By Major Devender Pal Singh
We stand by you, we stand by martyrs and their families. We must avenge the dastardly act.
And after few days, it’s back to business. In fact, this entire hullabaloo is also a business.
Be it political party, be it media houses or be it general public. None can understand the pain of losing life and limbs.
A soldier is prepared to lay his life smilingly for the sake of Tiranga, country and its izzat. But the question is, for how long? The question is, are we making some efforts, which will improve the overall system?
Today morning I was on Zee News and the respect they carry towards solider came out.
Sharing the incident….
On Zee New TV debate, I tried using logic over rhetoric.
TV anchor Aditi Tyagi commented: “Perhaps you have not seen the pics of Pulwama that is why you do not agree that only solution is revenge, Badla.”
I have grown above these things and it was not a shock for me that a lady who was hauling, ‘we are with you’, did not know that I was wounded in a war. For that matter while she introduced me, she was not even aware I held the rank of Major.
What I said to her in reply was:
“A soldier is still ready to sacrifice his life for Tiranga but alongside we need to ensure that Kashimiri youth is getting more motivated to become L/Nk (lance naik) Nazir Wani, double Sena Medal and Ashoka Chakra (a terrorist turned soldier and attained martyrdom) than the jihadi terrorist like Waqas commando. Efforts must be made in that area too. If a pagal padosi can enter my house and radicalise my youth and I am unable to guard them, perhaps somewhere I am wrong.
“40 families are destroyed and many more will if we do not look for solutions.
“Before you shout out revenge, please ask other families, parents, wives and kids, are they ready to see themselves without their hero soldier?
“Unless the next generation is positively motivated we won’t see any change and it will be a loop.
“Attack
“Avenge
“Their revenge
“Our revenge and on and on.”
It took me some effort to ensure good sense prevailed in her head and that happened when the whole panel spoke my language.
TV anchors, especially people like her, force words to your mouth and ensure you agree with them. And many gullible (in order not to lose opportunity to come on air again) keep just shouting and agreeing to nonsense.
No one can even try imagine what it takes to lose life or limb. And then knock doors of court to get justice and dues.
We want the soldier to die but his widow will knock doors to get pension and rightful dues (to some it needs to prove that her husband is martyr as the body couldn’t be found and she was told to get the body to take pension)
We want soldiers to die but wounded ones need to go to court to get correct pension (even I had fought for seven years in AFT to prove that I am a war casualty and get my correct pension).
There are thousands of cases pending in courts. Despite SC judgements and instructions to withdraw unnecessary cases, the ministry of defence (MoD) is the biggest litigant.
In my last meeting with RM madam (defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman) along with Maj Navdeep Singh and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, honorable MP, she promised to withdraw unnecessary appeals against disabled soldiers by January end… January ended and so her promises. Cases are still on.
We want soldier to die but his children education allowance will be withdrawn as it is heavy on government exchequer (there are in total 3,000 plus such cases only and total spending is just Rs.3 crore per year). It took some effort to cancel withdrawal and that was considered as a favor by RM on widows. (Irony is, she is also a woman but couldn’t understand the pain of widows at the first instance).
We all know recent HAL case.
We want the soldier to die but when it comes to save his buddies, we blame him and put case against him because he tied a stone pelter to jeep.
The list is endless.
Don’t make mockery of lives and kill soldiers.
Don’t use emotions for selfish business of earning brownie points.
Indian Army and CAPF know what to do and when to do. They had done in past and they will keep doing justice to the situation with appropriate action.
You do not have to tell us what to do, please. But after all they all have right of free speech.
And who cares… the soldier is easily dispensable.
Jai Hind.
(Major Singh wrote this piece on his Facebook timeline on February 15. A war hero, he lost a leg in Kargil War at the age of 25, but went on to run 20 marathons, a feat listed in Limca Book of Records)
The pic of Major Singh has been taken from his Facebook
