. In short, the people we hate most are the people who foul the environment of our mind most.

We go on beating and bashing them until they are beaten out of original form and fit the dunghill of our mind. Sadly, this is our own contribution to their faults.

People become boring to us when we discover their imperfections. As soon as we come up with someone’s limitations, it is all over with him.

Has he talent? Has he plus points? It matters not. Attractive and amiable was the he to us yesterday, an ocean to explore. Now we find that he is a stagnant pond.

Assessing others on the basis of our own prejudices is not only a form of mental blindness but the worst form of man-littering. We do it in the bus, train, school, college, market and is every possible human equation.

We judge others by stereotypes. A woman with a loud make-up is approachable, we think. Every poor woman who comes to scrub floor and utensils has a thief lurking within her!

We get mad at people. It is possible that we are afraid of our own feelings. It is equally possible we fear the adversary will get the better of us. So we hang him in our imaginary scaffold. We tell ourselves: Let him hang here. We bury him.

We can stop junking people by reminding ourselves that perfection is angelic, not human. We dislike only a part of a person. Just as we accept a deep scar on our fair skin, we can like the person minus one bit.

A psychologist once asked a young man who attempted suicide, "Which part of yourself did you want to kill?" To get rid of one bit he was out to kill the whole of him.

Self-destruction is like burning our house because a snake has crawled in. We kill people on our mind and then dump them on our dunghill.

It becomes easier to see others in proper perspective when we first see ourselves in that light. The lights are here. "If the best man’s faults were written on his forehead, he would draw his hat over his eyes," says Gray.