From the archive, 1998

WHAT IS `IT'?

Published on Infantry Day in a Statesman Supplement
 

 `Do  you have it in you? '- By now you may be familiar with  this

line from our ad campaign.  You may have wondered as to what `IT'
is.   Indeed,  so have I, even though I don  the  uniform,  which
presumably means that I was found to have IT in me when selected.  
While  you may have arrived at your own answers, I have  come  up
with  a somewhat unique one.  And that is that IT  is  actually
`nothing special'.
In  other  words  you  have to be merely  `you'  -  an  ordinary,
upright,  straight talking, right thinking Indian youth.   So  if
you  are just another callow boy-next-door, you do have  IT  in
you.
Thats how we all started out.  Quite like you, looking for a  job
to enable `roti, kapda aur makan' for ourselves and our families. 
It was `nothing special' that got us a life time in the army.  I,
for  one,  landed in the Infantry.  With the  perspective  of  an
Infanteer,  I  can  say that even now the IT seems to  me  to  be
`nothing special'.  In that we remain honest, hard working,  god-
fearing citizens-not unlike you.
The point is that IT is not something thats within us as  indi­
viduals.   IT  is in us as a collectivity, as  essense  of  the
outfit  we belong to.  IT is the belief that we belong  to  the
best damn company of the best bloody battalion in the devil's own
army.
This is IT. 

This is what makes the Infantry tick.  This is  what
has  kept Siachen with us, won us the 'proxy war' in Kashmir  and
helps us reach out to our people in the North East.  This is what
has  made  Badgam, Rezang La and Haji Pir epics in  heroism;  and
Bana  Singh, Shaitan Singh and Abdul Hamid legends of  our  time. 
As  to how we get IT is the magic of life in the  Infantry.   Our
platoon  is  our family, the company our joint  family,  and  the
battalion  our clan.  Our home is the barrack.  We fight and  die
for our buddies.
Our leaders strive to ratify their appointments in the hearts  of
their  men.   Their credo is `Service before Self' and  `Self  is
last always and every time'.  In keeping up the traditions,  they
lead from the front.  Clearly, they have IT in them - for  many
of them die too young.
You  may smile at this - call us `old fashioned', if you  will  -
but,  we do believe in `dharma, izzat, namak, naam  aur  nishan'. 
We believe we are the inheritors of the martial virtues of Arjun, 
Shivaji and Tipu.  We believe we are defenders of a five  millen­
nia  old civilisation, and of a five decade young   modern,  pro­
gressive, democratic state.  We believe you value and honour  our
contribution of sweat and blood.  All this is what puts IT in us,
ready to `give our today for your tomorrow'.
Theoreticians call this primary group bonding, verticle  integra­
tion,  spiritual factors and societal support.  But  such  jargon
and modern management practices do not detain us long, for essen­
tially  we are men of action steeped  in  generation-transcending
tradition.
But by no means are we primitive, obsolete.  Lately , the techni­
cal  advance  in weaponry and equipment, and the  `revolution  in
military affairs' has transformed the battlefield.  There are now
no  front lines and no visible enemy on the conventional  battle­
field.  In the jungles and bylanes in militant infested areas its
a  similar  case, made complicated by the  presense  of  innocent
people in the vicinity.  You know we've mastered the latter, and,
we  assure  you, its our endeavour to remain the `queen'  of  the
former.
Theres one other thing that makes us the way we are.  It is  that
we  feel we are doing a very important job of work for  you,  our
people.  We are out there stopping bullets so that you may go  to
your office, laboratories, factories and fields, so that you  may
make India great.
 

Forgive me for being so bold as  to ask of you a favour. You see,
we too are human. Sometimes it seems to us that our  contribution
is  overlooked by some of you in your haste to move on.  Some  of
the  well-intentioned  and public-spirited among you  also  speak
harshly  of us as we go about our difficult task. This  hurts  us
some.  I  ask, for the sake of my colleagues who departed  for  a
heavenly abode from faraway places as Siachen and Sri Lanka, that
when you pass by our memorials, spare them a prayer, and when you
pass by us, spare us a smile. That shall ensure that IT is  fore­
ver within us - put there, in part, by you.