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Not the best foot forward Killer stress |
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GROUND ZERO No bullion for a billion Raj Chengappa WHAT are the freeze frames of the London 2012 Olympics that like photographs would remain embedded in the albums of your mind? For me it would be the irrepressible Usain Bolt winning the 100m gold with audacious ease and then striking his trademark ‘firing the bow’ pose that some say also means ‘To Di World’.
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On record
Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
PROFILE: Saadat Hasan Manto
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Not the best foot forward
THE Army is a copy of society and suffers from all its diseases, usually at a higher temperature,” says a paper published in the latest issue of the biennial War College Journal published by the Army War College. As the largely chaotic Indian social order tethers on the brink of lawlessness, moral degeneration and socio-economic chaos, the Armed Forces that form an intrinsic part of the same society and draw upon it to meet their fundamental requirements cannot remain immune from the winds afflicting the masses. Recent incidents in a relatively short span of time indicating serious breakdown in discipline in Army units located in sensitive areas and reflecting on the officer-jawan relationship are a pointer towards this, and call for introspection. In early May, there was a huge fracas at Nyoma, close to the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, when troops from an artillery unit clashed with officers, resulting in the unit’s commanding officer, two majors and some jawans being hospitalised with serious injuries. According to reports, a jawan allegedly misbehaved with the wife of a major, who beat up the jawan so severely that he needed medical attention. When the Major, in a furious temper at this time, physically stopped soldiers from moving the injured jawan for medical attention, they responded by attacking the officers. The unit’s commanding officer, who was not present at the spot, rushed in on learning of the incident, but was also assaulted. Things didn’t end there. There were also reports of jawans destroying some property. The Army termed the incident as a “minor scuffle between officers and troops of a unit”. A statement said the entire episode could at worst be seen as an isolated act of indiscipline and could in no way be termed “mutiny”. A Court of Inquiry (CoI) has been convened to identify the complicity of the officers and men. The inquiry is still underway and, according to sources, close to 60 witnesses have been examined so far. Earlier this month, there were reports of a stand-off between officers and men from 16 Cavalry located at Samba in south-western J&K, close to the border with Pakistan. A jawan, Arun V. from Thiruvananthapuram, had allegedly shot himself after being denied leave. His parents were quoted in the media as claiming that two days earlier Arun had called them up saying he and his fellow jawans were not being treated well. An officer of the rank of Brigadier from the Yol-based 9 Corps is heading the CoI to investigate the stand-off. On the sidelines of a function this week, Gen Bikram Singh, Chief of the Army Staff, told mediapersons that the stand-off was not provoked by the suicide. Stating that two separate CoIs had been instituted to probe the stand-off and the suicide, he remarked that the situation was “not that bad”. He said such incidents were “isolated” and the force was trying to strengthen its culture. “As far as atmosphere in battalions is concerned, we are looking into that and trying to correct it. We have been trying to address these issues,” he said. There are also reports that another incident took place in 45 Cavalry at Gurdaspur, where officers and jawans clashed after a training session. While three incidents of indiscipline and fracas have been reported within eight months, Army officers say there are instances where such incidents did not come under public glare and were hushed up.
Eroding ethics That there is a gradual erosion of discipline, morals and ethics across the board is not disputed. There is no single reason attributable for this, but a combination of factors and issues woven around the complexities and inconsistencies of modern day life in a society that is at conflict with itself. Discipline and moral courage are the bedrock of the armed forces and no military can remain an effective or well respected fighting machine if it is found wanting in these crucial elements. Discipline stems from effective leadership and effective leadership rests on strong morals, guided by what is known as the code of the warrior that has evolved over centuries. Military leadership is radically different from other facets of leadership encountered in the Civvy Street, and hence needs to be looked at, evolved and nurtured differently in a continuous process that has percolated down through generations of soldiers. Over the years, military leadership in India has come under increasing public scrutiny, more often for the wrong reasons. Allegations of corruption, nepotism, bribery and professional impropriety are now common, with officers at the highest levels being convicted by courts martial for such offences. An Army Training Note, in fact, sates: “Many senior officers tend to get carried away by primitive clannish instincts based upon considerations of region, regiment, etc. At times this nepotism and unprofessional ethic is so blatant that it casts a stigma on the image of the organisation.” A paper on the “Psychopathology of Military Corruption” published under the aegis of the Army War College some time ago has pointed out that the all-important selection system within the armed forces has been a major casualty of moral degeneration afflicting the services. The rot in military organisation always starts from the top and rapidly permeates downwards. Blaming commanding officers and seniors up the chain of command, the paper states that though capable and honest individuals are generally assessed fairly, at the same time, a significant proportion of “clever crooks and sycophants” also get promoted because of the venality or weakness of the assessing officer. Blaming the culture of cynical opportunism gripping the services as the root cause of corruption, the papers states that malpractices in matters of promotion, posting, allotment of accommodation, misuse of transport and manpower for personal comfort, prize assignments, nomination to prestigious courses, or even decorations are far more rampant than one would like to believe.
Not pick of the lot The quality of intake has a major role to play in the present and emerging standards of military leaders as well as the men they command. Once having a fair sprinkling of royals, aristocrats and rural landlords, the demographic face of the Indian officer cadre is now largely middle class, with most of those joining being those whose preferred career choices did not include the military. A fair percentage of the rank and file is now from the urban areas, well exposed to the facets of modern life — both good and bad — and apparently with little regard for values. A former service chief wrote in a paper published by the United Services Institute: “It was clear from the misdemeanours that occur in training academies that a large proportion of these young men have received no inputs about a value system, nor were they provided a moral foundation at home or school. The quality of cadets has seen a downslide, falling drastically short of standards set for them.”
Life in the Services, especially the Army, is tough, often confining officers and men in remote areas under adverse climatic and operational conditions where the risk to life is immense. Prolonged deployment in hard areas and counter-insurgency environment in less than ideal living conditions, little time for rest and recuperation, and the pressures and insecurity of a disrupted family life take the toll and lead to high levels of stress. The jawan bears the brunt of virtually everything. The jawan today is no longer the hardy simple rural peasant, obediently and silently taking in all that comes his way from his superiors. He is now better educated with an inquisitive mind and questioning streak, aware of his rights and has access to ready access to communication and the social media that impacts his thinking. He may no longer be willing to put up with what he perceives to be incorrect or not in the best of his interests. As far as officers are concerned, the problem is a bit different. It is not so much physical hardship as the pressure of running an establishment in the face of a host of odds. The severe shortage of officers has led to field units being understaffed, and officers have to take up multiple portfolios. The pressure also cuts into the time spent with troops in such vital activities as games, recreation and other informal interactions that strengthen the officer-jawan bonding. Also to be factored in are demands and tasks from commanders up the chain, the so-called zero-error syndrome and personal ambition. All this adds up to increase stress levels.
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Defence Minister AK Antony claimed last week that the number of suicides in the Army has come down. So far this year, 70 suicides have been reported. In comparison, suicides in the US Army have gone up. The Washington Times reported this week that 116 US soldiers have committed suicide till August this year, a 22 per cent increase over the same period last year. The Ministry of Defence recently instituted several measures to redress the issues. These include a proactive approach through better man-management techniques at different levels, measures such as identification of high-risk category, increased inter-personnel relationship and communication between officers and
jawans, lectures and workshops on stress management, counselling by professionals, establishment of
helpline, redress of grievances, liberalised leave rules and increased focus on welfare activities. The responsibility of ensuring healthy
officer-jawan relations lies with the leadership — both the military leadership through its chain of command, and the national leadership. It is for commanders at every level to ensure that those they are responsible for are well trained, groomed and looked after. It is for the commanders to follow and enforce a strict moral code and uphold the professional ethos of the Armed Forces. The onus lies on the national leadership to provide the wherewithal and create the right environment for the Forces to attract and nurture talent for grooming effective military leaders. INDIAN ARMY Total strength: Suicides in 2012: 70 US ARMY Total strength: Suicides in 2012: 116
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GROUND ZERO
WHAT are the freeze frames of the London 2012 Olympics that like photographs would remain embedded in the albums of your mind? For me it would be the irrepressible Usain Bolt winning the 100m gold with audacious ease and then striking his trademark ‘firing the bow’ pose that some say also means ‘To Di World’. Among the cameo performances of Indian winners would be that of shooter Vijay Kumar calmly taking aim and steadily notching up an impressive score in the 25m rapid-fire pistol event to win silver. Not to forget India’s pehelwans Sushil Kumar — going down gamely to take silver in the men’s freestyle 66 kg category for wrestling (becoming the first Indian to win back-to-back Olympic medals in individual events) — and Yogeshwar Dutt — somersaulting after winning the bronze medal in the 60 kg category. Then there were the images of a radiant Saina Nehwal standing on the podium to receive the bronze, becoming the first Indian to win a badminton medal in the Olympics, and India’s ace shooter, the super-cool Gagan Narang, lifting his rifle in triumph after winning a bronze in the 10m air rifle event. Not to mention the unforgettable sight of Mary Kom, mother of two, giving as good as she got and doing the country proud with a bronze in the women’s boxing event — again a first. At London, Indian participants had a creditable tally of six medals — two silver and four bronze — making it India’s single biggest haul at this pinnacle of sport. That was double the tally of three medals at Beijing (remember Abhinav Bindra’s fabulous performance that made him the first Indian to win an individual Olympic gold in 88 years and the two bronze by Sushil Kumar in wrestling and Vijender Kumar in boxing). From the 1924 Games, when India became a serious participant, till London 2012, India has won 24 medals in 21 Olympics. The fact that more than a third of those came in the last two Olympics is both a testimony of the progress that Indian sport has made as well as a dismal reminder of its poor track record in the past. In London, there was no bullion for India’s billion to crow about. Comparisons are odious, but in 2012 China won as many as 38 gold, 27 silver and 22 bronze medals, making its tally second only to the US. On a sunny morning a day after the London Olympics I met the legendary Milkha Singh and his wife playing at Chandigarh Golf Club. It was the 16th hole, and Milkha despite his more than 80 years was superbly fit. I asked him his assessment of India’s performance at the Olympics. He said, “Much better than before, but pity we could not win a gold.” I asked Milkha what India had to do to become a major sporting power. Launching into a perfect drive, he said there were three main factors: “Sportsmen must have a burning desire to win and constantly train to improve their performance. The coaches need to be good and instead of having secure jobs like government officers must be hired on contract, and their tenure extended only if they deliver. The various sporting associations need to pull up their socks and focus on improving facilities and infrastructure rather than fighting among themselves.” About money, Milkha surprisingly said, “The government is spending enough, we must know how to utilise it.” Most importantly, he felt, Indian associations and athletes must set targets. On a recent visit to China he was taken to an Olympic training centre where a coach was not satisfied with a diver’s performance and made him repeat the dive over a 100 times till he perfected it. Milkha said if Usain ran the 100 metres in 9.63 seconds then that must be India’s benchmark — we should train our runners to outperform Bolt. “It may take two Olympic games before we get an Indian athlete who could do that, but by then we would have enough runners with world-class performance.” Much the same advice was given by Jagdish Singh, the iconic coach of the Bhiwani Boxing Club, who has helped build a cluster of medal-winning boxers from India. In a TV interview he is quoted to have said, “Geedar ka shikar karna ho to sher se ladna seekho (to hunt jackals, learn how to fight a lion).” Almost a year after the Commonwealth Games, Delhi-2010, that saw India’s win of a record number of medals overshadowed by allegations of mismanagement and corruption, I asked Ajay Maken, Union Minister of State for Sports, why despite having a billion strong population, we don’t produce world-class athletes. He said, “Apart from poor quality coaches and sporting institutes, what is disturbing is that a large number of sports federations in our country are run like the fiefdom of powerful persons. Unless and until these federations are taken out of the control of these powerful and vested interests, our sports cannot flourish.” Maken was to have a National Sports Development Bill passed in Parliament that would end the tyranny and arbitrary functioning of federations. He hasn’t succeeded in doing so with powerful vested interests ensuring that the Bill is delayed on one pretext or the other. If we ignore sane advice and continue with business as usual, in Rio 2016 we would still be asking the same question: “Why is there no bullion for a billion?” Send your comments to raj@tribunemail.com
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Suspicion is something that can be easily instilled. And once the unease sets in, relationships can be ruined forever. The irony is that while this week New Delhi celebrated Independence Day, in Assam over 7 lakh Indians spent the night in refugee camps. What sort of Independence is this when innocent people are made homeless and many fear for their lives?
This is a time when a sombre message of inculcating peace and harmony should have gone out, and the Chief Minister of Assam given ample support to firmly control the situation. Instead, much energy was expended on the Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections and the President’s ‘at home’, etc. Shouldn’t there be a scaling down of pomp and ceremony — especially when a major calamity is taking place in the country? Or are we going to pretend that everything is alright? In the absence of a clear message or well-reasoned reassurances from the government, the chaos over the Assam situation reminds us of the countless times when we have failed to react in time, and precious lives have been lost. I remember only too well when during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots a mob had come to our door to burn our house down, believing that I was also a Sikh, as the nameplate outside said boldly ‘Ahluwalia’. I was alone at home with my two young children. There was no response from the police though I must have called them around a hundred times, and I was ultimately rescued by my neighbours. But others were not so fortunate. How many times will we allow this to happen? Right now, the impact of the Assam problem is widespread. Till yesterday, the presence of Indians from the North-East, working in different parts of the country, was something to be proud of. It was a positive signal that, at last, social mobility was taking place and these men and women were being integrated into the rest of the country, as they came to study or looked for jobs and employment. Their comfortable presence made it apparent that they were an important part of our nation. Even in Goa, a local agency had sent us a young man from Assam to be hired as part-time chowkidar plus domestic help. He arrived two months ago as a cheerful hardworking young man. He had been in Goa for more than four years, and was at home with its lifestyle. Within a few days he had understood all his work with us, and settled down well. And then suddenly we noticed he began to change, and was looking increasingly depressed. He got long and frequent phone calls from home and began watching the news on TV with us. Slowly, we learnt how worried he was. Within a few weeks, his entire life was in tatters. He was a Bodo, and was worried about what was happening to his family. And then he learnt that his parents were in a refugee camp. To add to his anxiety, he had heard rumours that members of another community were killing Assamese in Goa and sending the bodies back to Assam by train. We did our best to reassure him that he was safe and that there was nothing to fear, and that these were just baseless rumours. But, with mobile phones and the Internet, rumours obviously spread fast and wide. It puzzles me that if we were hearing this bazaar gossip, how come the Intelligence agencies did not hear it and why was the Centre and state governments not warned in time that they needed to do more to placate people? Didn’t they realise that there was a concerted attempt to spread fear among the people and that it was likely to lead to either the fear of violence or actual violence itself? The inaction of the government has now led to a reverse migration of the Assamese back to their state. Years of integration have come to naught. Hopefully not all young men, women and families will go back, but after such a terrible occurrence it might take a lot of persuasion for them to settle down in any other part of India again. At the same time, they feel equally unsafe within their own state. Even though some state governments are now trying to calm down these fears, it is probably already too late. This had, after all, nothing to do with coalition politics. It was a simple matter of good governance. What was the newly appointed Home Minister doing, apart from making rude remarks to Mrs Jaya Bachchan when she as a member of the Rajya Sabha, quite correctly, raised her concerns about the issue? Why were we treating this as an ‘Assamese’ problem when it was obviously affecting people all over the country? And so ultimately the young man at our home in Goa also lost all hope. Our reassurances would have meant nothing when he heard about the attack on students in Pune and the violence in Mumbai. How could we protect him if something were to happen to him? The burden on him was doubled because he was as worried about his family in Assam as they were about him. He wanted to return to them but by now, within a few days, he was too scared to go by train as he thought he might be killed. He even planned taking a flight back, and then finally decided that there was safety in numbers. And so, he, along with some other Assamese boys who were also working in Goa, decided to go back together. My sympathies lie with them as it is a crucial time for them. Ultimately it is apparent that if the government cannot offer them security, they will have to go back and look after their families, and perhaps return to the village and the home from which they have been evicted. The sad part was that they were just beginning to regard the rest of India as their home as well. That is a proposition that they will — after recent events of violence and the government’s feeble response — look upon rather doubtfully in
future. (Kishwar Desai is the author of “Origins of Love”;
www.kishwardesai.com)
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On record Shivendra Singh Dungarpur Deeply committed to the preservation and restoration of cinema, he travelled the world to meet and extensively interview on camera great masters of world cinema such as Krzysztof Zanussi, Jiri Menzel, Raoul Coutard, Andrzej Wajda, István Szabó et. He is a patron of the British Film Institute and a donor for the restoration of Hitchcock’s silent classic ‘The Lodger’, which was screened on July 21 along with Nitin Sawhney’s score for the inaugural of
the Olympics. In India, documentaries are not made even on stars. What is the relevance of P.K. Nair to the film world, on whose life you made “The Celluloid Man”? Nair is the founder director of the NFAI (National Film Archives of India), Pune. I wanted people to know how one man’s crusade led to the establishment of the NFAI. He travelled the length and breadth of India to collect old film prints from kabadiwallas and raddiwallas, paying from his own pocket. It is about a very vital element of our heritage, all the people who talk in this film — Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Gulzar, U.R. Ananthamurthy, Kumar Shahani, Naseeruddin Shah, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shabana Azmi, Ketan Mehta, Santosh Sivan, Ramesh Sippy, Yash chopra, et al — stress the need for restoration. I will take this film to all major cities in August, at my cost, to create awareness and generate support for the preservation of our film heritage. I shot on film, which is a very expensive proposition, to drive home the point that films are our recorded history, hence precious. Can we ever expect a distribution system for screening of good
documentaries? Documentaries are not released, but “Supermen of Malegaon” has shown the way; it was screened by PVR Cinema. The government can also create its cinema houses or can show with a tie-up with private halls, like PVR had shown ‘Malegaon’. Things are improving, they take time, I am sure something will come about. NFDC (National Film Development Corporation) can start something on these grounds. So, how did you persuade the reclusive P.K. Nair to be the
protagonist of his film? Getting Mr Nair was difficult, but I would like to talk about our bureaucratic apathy, which is more shocking than any horror tale. The NFAI was created by a single man’s passion, i.e., P.K. Nair, but when we decided to make the film, it took months to get permission from the NFAI to let Mr Nair, who lives right across the road, to enter the NFAI, so that we could film him in his natural environs. During our FTTI days, we had seen how he virtually lived in the NFAI, neglecting his family and nursing old, decayed film cans. One can imagine the pain of the man who created an institution without any support to be debarred from entering it. And to go through ‘sarkari’ paperwork to visit his own baby. You were instrumental in the restoration of ‘Kalpana’. Will the restored ‘Kalpana’ be released? Technically speaking, the film belongs to the government. ‘Kalpana’ should be released, but it all depends on people’s demand and the response of the government. Restored films are screened the world over and people are becoming more and more aware of the film heritage of their country. How did you get interested in restoration of films? When I went to the FTII as a student, I saw the pathetic condition of films I grew up watching lying in cans. Nobody was taking the initiative to restore them. Then I went to Bologna in Italy to attend Cinema Retro (Ritrovato), and saw how films are restored, their expertise in restoring films amazed me, and this is how I began
this endeavour. Do we have enough expertise in India to restore cinema? No, we don’t have the required education facility for film restoration. In Europe, they produce PhDs on the subject; it’s a specialised art. At best, what the NFDC does is digitisation of old prints, whereas restoration is done frame by frame, matching the original, by experts. It’s a fine art — restoration of cinema. Why do you think we lack respect for our heritage cinema? It’s a reflection of our harsh treatment of our heritage in general. We can’t afford to lose these invaluable films. Cinema is a reminder of an era; it’s our recorded history of a particular time.
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PROFILE: Saadat Hasan Manto Described by his grandniece and historian Ayesha Jalal as a “terrific writer of memoir”, Manto is best known for his Urdu short stories, especially those that explored the impact of Partition, to which he was bitterly opposed. He voiced his views in Lahore in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when it was sacrilege to speak against the divide. “When I sat down to write, I found my mind in a confused state. Howsoever I tried, I could not separate India from Pakistan and Pakistan from India”. Manto was born in a Ludhiana village on May 11, 1912, to a barrister practising in Amritsar and his second wife, a gentle woman with an artistic disposition. The strict father was unhappy because Manto had a poor record, unlike the three sons from his first wife. Manto failed twice in the school leaving examinations, and cleared only on the third attempt. Among the subjects he failed was Urdu. He wrote about the common man, those on the fringe, so his language had to be colloquial. Attempts to study at Hindu Sabha College and Aligarh Muslim University failed, but he did get to interact with other writers. Back in Amritsar, he was taken under the wing by a learned man, Abdul Bari Alig, who introduced him to European literature, and coaxed him to translate Hugo, followed by the likes of Chekhov, Gorky and Oscar Wilde. The massacre of Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar inspired Manto to write his first story “Tamasha”. Except for a two-year stint with All India Radio in Delhi, Manto lived in Bombay till January 1948. It was there that he made friends and experienced poverty. Occasionally he made money from writing film scripts, which he shared with some of his needy friends. Manto left India in 1947 because of a deep sense of loss and insecurity, not out of choice. He has since made a comeback to India via translations, mostly in English. Aficionados of Urdu lament that the language he wrote is no longer courted with reverence it once enjoyed. Yet, this may not have worried Manto, who said: “A language is not made, it makes itself.... And no amount of human effort can kill a language.” Disillusioned and lonely in a strange land, he sought solace in alcohol, and did not live long. Manto’s three daughters are planning a new theatrical adaptation of his work, says Ayesha Jalal. She has written a thesis on how Pakistan turned the Urdu writer into an alcoholic. According to filmmaker Shama Zaidi, Manto could never get over Bombay. Few could have put the madness of Partition in a better perspective than Manto did in “Toba Tek Singh”, his most celebrated work, set in a lunatic asylum.
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THE possibility of acts of indiscipline or violence is directly proportional to stress levels. To prevent such incidents, stress has to be mitigated through training, proactive measures, counselling and ensuring that jawans are treated well, and their requirements reasonably met. Suicide, fratricide and desertion are also a fallout of
stress.
