Before I open up with my views on this highly controversial topic, I must tell you that I grappled with the thought of writing this article for the last 24 hours. My intention here is not to indulge in any jingoism or chest thumping. I am torn apart with this topic and it my intention here to just vent out my thoughts and ask the readers to really think about how we can play our part in shaking up the annals of the government wherein the last gasp of a soldier’s breath is not terrifying enough.
The picture above is of BSF Constable Sanjay Dhar from the 192 Battalion who was martyred on July 16th in the Arnia subsector along the India-Pakistan border in Jammu & Kashmir. Reports state that this is the second ceasefire violation since in this week and the third in July by Pakistan. It should also be noted that Late Constable Dhar, four BSF jawans and four civilians were also injured in the firing across the borderand . According to the BSF website this is is the 2ndBSF casualty at the border this year. (Surprisingly the BSF website is yet to update the martyr list or offer condolences on its website to their fallen comrade while UP BJP has –that is just a minor observation) Do you know how the brave men and women of our armed forces are taken to their final resting place? What is the protocol for bidding a final goodbye to those that lay down their lives protecting our nation’s border? I visited the BSF website and the Indian Army to find out the procedure for paying the last respects to Constable Dhar but I was unable to find anything specific. After a lot of effort I finally chanced upon this link which lays out the procedure for a military funeral in this land we call India. (This link was found by Google eventhough the webpage is hosted on the Indian Army website.) During the search I came across a lot of articles, posts, videos that were heart breaking if not gut wrenching. Statistics like 3,987 soldiers had been killed in action from the end of the Kargil conflict in 1999 upto 2012, over 100 soldiers commit suicide each year. In comparison, USA which is actually fighting a war in the hostile territories of Iraq and Afghanistan had lost 6,802 soldiers. The intention here isn’t to talk about how much better the kill ratio is for the US troops but it is definitely to talk about the value the American public has placed on the people that die fighting for their country outside their view and on foreign lands and how little we place on our own soldiers that are actually dying protecting our own borders and our right to lead a life of freedom. Why isn’t the media getting angry about the slaying of Indian soldiers including brutal mutilations (beheadings, castrations, etc)? Why hasn’t the PM or the Defense Minister made a statement to the nation about the destruction of yet another Indian family (does the media even care about the devastated family that Constable Dhar’s untimely death has left behind?) I find it truly disgusting that we have taken the price of an Indian soldier’s life as being worth nothing at all, there is no statement from the MLA or MP of Constable Dhar’s constituency about taking up the case of Constable Dhar to Defence Minister Arun Jaitley’s office. So is Constable Dhar going to be cremated and forgotten in the ever burgeoning scrapbook of soldiers that are Killed-In-Action? It is my fervent request that each person that reads this post.
- Send a letter to their local MP to take up the case of this slaying in their sphere of influences
- Ask the Pakistani government to apologise for this death and if they cannot
- Then order the ARMY to STOP THIS FLAG MEETING BULLSHIT.
If the Pakistani army cannot stop firing across the LoC, we have no reason to keep talking to them. THIS IDIOPLAMACY OF MEETING THE ENEMY THAT IS ACTIVELY MARTYRING OUR INDIAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS IS ABSOLUTE RUBBISH. It is a well known fact that Indian soldiers protected 93,000 Pakistani soldiers at the end of the 1971 war from being butchered in Bangladesh by the seething public that was seeking revenge for the atrocities that were meted out to them by the Pakistani soldiers. But now that same country is actively supporting militancy in our country, killing our soldiers and we are more concerned about playing cricket with them? We are meeting with them over flag meetings and “asking” them to stop killing our soldiers? I still salute and stand behind the PM Vajpayee’s decision to send the troops to the Indo-Pak border and sending then (and current) Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif to face the real fear of war with the 3rd largest army in the world and twice the size of Pakistan’s army.The Pakistani PM at that time realized that messing with the Indian elephant will lead to total destruction. However the last 10 years of “idioplamacy” (idiot diplomacy) is a demotivation for our troops and such daily deaths still cannot be taken lightly and forgotten. But this voice cannot reach the Parliament until each one of us does our bit in contacting our MP and asking them to raise their voice against the horrifying statistic of one Indian soldier’s family wailing for the loss of their brave soul – DAILY. I am going to write to my MP on Monday… I want to suggest that you do the same by finding out the address and writing a letter requesting them to bring this up for discussion in the floor of the house and getting a reply in a timely manner. The contact details for our MP can be found here at www.NoCorruption.in. These men are putting their lives in danger each day, it is time we take out a few minutes of our time for them.
“The value of life can be measured by how many times your soul has been deeply stirred” – Soichiro Honda
