Looking beyond the uniform
By K. S. Bajwa

A FEW days before I crossed the traumatic divide which lay between being in uniform and shedding it, someone very close to me said rather wistfully: "It is perhaps the last time I wll see you in uniform." This was both right and wrong at the same time. While no smart draperies set me apart from my people, I remain a soldier amongst them. The olive green is no longer my prison, holding me a mute and anguished witness to the rape of all that was noble in my beloved land. Even though I had tasted freedom from the constraints associated with my uniform, I knew all too well that I had to grow out of the rather sheltered confines of active soldiering to serve my people on a wider plane.

For years I had been increasingly aware of a gulf between the people and the soldiers. The nation saw the soldiers in their smart uniforms, admired their courage in battle; gave generously of its scarce material resources and what is even more valuable, its affection, when the man in uniform faced his hour of trial. It is also evident that the nation awakens and rallies behind the soldier only when he sheds his blood to safeguard the land against foreign aggression. But the soldier also serves with equal devotion when the nation is threatened from within. In this scenario the responses differ. Some sections disapproved when the soldiers stood firm between self-destructive forces and the sanctity of the nation. Harsh judgements are often passed seeing only the superficial and the visible without knowing, much less, understanding, the human core behind the facade of steel. Perhaps the soldiers are themselves to blame for this isolation. While professional elitism may have a purpose, a blanket of secrecy only generates speculation as to what is hidden within and what goes on behind the veil.

There is no way to control human minds and speculation can often be manipulated to conjure up atrocities. The spectre of self-perpetuating political power exploiting the apparatus of the government for its own ends casts ugly shadows. The soldiers often come into conflict with the demands and aspirations of the regional populations and even people at large. While politicians have the flexibility to divert, defuse and absorb adverse fallouts, soldiers are often left out in the cold. The nation must know the predicament of the man who carry its shield and sword.

In Sanskrit himsa stands for violence. The ‘a’ placed before the word negates it, thus forming the word ahimsa. It stands for gentleness and non-injury whether physical, mental or emotional, Ahimsa or non-violence is steeped in the ethos of the Indian culture since time immemorial. This is basically because of our belief in karma and reincarnation, which leads us to believe that what we have done to others will be done to us, if not in this life then in another.

The usefulness of a soldier should not cease when he sheds the uniform. It would be sad if he merely faded away as in the popular romantic tradition of medieval Europe. A well-developed endurance for sustained effort and an outlook tempered with the values of courage, devotion and sacrifice, are assets that should not be thrown away. But the reality falls short of the promise. Years of living a sheltered life, where most of the necessities are provided for and in many cases, decisions that affect life are made by someone else, take a toll on personal initiative. Then there is the drive for conformity, and the suppression of dissent, enforced under various pretexts like loyalty izzat of the unit and discipline, that act to clip the wings. To many of the ex-servicemen liberty from restraint is like a heady whiff, but they do not know how to fly. Go back to the comforting security of re-employment in another job of similar dimensions, is upper most in their thinking. Just to exist and to be, absorbs most of their energies and endeavours.

For the rest, there is the philosophy of the gilded cage again: "Give us this and give us that because we are your men. We will submit memoranda to the Lat Saheb. You may ignore us a hundred times but we will go on and on. Who knows, some day you may drop something in the begging bowl." Undoubtedly, there is much more that the government should do for its ex-servicemen. They deserve this and even more. But should this be the only focus of their endeavours? Is maintaining for self-centered purposes, the only vision that beckons?

There is no dearth of worthy causes in which the special talents and attributes of ex-servicemen can be of immense value. Take the farmer whom the nation enshrined in its hurrahs along with the soldier. Should he be judged by a handful of affluent farmers? The vast majority toils day and night only to live below the poverty line. He is one of the few primary producers and sustainers of the economic sector. Yet he is mercilessly robbed by a conspiracy of parasites — middle men, wholesalers, traders, industrialists and politicians. He battles a unique combination of adverse forces. He has no control over his inputs. The prices of these are decided by the industry-trade combine assisted by the government, who juggle their policies at their behest. He sows, hoes and hopes that nature will be kind. Where is the much talked of crop insurance? There are no insurmountable difficulties in its adoption except that the exploiters of the peasant, who can manipulate the levers of power, do not want him to have anything to fall back on.

The co-operative movement, which had the potential to deliver the farmer from the clutches of manipulative money lenders has little chance of succeeding in the present climate. The unholy nexus of money and political power ensures its failure despite the lip service which the latter pay to it for public consumption. And the financial institutions, despite social controls, still retain their bias for business and industry. Archaic laws that govern land ownership and land tenures and the requirement for collateral put the much needed finance out of reach of the farmer.

Come harvest time and a vast exploitative mafia has already sharpened its claws. Prices are depressed, even for those commodities, for which the government has announced a price support. Take the case of paddy sales in the Chandigarh market in 1998. For nearly 20 days the arhtias, ,most of whom either own rice mills or have a business tie-up with rice-millers, purchased paddy at much below the announced support price. It was only much later that the government agencies stepped in to purchase the paddy. This was not an isolated case. It is repeated year after year. In this way crores, which should rightfully go to the hard working farmers, are appropriated by the arhtias and millers.

Here is a cause in which ex-servicemen, large numbers of whom are themselves farmers, can play a vital role. Help organise the farmer and run the co-operative movement. By doing this the ex-servicemen would carve for themselves a niche as the builders of a stable society.

This feature was published on September 12, 1999