https://m.thewire.in/article/film/ikkis-no-age-to-die

https://www.thecitizen.in/opinion/too-young-to-die-1238181

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/ikkis-no-age-to-die?r=i1fws

Ikkis: No age to die

Two very different army officers - a generation apart - performed acts of extreme courage for which each was recognized by a grateful nation with its highest gallantry award, Param Vir Chakra (PVC). A recent movie, Ikkis, recounts the life of one of the two, Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal, PVC (Posthumous). The other is Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey, PVC (Posthumous), with a story awaiting a screenplay. Both came up with the same answer to their respective combat predicaments – the ultimate in leadership.

While Manoj cleared enemy sangars off rocky heights of the Khalubar ridge in the Kargil sector; Arun joining battle in the Basantar bridgehead, knocked off enemy tanks wielding the still-functioning main gun of his tank, itself earlier disabled by a direct hit. The fierceness of the battles raging around them is clear from Kargil throwing up four PVC brave-hearts, including Vikram “Dil Mange More” Batra; and the Basantar sector, two - the other being the doughty grenadier, Hoshiar Singh.

The leadership puzzle

The intriguing part is though the two subalterns were superficially quite unlike each other, their courage suggests that deep down they were kindred souls. The dissimilarities in their background and personalities makes it difficult to catch what is the essence of such endeavour, something if captured could help the military inoculate all its junior leaders with.

Manoj, short and wiry, had his highpoint of his cadet days in striding up as team captain to collect the cross-country trophy – perhaps the most prestigious of academy trophies - at the National Defence Academy’s (NDA) famed glider dome. Not from a well-off family, he was likely irrepressibly unshod as a child. So, when the runners lined up for the start gun to go off, he would have his shoes on; but just after the start, he’d kick them off to run the rest of the rugged route - and win - barefoot.

Ikkis shows Arun similarly engaged in his last term. In the movie, he is depicted sounding a trumpet to gather his course-mates around him. He goes on to inspire them for a like collective effort, in his case, to move the squadron up from its long-held ranking at the bottom of the championship table. Over the term, they uncharacteristically top the table. He played a crucial role in the makeover, netting the drill competition – taken as the second most significant trophy since it has mass participation quite like cross-country - with the squadron marching to his word-of-command as squadron cadet captain (SCC).

Very alike in deed, yet the two were somewhat dissimilar in getup. While Manoj was the son of a small shopkeeper, Arun’s father was an army brigadier from the engineer corps. Manoj went to a sainik school, while Arun attended a public school. Arun was quite a swashbuckler – proficient at the saxophone and having a romantic interest at his elbow to boot. In contrast, Manoj was unassuming and - in a course-mate’s words - ‘happy-go-lucky, never hassled and always smiling.’ They were similar in one aspect: Arun was highly duty conscious and Manoj, focused.

Manoj had the advantage of having spent some time with his troops up at the highest battlefield, Siachen, prior to the outbreak of the Kargil War, allowing both – his Gorkhas and he - to get to understand each other deeply. In contrast, Arun, pitchforked into the 1971 War just six months out of the Indian Military Academy (IMA). He had to win the die-hard respect of his tank buddies doubly-quick.

Arun’s story

Ikkis shows Arun grow up the hard way, without the benefit of the combat-arm basic course. Finding the dates coincided with an upcoming war, tear-eyed Arun asked his reputed commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Hanut Singh to be taken off it. Hanut placed Risaldar Sagat Singh Rathore as his instructor to in-house mould him and another just-commissioned officer. Rathore transformed the two into junior leaders befitting the over two-centuries old, “Fakhr-e-Hind” Poona Horse. Sadly, both fell to enemy action in separate engagements.

Ikkis traces Arun’s leadership journey, much of which amounted to learning after a fall. The most significant episode has Arun at attention in front of his squadron commander (squaddie) at NDA. Taking his duties as SCC rather to heart, he was there to report a course-mate for wrong-doing. He fails to take the squaddie’s offer of an off-ramp, when the major hints that complaining of a course-mate amounts to ratting on a colleague, afoul of the academy culture of course-spirit. Apparently, he had earlier warned the wrongdoer, but recurrence led up to this. Even so, the very act of standing up for the ‘harder right’ – as the NDA prayer goes – shows moral courage. The movie goes on to reveal his girl-friend goading him to do the right thing, pushing him to realise that he’d gone overboard, particularly since his friend ends up losing a term. His apology settling the matter shows Arun taking responsibility for his actions.

That he was inspired by a sense of duty is clear when at the IMA, he distances himself from his sweet-heart, reasoning that his taking french-leave to see her on discovery resulted in his being taken off the Sword of Honour shortlist. He argues that he would not like to be distracted from becoming worthy of his forthcoming pips. Towards the end of the film, when the war is drawing to a close, Arun is seen writing a forces’ letter to patch up with her. In the event, the girl in time became an army doctor, sending a cake to Arun’s parents on his birthday every year.

Ikkis does not romanticize Arun. The movie lightly touches on his distaste for boxing, with Arun reporting sick rather than getting into the ring in his weight category. If it was fright, it only humanizes Arun, reminding the viewer that he as a cadet on a learning curve was but a teenager.

In the regimental mess, Arun vows to bring home to the regiment a second PVC, the first having been notched up by its legendary commanding officer, Ardeshir Tarapore, in the 1965 War. Tarapore, commissioned in the Hyderabad Infantry unit (which incidentally was commanded by this writer’s grandfather) had been granted a transfer from infantry to cavalry after his showing physical bravery. On the firing range, he saved his detail from a grenade accident. His moral courage was evident from his taking on the British commanding officer of his next regiment to task for racist remarks. Such was the quality of officership in Poona Horse, which Arun was raring to measure up to. However, he was denied an opportunity of a skirmish almost right through the war, maturely held in reserve by his CO.

His last moments are epic, and there is no better narration of this than that of the Pakistani tank commander opposing him in battle. Though Pakistan surrendered in East Pakistan, the war went on a day longer on the western front. During those last hours, the regiment had firmed-up the bridgehead across Basantar river, but was being furiously contested in successive counter-attacks by the Pakistanis. A Pakistani regiment, 13 Lancers - ironically the pre-Partition ‘sister’ regiment of the Poona Horse - led the charge. Arun’s troop sprang to the fore as reinforcements. They overran the perimeter of the bridgehead in pursuit of the Pakistanis after one bout. Reforming, the Pakistanis returned for another go, with the squadron commander, Major Nissar, in the lead. The final scene has Arun fending off the Pakistanis in defiance of orders and standard procedures to abandon a burning - and disabled - tank. His last round puts the Pakistani commander’s Patton out of action. With Major Nissar surviving the exchange, history gets a live, unbiased witness.

The other part of Ikkis has interspersed scenes from a later time, when Arun’s father, Brigadier Khetarpal, visits Pakistan in a period of relative bonhomie between the two countries, when Track II dialogues seeking rapprochement were on. The brigadier had migrated from across during Partition and wished to visit his village. Major Nissar - who had since retired as a brigadier himself - volunteered to host the visiting Indian. Coincidentally, Khetarpal’s village was near the scene of Arun’s last battle. In a poignant scene, his host Nissar paints the tactical picture of his son’s first and last battle. Khetarpal absorbs the sad narration with sobriety and not a bit of rancor.

The message

The director does well to fire his anti-war message from the shoulders of one of India’s most senior and respected actors, late Dharmendra, who assayed his final celluloid role as Khetarpal just before his recent demise. The times required the dual message on the futility of war and of war between neighbours - if not brothers. On the face of it, a simply-told tale of valour hardly balances jingoistic films, especially one currently demolishing earlier records of audience attendance. Sensibly, that the movie does not attempt to match such movies in publicity, budgets, technical wizardy and noise is itself a resounding refutation of the narrative of eternal enmity sought by propaganda masquerading as film. Fearing the message will strike a chord, the regime’s minders have forced an insertion at the end, helpfully from its perspective, reminding film goers that the neighbor is not to be trusted.

For the military, the leadership puzzle is set to remain. That such human material obtains in every strata of society is altogether a good thing, and must be tapped. The military has traditional means to shape this putty for its moment. Arun would have been 75 today, and Manoj 50. Across time, both appear to caution against a leadership model new Bharat seems to be harking after: a loud-mouthed and rabble-rousing one that takes enemies as having mascara-filled or ‘small’ eyes. Ikkis’s story of a 21 years-old, makes clear that the warrior dharma has no place for hate.

 https://thewire.in/security/why-rajnath-singh-talks-defence-strategy-and-religion-together

Strategic culture: Rajnath Singh tests the waters on next steps

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/strategic-culture-rajnath-singh-tests

Speaking as the ‘yajman’ (‘chief patron of religious rituals’) at the second anniversary of the Ayodhya temple consecration, India’s defence minister, Rajnath Singh, said, “Ram is humble. Ram is virtuous. Ram is compassionate. But where necessity arises... Ramji takes on the role of vanquishing the wicked there as well. During Operation Sindoor, we worked under that same inspiration of Lord Ram.” For him and his colleagues in the Cabinet Committee on Security to draw on their shared cultural wellsprings during Op Sindoor is unsurprising.

At the event, Singh was present in his personage as Raksha mantri. He prayed, “May this flag of Sanatana Dharma continue to fly as long as the sun and the moon endure. May Lord Ram guide us all on the path of duty.” This is a natural corollary to cultural nationalism subscribed to by Singh. Rajnath Singh legitimates such subscription, thus:

No social movement is born suddenly from zero. It emerges from the consciousness of society, grows within society and takes shape while changing itself according to the changes in society. And when the movement progresses, it determines the direction of society. The temple construction movement has also been such a movement which not only shook history, but also gave direction to the present and laid the foundation for the future.

There are three higher-order problems with such formulation. One is the proximity it betrays of state and religion; the second is the partisan role of the state in the contested space of religion in a diverse society; and the third is implications for rationality and modernity that an anachronistic uptick in religion implies. Instead, here Singh is met at his own level.

When humility, virtuousness and compassion are notable in their absence from the regime’s repertoire, its claims to being inspired by a deity cannot be taken at face value. It shows instead the appropriation by political Hinduism – cultural nationalism - for legitimation of a bellicose turn to strategic doctrine. The changed visual depiction of the Lord - itself a step succeeding the makeover of widely loved Lord Hanuman – presaged this. As for the ‘movement,’ it stands forever tainted with the demolition of a mosque and a judicial sleight of hand that handed it the proceeds of its handiwork. Whether such a shady start can or should secure the future direction of society is debatable.

This is of a piece with Rajnath Singh’s belief system, which holds that, “Lord Ram is not merely an embodiment in stone, wood or soil, he is the centre of our culture and faith.” To him, “Lord Ram is our identity as well as that of our country.” The primacy of religion as identity carries significance for the ongoing (re)shaping of Indian strategic culture. Given the stranglehold the regime has acquired over all institutions, not least over those in the domain of national security - including lately the military - the regime cannot but be expected to pitch for strategic culture’s evolution in a certain direction. Hardly organic, the illegitimacy of this impulse must not be missed.

Strategic theory visualises three hierarchical platters in strategic discourse. The upper platter is somewhat amorphous, comprising the national ethic or ideology informing strategic doctrine or approach to the use of force. The second platter consists of guidance, the somewhat diffuse defence policy and military doctrines. The lowest platter has the tangible products: grand strategy and strategy. A hierarchical layering ensures pathways and guardrails are provided by the higher, prolix layer for the next lower, progressively more concise layer. Together and over time, these ideational tracts - along with implementation outcomes - shape strategic culture.

Strategic culture defined loosely is the historically-informed attitudes to power and behaviour of a nation in regard to the use of force. The location of the national ethic at the apex of the process makes it a consequential piece. Miscuing it potentially renders askew the whole strategic edifice. The debate in India over absence of strategic products – as the national security strategy - owes to the contestation over the national ethic. The Constitution - that drew on the ideals of the freedom movement - has mostly served for convergence in thinking on national security. However, witnessed in the Modi era is an attempt to lend an authoritative stamp on the national ethic, riding on the back of religion.

This owes to the unacknowledged political project furthered by the regime. There is a duality at play. While the Constitution is bowed to at one side, it is surreptitiously shredded at the other. The security domain - relied on by the regime for legitimation and sustenance - cannot escape such a game-plan. The harnessing of strategic culture to the regime’s purpose is yet another measure towards such an end.

Strategic culture is being constructed afresh through official diktat in the regime’s image. With a self-regard of being strong-on-defence it is eking out vignettes and aphorisms from ancient texts on India’s martial grandeur, seen by it as having been eclipsed for the past 1200 years. The regime is seeking Kautilyan thinking as revetment for its security policies. Barring exceptions, Bollywood has also largely been sequestered in its manufacture.

This is unexceptionable in itself, since the regime can well pitch for an assertive strategic doctrine and condition public sentiment accordingly. Afterall, its detractors back the robust counterpoise that has historically rivalled Chanakyan thinking, the Ashokan security perspective that prevailed through vast tracts of Indian history and geography. In this debate between ‘shanti and shakti,’ the problem is when gods are invoked to lend ballast to the regime’s preferred strategic doctrinal choice.

Referencing religion – as Rajnath Singh attempts - implies that the regime wishes not merely to steal a march over its opposition, but to outpoint them in perpetuity. Since the majoritarian game-plan does not necessarily have in mind the shaping of the external security environment as much as the domestic, this is fraught. Therefore, the parallel political project cannot be lost sight of in appraising the strategic field in India. Scholars are liable to arrive at anodyne appraisals of strategic culture if the duality is not sufficiently appreciated.

Singh makes evident the regime’s favouring of an ideology-driven national ethic. While cultural nationalism can and will influence the national ethic, it cannot supplant the Constitution. Only a Hindu Rashtra could anchor a national ethic in Sanatan Dharma. For now, doing so will elide the necessary consensus. The electoral verdict clipping the regime’s wings was on the basis of its gunning for the Constitution in the event of an ‘abki baar, char sau paar.’ The distancing by the seers from the spectacles at Ayodhya signifies the illegitimacy of the regime’s political project. Simply put, the ‘movement’ is not quite the place to rummage about for the national ethic.

As befits an democratically obedient military, the military has rightly addressed itself to constructing a strategic culture in line with an assertive strategic doctrine. Notwithstanding civil-military fusion, the mentioned upper platters of the strategic process are largely civilian mandated and must be politically-led. Rajnath Singh’s trial balloon – there was no ministry press release on the remarks – shows up potential next steps in reconstructing strategic culture. The military would be wise in not mistaking reiterations as marching orders. As the military drafts its vision document – part 1 is due out soon – it is hopefully wary of the regime seeking to fire from its shoulders