History lessons for current armymen

My favourite work of history is Jadunath Sarkar’s The Fall of the Mughal Empire. It tells of the period, just under a century, from a little after Aurangzeb’s death, to a little after 1800, when the British conquered India. 

It is drawn from primary sources (Sir Jadunath had Persian) and should be made compulsory reading in all Indian schools in all languages. 

I like it because it lays bare the character, or lack of, of the Indian ruler, soldier and citizen. On this I will write nothing else at this time, because I want to focus elsewhere. But according to me, this work will clarify a lot of things about India which puzzle the Indian when she observes her nation and compares it with others. 

Today, I’d like to reproduce a little bit from Volume 4 of Sir Jadunath’s work, describing the Battle of Merta (10 September, 1790) between the Marathas and the Rathores of Jodhpur. Hindu nationalists should skip this, and many other chapters of the work, because they will constantly be confused and horrified by the composition and motivations of the combatants. Mirza Ismail Beg and the Naga sadhus fought for the Rathores. Ali Bahadur and the French under Benoît de Boigne led the firepower for the Marathas. 

The description of the battle is a few pages long (and highly recommended), but in short: The Marathas won. The Naga wing was crushed first and in response the Rathore cavalry mounted and charged the Maratha/French guns. The force of the charge breaks the line and the Marathi cry goes out: “campoo barbad zhala” (the camp is destroyed). 

However European discipline and training held and the horsemen were sent back with great losses. In the final act of the battle, the Rathores regroup, and 3,000 of them charge. 

Sir Jadunath writes: “The ground shook under the tramp of the cavalcade, as the flower of Rathore chivalry swept on nearer and nearer, their long red skirts fluttering and their red tasselled turbans dancing like a field of tulips in bloom when struck by a strong wind. Then de Boigne’s quick-firing brass guns vomitted fire, making woeful gaps in that dense crowd of horses and men. 

“Of the three thousand brave men who had set out on that death-ride to save the honour of their clan, only one-third survived to reach the front of the campo.” 

At the Battle of Balaclava in 1854, memorialised by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the Light Brigade of about 600 men charge the Russian guns and lose 100 men. The Rathores lost 2,000 in that final charge alone but remain unsung. 

Why did the Rajputs facing certain defeat fling themselves into the guns? Sir Jadunath tells us that they felt not enough of them had died to return with honour. 

The Indian fighting man’s spirit and his honour was first recorded in history by Herodotus, writing in the 5th century before Christ. He describes the Indians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. The Indian side (led by the Persians) loses, but the Indians acquit themselves well, according to Herodotus, holding their flank even though the others fled. Historian Max Hastings writes that World War I was fought incompetently (the French wearing brilliant blue clothing that made them instant machine gun targets) till the Indians, specifically the Garhwal Rifles, taught the Europeans trench warfare in France and Belgium. 

From Turkey to North Africa to Europe, there is hardly a place in modern history where the Indian soldier has not drawn and spilled blood. Such is his reputation and the Victoria Crosses and the Param Vir Chakras will testify to this. 

It is this tradition of honour that the Indian army and its chief have shamed. Is this what the Indian army has been reduced to? Rewarding soldiers for acting against their own people? Has thinking totally ended in this time? 

Set aside for a moment the fact that the defence of the soldier’s action is utterly untenable (If it was just a moment of danger, why parade him across nine villages? Is the Indian army claiming that the whole Kashmir population is hostile and needed to be warned? That opens up very dangerous questions). Forget for a moment the fact that the human rights violation is manifest. Kidnapping – and holding an individual against his will is kidnap – is a criminal act. Let us assume that those whining about human rights are all anti-nationals, whatever that means. Let us also assume that constitutional “rule of law” is something that is flexible in our parts. 

Let us focus instead on the act of rewarding the soldier for this action. An army that has honoured its individuals for acts of battlefield bravery across the world and across history is now smirking at an underhanded and criminal tactic used against a fellow Indian citizen. 

Are there serving soldiers who feel this is not soldierly conduct? I am sure there are, because former soldiers have spoken against both the action and the commendation. 

To what extent has the Indian army been shaped by the fact that many if not most of its duties are today internal facing rather than external? We last fought a full war 45 years ago. That means none of the serving generals of this army have actually fought in a war, and most of their soldiering has been against other Indians. To a generation of soldiers, then, perhaps this is acceptable conduct in a war (or war-like, to use the defence minister’s words) zone. 

Soldiering claims to be about honour and upholding it. It is not easy for a Gujarati to understand this, and I accept that. Very few Gujaratis join the army and this has always been the case. As of 2016, of a total of 2.4 million ex-servicemen, only 26,299, meaning 1 per cent, were Gujaratis. Gujarat has over 60 million people and so if proportionally represented, should have 5 per cent of India’s soldiers. On any other meaningful measure, from productivity to per capita income to exports, Gujaratis will dominate. But soldiering is not our thing and has never been because honour is not at a premium in a mercantile society touched by pragmatism. 

But even for an outsider there is something noble about the culture of military honour, when it manifests itself in heroic form, as it did at Merta and Plataea and France and a thousand other places. 

It did not in Kashmir, and it is a shame that it was rewarded.