Last year, during a train journey, I happened to share an air-conditioned cabin with a Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology and his family. I was travelling with my four-year-old daughter, and he with his toddler, wife and mother. I was visiting my in-laws in Dehradun. Since there is no direct train from Bhuj, where my husband, an officer with the Indian Army, is posted, I had to take a train from Bhuj to Ahmadabad, then to Delhi and from there to Dehradun.
Travelling is a way of life for those in the forces, and their families. It is almost like a natural instinct. And thus, when the professor shared his travails relating his recent move from IIT Chennai to IIT Delhi, I couldn’t help bursting out in a giggle. To prove his point further, he listed out the grey areas – finding a good school, maids, meeting the travel expenses, and so on. And then I shared my fauji way of life with him.
“Really? How do you manage to move once every two years?” he stared at me in disbelief.
Then with a little hesitation, he asked me, “Is the government taking care of you well? I mean, why Army? You guys are well-qualified. Why not join a corporate job, they pay you good and the perks are awesome.”
My smile broadened, I knew what Army gives. No one can understand that, it’s a feeling deep in your gut.
There was a long silence after that. Was he thanking god for his comfortable life, or something deep was stirred in my heart?
Today, the words of that professor mock me in the face: is the government taking care of us enough?
The Indian Army is an organisation that functions as an organism. Every part, every organ, has a vital and indispensable role to play. Not only our men and women wear the uniform, but the complete family – children, wife/husband and even parents— wear a tint of the olive green. When the officers are deployed in far-flung areas, it is the faith in safety and security of a cantonment that makes them serve the nation without any worry back home. And this is the reason there are no cases of rape or armed robbery in Army cantonments. There might be cases of theft, but no violent crime.
In 2016, when the Pathankot attack happened, we were posted in the vicinity. That was when I realised first-hand how vulnerable the families of the faujisare. There was a random ‘intel’ alert in the middle of the night, and the men changed into combat uniforms in a few seconds. We, families, knew our drill. Lock the doors, switch off the lights. We ate bread with cold milk. As news came about the ongoing encounter, we counted the number of latches that were missing in the doors, the thin plywood doors that needed just a casual kick to be opened. Mothers taught kids to crawl under the bed or climb in the under-roof, some packed chilli-powder in tiny packets.
Unlike ‘normal’ mothers we have an additional fear for the safety of our children when they board Army school buses. Experience has taught us that the cowards will not spare even our children.
The narration will not be complete without a mention of Army accommodations. As is common knowledge, Army wives are very creative and artistic. Most of the accommodation we get are in a bad shape. Sometimes the wall is rotting from seepage, or the doors are damaged, or the ceiling is dangerously cracking up. We all know that in the two-year tenure, more than four to six months will be spent waiting for the accommodation and furthermore for the repair work. So the enterprising ladies paint the panels in beautiful colours or take away attention from the seepage by creating an indoor garden. Often I am asked if I don’t get fed up with the life of a nomad or with the rural postings. No, we are happy as long as we get to stay together.
But, is the government taking care of us well?
Recently, a Minister, commenting on theNavy’s demand for housing in a posh locality, remarked, ‘Why stay in South Mumbai, go patrol Pakistan (sic).’
Two points here. First, most of the so-called posh localities are ‘created’ by Army cantonments, and many businesses have thrived on that. Secondly, our men are already patrolling Pakistan, and the remaining ones are either rescuing flood victims or training for the big day. But what about their women, children? Do they also join them at the border? Where is their right to a good living, opportunities to good education, when their men are away? Today we talk about the human rights of everyone but a fauji. Even a stone-thrower has more rights than a brave officer who decides to give him the taste of his own medicine.
And that’s why the question pops up again: Is the government taking care of us well?
Yes, we get a subsidy in train and air travel, but it comes to nothing if you count the number of trains one has to change to reach a remote destination. It comes to nothing when we have to pack in the middle of the academic session. The places that are considered peace stations for us are ‘field’ for a civil bureaucrat. Even in a peace station, the workload for uniforms is the same, even more. Then why withdraw the rations of officers? It was the privilege, the ‘perk,’ they have earned for their service to the nation.
So, is the government actually taking care of us at all by opening the gates of the cantonment? Are we trying to say that in a peace station, a fauji and his family become vestigial to the system? Opening a road that connects two major civil areas is understandable, but what is the need to open roads that are internal. Have we forgotten the bitter memories of the past, or are we waiting for another Pathankot? In stations like Delhi there are so many women whose husbands are posted in the field areas. And while their men fight the enemies outside, who will guard them from the ‘risks’ inside. Like the VIP roads in Lutyens’ Delhi, the internal roads of a cantonment are also as important for security reasons. From the routine training and drills of our men, they have an integral part to play in our way of life, and in the nation’s as well.
As I said, the Indian Army works like an organism. And what it needs today is a strong and healthy heart. After all, the same Army has given the country legends such as K.S. Thimayya, K.M. Cariappa and Sam Manekshaw. And in those days nobody even cared whether the government was caring or not.
neovartika@yahoo.com
