Last Saturday, controversial ex-Army chief, General V K Singh, along with some other retired army men joined the Bharatiya Janata Party at a press conference in the national capital, addressed by party president Rajnath Singh.
General Singh’s joining the BJP is only the latest among a string of developments where Indian politicians, mostly from the Congress and the BJP have wrangled over who represents the issues and concerns of India’s soldiers – serving, and especially retired – better.
The debate has only gotten more heated and bitter in these past few years. Now, with a national election only a month away, the two major parties have been making equal efforts to woo ex-servicemen across the country.
If on the one hand, the UPA government, on the express orders of Rahul Gandhi has finally implemented the ‘One rank, One pension’ scheme – a long-standing demand of ex-servicemen, the BJP too has not been far behind. Its top brass, especially Mr. Modi have been making all the right noises to ex-servicemen in these months leading to the election.
In January, while addressing a rally in Mumbai, Modi touched an emotive issue among ex-servicemen: the demand for a National War Memorial. He referred to it again in February, on the day when the finance minister announced the ‘one rank one pension’ scheme as part of the interim Budget.
The demand for a National War Memorial has been a long-standing – and valid – one. As has been noted each time whenever this subject is in the spotlight, our country has no shortage of memorials to our men in uniform. The National War Memorial of the Army’s Southern Command (Pune), the War Memorial (Chennai), the National Military Memorial (Bangalore), the Tawang War Memorial (Arunachal Pradesh), besides hundreds and thousands of street names and landmarks named after martyred soldiers across the country. There is also the de facto National War Memorial, the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate in New Delhi.
But all these memorials are not national ones. Even Amar Jawan Jyoti, as is very well known, was built by the British in memory of Indian soldiers who died fighting for the Raj in World War I. Even more importantly, there is no single monument dedicated to soldiers who died fighting for independent India – in the 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1991 wars against Pakistan, the 1962 war against China, the 1961 war against the Portuguese in Goa, the 1987 Indo-Chinese skirmish in Sum Dorong Chu, besides the hundreds who have died in counter-insurgency operations over the years in Kashmir, Punjab, the Northeast and the Red Corridor and in UN Peacekeeping missions abroad (According to some estimates, more than 80,000 soldiers have died protecting independent India).
I spoke to two of India’s finest security experts, both former soldiers themselves, on this topic.
Commodore (Retd) C Uday Bhaskar pointed out as to how even India’s smaller neighbours had national war memorials. “It is a shame that we do not have a national war memorial. Leave aside other countries, even those in our neighbourhood have them. Bangladesh has the Jatiyo Smriti Shoudho at Savar near Dhaka, while Sri Lanka too has one outside of Colombo. Lanka even has a memorial dedicated to soldiers of the IPKF,” he says.
Ajai Shukla, an ex-armyman, well-known journalist and defence expert, who also writes for Business Standard, was a little more forgiving. “Some countries have national war memorials and some don’t have them. Even the US does not have one. But it does have memorials dedicated to several important wars – like one on Vietnam, another on Korea, and now, they are building memorials for Iraq and Afghanistan too. On the other side, you have the Arc D’Triumphe in Paris and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow. So it varies.”
When I asked Bhaskar as to why, after 67 years of independence and 64 years as an independent republic, India was still lacking on this score, he had this to say: “The strategic culture of India is distinctive.”
In my own personal view, the UPA II government could well have fulfilled the demand for a national war memorial. Indeed, it did make the efforts too. The Group of Ministers appointed to deliberate on the issue had approved of a memorial in 2102. They had even come out with proposed locations, either at India Gate or on the banks of the Yamuna. But due to the bumbling attitude of the current defence minister, the memorial could not become a reality.
Now, as both parties vie for the votes of ex-soldiers, one hopes that the issue could get on the fast track. As both Shukla and Bhaskar told me, the lack of a war memorial entering the political discourse is a positive thing.
However, both also expressed concern at the cost that the armed forces and the nation were paying as a result of the demand becoming political. “The point to be noted is that the politicians have appropriated this issue not for national pride, but for cynical electoral gains,” says Shukla. Says Bhaskar, “I only hope that the debate does not get polarized. Because national security and martyrs should be apolitical.”
I, however say, bring it on. As someone has so wisely said, the end justifies the means. If all this political wrangling, all the grandstanding in the name of our brave soldiers finally gets them a national war memorial in the heart of Delhi, so be it. And hopefully, in the months ahead, there is a very real chance of it becoming a reality.
Jai Jawan!
