India doesn't respect soldiers, the martyr is a joke

“There are soldiers dying at the border”.

This phrase has been used copiously by the right-wing to berate the Left who supported anything that they deemed anti-national. This phrase has also been used by the left wing to mock the right wing for their “hyper-nationalism”.

Both these uses left me stunned to my core, because soldiers really are dying. We lost Major Satish Dahiya to the bullets of terrorists only five days ago. He was a real person. He was someone’s son and husband and brother and uncle. He had children. He went on holidays and took selfies and uploaded them on Facebook.

He probably tweeted about how bad the roads are or how his plane was delayed or he had bad service at a restaurant. Regular things that you and I do. That’s when he wasn’t in service to the nation. On duty, he picked up a gun and did what soldiers do, protect us from enemies, both foreign and within.

And in that process, he took bullets. And he died. Leaving behind a family that will forever grieve an unnatural and an untimely death. Along with him, were martyred patrolman Dharmendra Kumar, rifleman Ravi Kumar and grenadier Astosh Kumar.

My uncle, my father’s younger brother, went down with his MIG many, many years ago. His IAF crest from his blazer is framed. His face is framed. The letter that then Prime Minister wrote to our family is also framed. I never met flying officer Manjul Upadhyay.

But, he was a handsome, dapper and intelligent young man, as most IAF pilots are. He was all of 23. Gone in the prime of his life. He didn’t die in enemy action, but he died trying to take his MIG out of a densely populated area. But who knows about him or his supreme sacrifice besides my own family?

No one, and does anyone even care? He’s just another nameless, faceless soldier that’s dead. Even the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate, celebrates the immortal, but “unknown soldier”.

And that is the real problem.

There is no narrative built around our soldiers. On the day Major Dahiya fell to terrorist bullets, the front pages of every newspaper were about Sasikala and her arrest.

Just to put that in perspective, a corrupt, not even elected, hand-maiden of the chief minister of Tamil Nadu was going to jail, and that was the headline. A young, intelligent, supremely brave man had laid down his life to protect us, and that was the footnote.

F*****g amazing!

No one writes books about these soldiers. No one makes movies. No one writes poetry. No one erects their statues. No one talks about them. No one posts to their Facebook or tweets about them. There is just silence.

I post about my dog and that gets more likes than when I post about Major Dahiya. Think about that.

No one signs up for any Army anywhere in the world to die in a ditch riddled with bullets. But their bravery is that they know for a fact, that that could happen to them at any time. We don’t owe them “but soldiers are dying at the border” platitudes to push our brand of politics.

But we do owe them one thing, and that is remembering them, with honour, with respect and with our collective gratitude as a nation. And we can only do that if we immortalise their stories.

Platoon. Black Hawk Down. Thin Red Line. Apocalypse Now. Full Metal Jacket. Hurt Locker. The Bridge On The River Kwai. Letters From Iwo Jima. Patton. The Deer Hunter. The Great Escape. I could go on with this list of cinema that has been made to build a narrative of bravery and sacrifice around the American soldier.

We on the other hand celebrate a Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj but don’t have time for a Major Dahiya, who is equally valiant, equally brave and equally immortal. And more importantly, he keeps us safe. Today.

The Indian Armed Forces have a shortage of 52,000 personnel and 11,000 officers.

Also read: India is disgracing its martyrs with chest-thumping nationalism