Is using Indian Army for Sri Sri's private party Modi's idea of national security?
The pictures of our brave soldiers being made to labour to organise a private extravaganza being held by a godman close to the ruling party has caused a lot of unrest across the board. The news has spread like wildfire and created an intense debate about the possible misuse of Indian Army.
A government which wears nationalism on its sleeve, finds itself in the dock over the apparent casual and shoddy manner in which the Army has been forced to do a job which, for all logical reasons, should have been done by private contractors. The more one dwells on the morality and implications of the decision, the more disturbed one feels.
It is important that we all understand what is so wrong about this misadventure of the Modi government as the decision can have far-reaching implications if no urgent rectification is made. Here's why the use of the armed forces for a private function by a godman is wrong at multiple levels.
Disrespecting our soldiers
Our soldiers are not private labour to be hired to get jobs done for whosoever wishes them to be completed speedily. When they undertake such roles in times of emergency, it is only out of a sense of service to the nation that they do the job in the strictest sense of the word. To prey upon this sense of service of our soldiers and coerce them to work for a private function under normal circumstances is the worst possible insult to our brave soldiers.
It is sickening to imagine that the soldier, who gets into the Army, ready to even part with his life for the sake of nation, is made to labour for private parties. The soldier is not a servant to be employed with money - he serves the nation and nobody else. But when the soldier is misused in such a manner, the pride and confidence can suffer significantly. If Modi government can't accord the soldiers their due rights like OROP, the least it can do is to not humiliate them by making turning them labourers for private affairs.
Blow to our national security
We constantly lament that our Army is not war-ready, that there is shortage of soldiers, and that they don't have the requisite training, our soldiers are overworked, et al. In such a scenario, to divert our soldiers from their core duty of protecting the nation and training them to be better equipped to secure our borders, only to deploy them to organise private extravaganza is the most crude joke on our national security.
The incident amounts to institutionalising the misuse of our precious security resources. When it's done in such a highly publicised event under the full glare of the nation, with the concurrence of the top political brass, it sends out a message even to the grassroots that our soldiers can be misused for private functions.
And when the top brass is doing it with face can they expect their subordinates to be any different? Thus such high-profile misuse of soldiers will worsen our national security by promoting an institutional culture of diverting soldiers from their responsibilities. Any nation cannot sit back and silently watch as its national security imperiled in such a casual manner for private benefit.
Politicising the Army
The problem with use of the Army for organising a private event of the scale only worsens when the nature of the event and the background of the organiser are taken into account. The organiser, Sri Sri Ravisankar, is known for his proximity to the NDA and had made no secret of his support for Modi' PM candidature.
The government would not have pressed the Army into Sri Sri's service if he had no political connection with them or worse if he was a spiritual leader supporting the governments' opponents. So clearly, this favour of deploying the Army is a political quid pro quo. This is what makes it specially disturbing as it gets into the dangerous territory of converting our Army into a political tool.
One of the biggest achievements of modern India has been that our Army has remained insulated from politics. Governments across the spectrum have refrained from using the Army as a political tool. But when Army is used to organise events of personalities with explicit political bias, the famed political neutrality of our Army is threatened.
Against secularism
At the end of the day, Sri Sri is a Hindu spiritual leader. Deploying a state resource in the service of a leader of a sect is flagrant violation of secularism. Why should the Army, which runs on taxpayers' money, including crores from non-Hindus and athiests, be forced to work for organising events of a leader of a sect? Doesn't it create a sense of discrimination among other religious sects? Does it not demean our Army's core value of being an institution serving all Indians and use it to serve only particular sects?
Concerns about environment
The whole extravaganza is being organised on the flood bank of river Yamuna. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had specifically prohibited the organisation of any event in this ecologically vulnerable and vital area. But the heft that allowed Sri Sri to force the Army to work for him also allowed him to get permission from the Modi government-controlled DDA. This has raised the concerns of environmentalists across the nation, with even President Mukherjee reportedly going back on his committed presence in the event.
In such a scenario, to deploy the Army for organising an event whose environmental impact is causing widespread concerns also shows our forces in bad light with regard to their otherwise notable commitment to the environment. A nation serious about its duties to the environment shouldn't be involving iconic institutions like the Army in exercises whose environmental impact is worrying.
The use of the Army for the private event of a political spiritual figure with environmental concerns is inexplicable and deplorable at more than one level. We, as a nation, must ensure that this misstep of the government does not escape its due scrutiny.
The cost of our failure to hold the government accountable for this seemingly innocuous folly is too profound and dangerous.