Zero to Nero: King Singh's silent fiddle

Till I realized that Manmohan Singh is the 13th Prime Minister of India, I had not believed that 13 is a number of misfortune.

If you ever thought that to serve for 10 years as the Prime Minister of the largest democracy in the world, one would require enormous political acumen, dynamism, courage of commitment and shrewd skills of governance, you have now seen a man of irritating silence belie your beliefs.  He did not speak a word that you would quote, did not do a thing that you would appreciate and did not change a thing that you would remember.  It is often said that India contributed the digit 'zero' to the world of science and civilization.  Now, here is a man who contributed 'zero' to the national life.  He occupied an unforgettable time space in the history of this country but is not leaving behind anything unforgettable.  Oh... perhaps that is his unforgettable contribution - the zero.

You have been lucky - we are an extraordinarily patient and forgiving people, Mr. Manmohan Singh.  You sat fat over the burgeoning commodity prices in the country - chalo, maaf kar diya.  You brought us down from being a growing global economic giant to a fumbling trade dwarf - chalo, maaf kar diya.  You made corruption the most popular occupation of the country - chalo maaf kar diya.  You broke the largest democratic anti-corruption movement by just your stoic silence and inaction - chalo maaf kar diya.  And you stole 10 years of my children's life by driving our national lives into insignificance - chalo maaf kar diya.

But what this nation cannot forgive is your becoming a Nero from being Zero and fiddling with silence when our borders are burning the pyres of our soldiers.  The enemy enters our national space and shoots down our sons who guard the country - and you don't speak a word!  The enemy has roasted the valleys of our frontier states, routinely trespassed into our soils, beheaded and thrown the bodies of our men for the vultures to eat and made a mockery of a nation of over a billion people.  Do you still want play the fiddle of silence and your facial melancholy?  

Any other nation would have waged a war by now on the enemy to protect itself.  Any other Head of State would have spoken like the true son of the soil to unify his country and focus his politics towards defending the motherland.  It is a pity that in a country where a train accident would demand of the rail minister to resign and a crime in the city would demand of the chief of law and order to step down, an attack on the nation and killing of its soldiers routinely and repeatedly would not demand of its Prime Minister to even speak a word of courage.

Mr. Prime Minister, fiddle as you may when your home is on fire.  You will soon be overcome and forgotten. 

VK Saxena

President,

National Council For Civil Liberties,

Ahmedabad

Soldiers: Suicide and fragging

It is important to distinguish 'difficult' from 'un-natural' while characterizing the circumstances in which these so called suicide and fragging incidents occurs. Most of these cases occur in places like permanently frozen Siachen, terrorist infested Kashmir, highly remote north east or in circumstances of gross ignorance towards basic humanitarian issues.  Many times, a combination of above reasons accumulate and result in such events. The armed forces have always said that they are short of over 20,000 officers and 75,000 lower ranking personnel. 

 It now appears that joining the armed forces is the last option to our young people when nothing else is available. Therefore, it is important that we carefully address these aberrations as human issues rather than service conditions and bring about radical improvements in the circumstances that abet such heinous incidents. 

The pent up pressures of work and circumstantial stress of unnatural postings are such that even Alexander the Great in his exalted position of emperor-ship, committed human violence on his own colleagues at times. Fragging  is the natural recourse of every  oppression.

Providing the pleasure of families, even in their remote postings, is easily possible today and we ought to believe that it will only increase the confidence and the sense of purpose in them rather than distracting their focus and attention. There is a need to rationalize the service conditions and humanize the armed forces. 

It is high time that India thought of these things in a purposeful manner by involving civilian wisdom to mitigate the problems that have haunted our Armed forces.  After all, accepting to die in the war field is only a way of expressing that the soldier wants to live, be employed and provide happiness to himself and his family.   He is there in the battle field not for the glory of sacrifice but with the responsibility of taking care of his dearest ones who are left behind.  It is not a personal mission, but a profession that allows him to earn bread for those at home.  Complete segregation, imposition of torturous life and hammering down a philosophy of sacrifice are all the devices adopted by outfits that breed and bring up terrorists.   We should recognize this factor while dealing with the soldiers.

V.K.Saxena
President
National Council For Civil Liberties
Ahmedabad.