Keep This Cancel Culture Out Of The Cantonments

Keeping with the times that be, a wholly avoidable controversy surrounding the hit Tamil biopic Amaran on the nation’s pride, Major Mukund Varadarajan (Ashoka Chakra), emerged. Seemingly a section of the local Tamil community was affronted on the ostensible attempt of the movie makers towards “erasing the Brahmin identity” and a purported “Dravidian conspiracy”. While caste-based tensions and assertions are an old hat in Tamil politics, the conflation of the same to the constitutionally apolitical institution of the Armed Forces, is a regrettable affixation.

Weeks earlier, OTT series IC-814 - The Kandahar Hijack, based on a book by the pilot of the flight, Captain Devi Sharan, had come under similar criticism to supposedly attempt, “protect the terrorists who belonged to a certain community”. The fact that the Union Home Ministry in 2000 had itself stated that five hijackers referred to one another as Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar, didn’t matter to those who chose to simplistically polarise the moment, yet again.

Cancel-culture has emerged as a powerful tool in the hands of those who seek revisionism that fits their rhetoric, be it partisan, communal or castiest. It has got so normalised that now even institutions like the Armed Forces which were historically spared the regressive allusions, are included in the discourse. That the family of the braveheart itself had been aligned to the Amaran script and were fine with the same, also didn’t seem to matter. Yet the self-appointed custodians of societal norms felt it necessary to drive the agenda beyond the simple fact i.e., a proud Indian Army officer went down fighting in the finest traditions of the Army to uphold the proverbial Naam, Namak, Nishan (Name, Fidelity, and Insignia, of his beloved Paltan, and by that extension, the nation). They perhaps saw issues, where none was required.

Personally, it harks back to the summer of 1965, when the war clouds were gathering. One got life’s biggest honour to wear the fiery Rajput Regiment’s blue and maroon hackle over the beret. I was to join the illustrious 17th Battalion (Barhe Chalo) of the Rajput Regiment, a unit raised and commanded by Field Marshal KM Cariappa. Almost forty years later and a few months before I hung my boots, a young daredevil called Mukund Varadarajan from Chennai joined the 22nd Battalion of the Rajput Regiment.

Once commissioned, irrespective of where one came from, or what religion, caste, or ethnicity, they hailed from, they were simply ‘Rajput Officers’! Major Mukund Varadarajan (Ashoka Chakra) was to uphold the highest calling that a soldier can honour i.e., fight till the end for the izzat of his paltan, his Regiment, his Army, and ultimately for the dignity and integrity of the Tiranga.

While commissioning just before the Indo-Pak War in 1965, we valourised and internalized the unmatched heroics of our warriors who to us were simply, ‘Rajput Soldiers’. It really didn’t matter that Field Marshal Cariappa was actually a Coorg, Victoria Cross awardee Kamal Ram a Gujjar, Maha Vir Chakra winner Major BS Randhawa a Sikh, as for us, they were simply gallant ‘Rajputs Soldiers’ just like the Param Vir Chakra awardee, Naik Yadunath Singh! Mukul Varadarajan too was to join the pantheon of indefatigable ‘Rajputs’ by paying the ultimate price whilst serving with 44 Rashtriya Rifles (Rajput Regiment) – a unit which is an embarrassment of riches in gallantry awards. His citation read, “Major Mukund displayed exemplary leadership skills, raw courage, planning and swift action”.

It was much like the story of last-man-standing on 21 Oct 1962 when Rajput soldiers from 2nd Battalion withstood the wave after waves of Chinese assaults. Company Commander Major BK Pant and his fearless band of Rajput soldiers had stood their ground against all odds – an unbelievable 82 warriors out of 112 had got killed or wounded in action, including the lion hearted ‘Rajput officer’, Major BK Pant, who kept up the spirits with the Regimental war cry “Bajrang Bali Ki Jai”.

His stirring exhortation just before finally succumbing to bullets still sends shivers down the spine: “Men of the Rajput Regiment, you were born to die for your country. God has selected this small river for which you must die. Stand up and fight like true Rajputs”. He had alluded to the timeless traditions of his Regiment, before going down fighting. That he, like Major Mukund Varadarajan, was actually a Brahmin didn’t matter, as for us, he was, and will always be, a ‘Rajput Soldier’ – not in an alternatively casteist or narrow sense, but keeping with the composite, multicultural, and diverse denominations who sink their individualities in the collective fount of the ‘Rajput Regiment’.

When the petty politics of the nation was in the throes of name-changing, an ironical truth was to manifest in the exact same battalion i.e., 44 Rashtriya Rifles (Rajput Regiment), where the legend of Major Mukund Varadarajan (Ashoka Chakra) was to be immortalised. Rifleman Aurangzeb Khan was abducted and killed by terrorists in J&K. This ‘Aurangzeb’ from the Indian Army needed no ‘correction of history’, as he was busy making history for his paltan, and above all, for India.

Aurangzeb’s father too was an Indian Army soldier, as was another of Aurangzeb’s brothers. Another 15-year-old younger brother of Aurangzeb’s had poignantly commented at his funeral, “I too will join the Army like my brothers and father”. Such is the cloth that the Indian Armed Forces are cut from – very innocent, apolitical, and distant, from the world of bigotry, manufactured-hatred, and polarisation.

It is for this reason the proverbial barracks and cantonments were deliberately distanced and insulated from the morass and passions that consumed the air outside. But because that vital ‘distance’ has knowingly been compromised in recent times with reckless appropriations and invocations, many feel emboldened to question the timeless spirit of regimentation, traditions, and camaraderie that besets simple folks sharing a common, but sacred lanyard, or hackle. An identity of an officer is that of his/her troops or simply, as that of an ‘Indian Soldier’, any other suppositions are unwarranted.

Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh (Retd) is former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar and Puducherry. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.