The real homage
Editorial
The Pioneer
June 16, 1999
Title: The real homage
Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 16, 1999
As the Indian people pay homage to the brave soldiers laying down
their lives in battles being fought in the inhospitable heights of
Kargil, as millions across the country share the grief of the families
and friends they leave behind, the nation is gripped by a moment of
bonding. We have shared such moments earlier. Whenever the nation has
had to fight off challenges from across the border-in 1962, 1965 or
1971-the moment of crisis has united the people of India. In ways
tangible and intangible, through prayer meetings and through drives to
collect blood and funds, the country has rallied behind the soldiers'
struggle to ward off the external threat to the territorial integrity
of India. But, unfortunately, these moments of reaching out, of
solidarity and transcendence, have, time and again, proved to be all
too ephemeral. Once the hostilities are over, narrow divides are
resurrected and life lapses back to "normal". As the bloody battle
rages on at Kargil, it is time for the nation to realise that it owes
its soldiers, the ones who die fighting and the ones who live to fight
on, more than that momentary homage and the perfunctory tribute. Their
grit and endeavour deserve more.
What is needed is for every Indian to introspect in this hour of
crisis on what he or she can do to strengthen the nation for which the
soldiers at Kargil are, even at this moment, laying down their lives.
While they fight the external enemy at the borders, the ordinary
citizen must engage the menace within. Over the years, there have been
so many areas in which responsibility to the nation has been
abdicated, and the commitment to the ideals on which it was founded
has been weakened. Democratic institutions have been subverted by
vested interests. A small minority of the rich and the powerful has
been allowed to bend the system to its will as the underprivileged
remain trapped in oppression. Irresponsible consumerism, insensitive
to the struggle for basics that is being waged in the countryside, has
become rampant in insular metropolii. The goal of equitable
development has been consistently cheated of both priority and funds
as corruption has made inroads in every sphere; the ideal of
participatory democracy, one which is inclusive and just to all, has
been surrendered, now to the vested interest, and then to sheer
apathy. The culpability for this state of affairs does not lie with
the political elite alone. Blame must also be owned by the ordinary
citizen-the defaulting taxpayer and the corrupt bureaucrat, the truant
karamchari and the irresponsible academician-whose daily choices form
the warp and woof of the nation's life.
The soldiers' tribulations, for the sake of their nation, at the
battlefront must speak to us. They must tell us that we cannot allow
that nation's vitality to seep away thus, that we must rededicate
ourselves to the dream that our founding fathers dreamt for us. The
martyrdom of Lt Col. R Vishwanathan, Maj. RS Adhikari, Maj. M
Saravanam, Maj. Manoj Talwar, Maj. Vivek Gupta, Capt. Amol Kalia, Lt
Saurabh Kalia, Sqdr Ldr Ajay Ahuja, Subedar Randhir Singh, Naib
Subedar Mangage Ram, Havil. Manvir Bahadur Ray, Rifleman Pun Bahadur,
among so many others, must not be allowed to go in vain. Even as it
protects the nation from the threat without, their sacrifice must also
strengthen it from within.
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