If anyone says that a particular religious group does not spawn terrorists, he is entirely wrong. We only have to look at our internal insurgencies in India to understand that people mostly rebel for identity and human needs, not only ideologies. The Army has had only one simple principle in dealing with these rebellions — neutralise those that carry a weapon, but adopt a human-centric approach towards the broader community. Religion and politics never intruded into our thoughts or actions, and
lt Gen DS Hooda (retd)
Former Northern Army Commander
The scenes that played out in Delhi last month were nothing short of horrific. Violent mobs were rampaging the streets and bludgeoning individuals with rods, blindly firing country-made weapons, hurling petrol bombs and seeking proof of religious identity from those caught in their path. Irrespective of who or what engineered this, and whatever spin we put on to describe it, the fact is that this was a deadly communal riot in which our basest human instincts were on display.
Our country has achieved wonders in progressing towards international recognition of India’s rightful place in global affairs, but we have not yet been able to deal with our internal demons. Following the Delhi violence, there was a flurry of political leaders blaming each other, the police shying away from accepting what appeared to be a complete abdication of their responsibility, and as usual, some ‘nation-first’ narratives from sections of the media to obfuscate the seriousness of the issue.
As an Army officer who put on the uniform as a young 16-year-old cadet at the National Defence Academy, and removed it at the age of 60, Delhi was a most saddening sight. Someone could ask that military officers should not shudder from violence because it is almost a daily fare of their lives. The answer to the question is simple — while we are used to seeing violence, we are not immune to it. We fully know the hurt that comes with losing a comrade, and the lifelong pain that a family endures when a husband, father, son or daughter is suddenly lost.
These days, it has become fashionable to invoke the Army as a symbol of national pride. This is a badge that the Army wears proudly, but some of those who sloganeer in the name of the Army must also learn from its institutional values. Today, when questions are being raised about majoritarianism, secularism, constitutional values, and political ethos, there are two big lessons to be learned from the Army.
The first is that the Army has ensured the integrity of the country by genuinely putting nationhood above all else. Our fights were to protect the nation and had nothing to do with the opponent’s caste, creed, colour or religion. There are not many countries that have faced the kind of internal security challenges that India did after its independence. In dealing with these, the Army has fought Christian insurgents in Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur, Hindu Meitei groups in Manipur, Sikhs in Punjab, Islamist terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, and disparate ethnic groups in Assam and Tripura.
If anyone says that a particular religious group does not spawn terrorists, he is entirely wrong. We only have to look at our internal insurgencies in India to understand that people mostly rebel for identity and human needs, not only ideologies. The Army has had only one simple principle in dealing with these rebellions — neutralise those that carry a weapon but adopt a human-centric approach towards the broader community. Religion and politics never intruded into our thoughts or actions, and that is the primary reason that we succeeded in controlling our insurgencies. And we followed the same principle while dealing with communal riots.
I was the second-in-command of my unit that was located at Roorkee in December 1992 when the Babri Masjid was demolished. As riots broke out all over the country, I received orders at night to move with two companies to Saharanpur. We reached in the wee hours and were immediately requested by the District Magistrate to proceed with the Army columns to the worst-affected areas.
I did not ask, and neither was I told, whether these areas were Hindu or Muslim-dominated. They were burning, and control had to be imposed. The horrifying scenes we saw as we entered those streets are seared in my memory. Fortunately, the presence of the Army helped calm the overall situation. Unfortunately, the Delhi Police did not inspire the same confidence during the recent riots.
The second lesson is that the Army’s success has primarily been due to the secular ethos that it has always practised. I know that the word ‘secular’ has become somewhat controversial these days, but for us in uniform, secularism has been a matter of faith in its most basic sense. And in its very basic sense, it means that despite your individual beliefs and different methods of prayer, we are all brothers in arms, and we will all live or die together.
The Rajputs, Jats, Madrasis, Muslims, Sikhs, Nagas, Kashmiris, Dogras, Meiteis, Assamese, and all Indian soldiers from across the breadth of this country have played an invaluable role in protecting and securing this country. The Indian Army welded this disparate group together only through an ethos that promoted values like courage, honour, sacrifice and brotherhood, as being more important than what you eat or the colour of the scarf that you wear.
Today, it is becoming difficult to understand how the social construct of our country should be defined. We look to our political leadership to show us the path, but they have not been the best of emissaries — both those in power and those outside it. There has also been a weakening of other institutions that were traditionally a check on political majoritarianism.
The Army is only a microcosm of the Indian nation, but perhaps in its institutional values lie some answers in going forward. Lieutenant-General SK Sinha, in the Field Marshal KM Cariappa Memorial Lecture in 1996, had said, ‘Let us hope that the future generations of our countrymen looking back to our times say that when things were going bad in the country, the Army, by setting an example to the nation, helped it recover from a morass in which it had got stuck.’ A quarter-century later, these words ring true.
