1971: A Forgotten Story

http://www.indian-express.com/ie20020106/cent2.html

Sunday, January 06, 2002





O what a lovely war!



ALTHOUGH war may not have actually broken out, there is plenty of action in evidence thanks to the rapid fire performances of our special battalions armed to the teeth — quite literally so — as they display their amazing military capabilities through words, words and more words.

The buff-coats who make up these squads may not have been put through the paces at Khadakvasla and Dehra Dun, neither do they sport epaulettes and uniforms, but that does not deter them in the least from being both bark- and battle-ready.

So let’s do a quick review of our brave men-out-of-uniform who never hesitate, even for a teeny-tiny moment, to get others to lay down their lives for the country.

The first, in my personal roll of honour, is our very dependable squad of NRIs or Non Resident Incendiaries, trained in the intricate weaponry of cyber-rattling. In rather well-feathered fox-holes some 10,000 km northwest of the Poonch sector (as the Boeing 747 flies), they keep a gimlet eye on the enemy and generally prepare themselves to wage relentless battle through their Compaq Pentium-4 missile delivery systems, especially designed to shoot e-mails across the world with the speed of light.

‘‘National honour demands that we teach the ENEMY a lesson it will never forget. So BOMB the bases,’’ they fire away on their laptops, ‘‘If we have to pay the ULTIMATE PRICE and engage in NUCLEAR WARFARE, so be it.’’ Such urgent instructions to countrymen and women left behind in Bharat Mata are inevitably followed by the injunction in bold lettering ‘‘LET US NOT BE COWARDS’’.

Good, soul-stirring stuff, just the thing we need here as we go about our little lives. The only problem though is that when our Non Resident Incendiaries speak of ‘‘our country’’ and ‘‘our national honour’’, one is never quite sure which country they really mean, seeing that most of them have long swapped the Tricolour for the Star Spangled Banner.

Then there is the other courageous lot who brave television lights, and selflessly give of their time and energy, night after night, screaming for the enemy’s blood. Although none of them has seen real action, they usually have an excellent war record, never hesitating for a moment to despatch the army to storm enemy lines the moment the cameras roll. I call them the Prime Time Platoon and their secret weapon is a glass of warm saline solution with which to gargle for 60 seconds once the night’s exertions are over, in order to keep the old vocal chords fitting fit for the next encounter in the studios.

The Bathetic Battalion come marching next. Don’t be fooled by the fact that this lot are mostly poets, or rather versifiers, whose verse seems to get worse and worse by the day so that one is tempted to term them ‘‘worseifiers’’. Yet they can, when the mood takes them and the desire to catch the eye of Poet-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee overwhelms them, stiffen up the sinews, summon up the blood and produce quite a blast. Secretly, they all imagine that they are Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and produce poetry to match.

So one among them says, ‘‘Padosi to naag hai’’ (our neighbour is a snake) and the rest exclaim, ‘‘Wah, wah’’ in appreciation. Which encourages the man to burst out, ‘‘Padosi to naag hia, ise chandan na chadao tum...’’(our neighbour is a snake, let us not offer him sandal wood). Read such verse aloud on a cold wintry night to the enemy lines with the aid of foghorns, and the sheer velocity of its mediocrity is guaranteed to frighten them into abject surrender.

Which brings us to our elite corps, the Trishul Troops, who simply love a war, any war, even a nuclear one, as long as it wins them Uttar Pradesh — on the presumption perhaps that if Ram doesn’t work, Radioactivity might.

You may have noticed something rather curious about this entire lot who measure patriotism by the number of shells despatched across the border. They are either old codgers who have no stake in the future, or young codgers with great lateral mobility who are unlikely to be hit by a loose nuke. But that is precisely what makes them so keen on war.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002010801050100.htm

Mosque gate burnt

JAIPUR, JAN. 7. A wooden gate of a mosque was today burnt by miscreants, setting off communal tension in a village in Rajasthan`s Sikar district, the State`s top police official said. Some unidentified persons threw a burning sack at the gate of the mosque damaging it, Shantanu Kumar, Director General of Rajasthan Police, told PTI here.

Razor-sharp investigation and research Farzana. This is what journalists are made of, one of your best pieces!

Your straight-forward reporting and emotional inquiries gave the document a very ``complete`` feeling. You had me praying for the families, as soon as I finished reading.

I`ve been meaning to say this for a long time, so let me take the opportunity, before I leave on my upcoming vacation:

Don`t explain yourself to every tom, dick and harry who likes to bust your chops just for the heck of it. You are a Muslim, a loyal Indian, an intelligent woman and a thinking individual, the composition is too much for too many. I think it`s wonderful that you interact with everyone on a personal level, but guess what? Not everyone deserves it.

You my dear, are far too busy for bozos who have no life and get entertainment out of bugging minds intellectually superior to them. There are only a few reasons in my opinion, why they do this:

a) You Always answer them.

b) They are simply jealous, for not being articulate and popular enough to voice their views.

c) Most are men, who are pictures of the above-mentioned reason, i.e jealous, but are also intimidated by a woman who can speak her mind with such conviction. They can`t handle it.

So dear sistuh, don`t humor them all, they certainly ain`t worth your time. :) Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

Kiran

urstruly:

Thank you. This is just wonderful. No wonder I call you my friend.

sadna:

Yes, it is possible to get a million signatures, but that might not make an impact. But I am willing to give it a try.

Soldiers are cheap. Officers are not. See how many soldiers died unloading & laying landmines in the last week? It merited no questions, no inquiries and certainly no screaming front-page headlines. (The suckers probably had to transfer the mines into a basket and carry that on their heads. Billion-dollar bullock-cart technology.) They are useful to the extent that the defence higher-ups can make $2000 per coffin. More money in their pockets, the more soldiers dead. The cannon fodder were sent up the cold mountain peaks to fight an entrenched & well-prepared force with poor rations, inadequate clothing and poor equipment. It`s like the old red army that relied on numbers.

A relevant article Farzana - so while the usual bunch of idiots will be all over you - questioning your patriotism, religious leaning and maybe some gender bashing - I hope you will keep raising these issues.

``The country stands silent. Not one political party has included the return of our POWs in its manifesto. Why? ``

The reason is simple - we do not value the lives of our soldiers, oh sure they provide a good photo-op for some politician or any number of ``VIPs`` that we have, but the respect is not there (nor the vote-bank). Just ask the families of the departed soldiers how much running around they have to do to get their dues - all those ex-gratia amounts declared by the minister and those sanctioned Petrol Pumps. The humiliation they have to bear, the palms they have to grease - all because a brave man put his country before his family.

The credo for the cadets at IMA is “The safety, honour and welfare of your country comes first, always and every time; The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next; Your own ease comfort and safety come last, always and every time.” - can you ever think of a politician ascribing to this?

But let us not only blame the politicians, its our apathy that is to blame too, we just don`t care a damn - lets just glorify the soldier and restrict ourselves to lip sympathy.

-

Subroto

Razor-sharp investigation and research Farzana. This is what journalists are made of, one of your best pieces!

Your straight-forward reporting and emotional inquiries gave the document a very ``complete`` feeling. You had me praying for the families, as soon as I finished reading.

I`ve been meaning to say this for a long time, so let me take the opportunity, before I leave on my upcoming vacation:

Don`t explain yourself to every tom, dick and harry who likes to bust your chops just for the heck of it. You are a Muslim, a loyal Indian, an intelligent woman and a thinking individual, the composition is too much for too many. I think it`s wonderful that you interact with everyone on a personal level, but guess what? Not everyone deserves it.

You my dear, are far too busy for bozos who have no life and get entertainment out of bugging minds intellectually superior to them. There are only a few reasons in my opinion, why they do this:

a) You Always answer them.

b) They are simply jealous, for not being articulate and popular enough to voice their views.

c) Most are men, who are pictures of the above-mentioned reason, i.e jealous, but are also intimidated by a woman who can speak her mind with such conviction. They can`t handle it.

So dear sistuh, don`t humor them all, they certainly ain`t worth your time. :) Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

Kiran

Anaryan: Its always best to divorce what is said from who iz saying it... Ive suspended self from that religion nonsense for a few months...

And the wordz were intended to explode on contact.

soysauce #58 ``soldiers are cheap...See how many soldiers died unloading & laying landmines in the last week? It merited no questions, no inquiries and certainly no screaming front-page headlines. `` You could add the thousands of families on both sides of the border who have had to leave their villages for fear of war.

The real victims in the sub-continent are not Kashmiris, not Muslims, not Hindus, not Sikhs, (as some people on chowk like to say, depending on the community they were born in) but the POOR. And the real rascals are those who detract from the poor by ranting about the poor Kashmiris, or the poor refugees of 1947, and so on. Some of these rascals you will find on chowk too, but none of the poor (who do not have access to the internet).

Ah, Sir-T appears...on his trusty steed tragic-colt!

A crptic scribble and he`s gone...chowk readers stare in awe...what coolness...the king of cool!

Here`s the translation of his scribble:

``Keep up good work. Dawood Bhai happy you project correct light on his case. Nice comparison...Bhai and POWs...laughed whole wkend. Check bank next week for small gift. Hosts in karachi happy. Excellent dig at bagpipe and BJP at mid-article. Excellent in-depth coverage of what happens to captured hindians...should dampen war-drum-beating a mite we expect. Plagiarized article content...our secret...hee hee``.

dost-mittar,

``However, please don`t mix this issue with the Dawood case. That case, too, is important because it deals with criminal justice. And in his case, Pakistan has been virtually caught with its hands in the ``cooky jar``.

Dost-ji, aapkay chashmay ka number hamaray chashmay say milta-julta hoga!

regards,

Farzana # 31

[``PS: This business about proving my nationalistic credentials to my Hindu compatriots was quite unnecessary``]

Nahi ji. Read below:

Reply # 32 anarayan

[``But knowing Farzana through her articles.... She is the TNT child who got left behind.``]

Hindus won`t let you and other Indian Muslims forget your ``auqaat``; so I hope you wont get carried away by the secular republic/Sharrukh Khan/Azeem Premji bullcrap.

[``Today is my lucky day. Tell me what I can do. I will. In my small way.``]

I gave you a list of PAF officers missing since `71. These were honorable men in uniform, unlike the Indians that you are fussing over who were caught fighting as merceneries with the Mukti Bahini terrorists. Maybe a call to Indian Ministry of Defence would be a good start?

Farzana # 31

[``PS: This business about proving my nationalistic credentials to my Hindu compatriots was quite unnecessary``]

Nahi ji. Read below:

Reply # 32 anarayan

[``But knowing Farzana through her articles.... She is the TNT child who got left behind.``]

Hindus won`t let you and other Indian Muslims forget your ``auqaat``; so I hope you wont get carried away by the secular republic/Sharrukh Khan/Azeem Premji bullcrap.

[``Today is my lucky day. Tell me what I can do. I will. In my small way.``]

I gave you a list of PAF officers missing since `71. These were honorable men in uniform, unlike the Indians that you are fussing over who were caught fighting as merceneries with the Mukti Bahini terrorists. Maybe a call to Indian Ministry of Defence would be a good start?

Reply Ali1 #66

Now, if only Temporal would write a complementary article:

1998, Kargil - The Collective Amnesia.

Can we get our soldiers` bodies please?

.......

Does not the appeal, “Join the army” sound like a slap to the parents, since their sons were sent to certain death ...in civilian clothes...their carcasses thrown into makeshift ditches...and there they lie...their very mention forbidden.

Did they exist?



Does any pakistani here have the one-ounce of $hit to write this article?

Nope, nary a one.

What allround advice and tongue-clicking though!

Array Trojan-Revolver,

Where are you my friend ? What happened...no reply, no witty repartee ?

Ran out of bullets maybe ? Rotate your cylinder (while holding the butt steady) and check.

For keeping the butt shiny and smooth...as always, call Ali1.

best regards,