Applause should not stop

Colonel Munindra Nath Rai’s status on mobile messaging service WhatsApp sums up the man: “Play your role in life with such passion that even after the curtains come down, the applause doesn’t stop.” The 39-year-old was the youngest of 13 officers awarded the Yudh Seva Medal on Monday for killing a terrorist last year. A day later, he died fighting terrorists in Kashmir. Also killed in the encounter in south Kashmir was a Head Constable of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Sanjeev Singh. His last status message: “It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don’t regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn’t save.” Both of them are martyrs, both remembered by a grateful nation today. But what about tomorrow, and the day after? What about their loved ones, the real victims in a way? Do we care? Have we ever cared enough about families of such heroes?
Republic Day is one occasion when India shows to some extent that it does care, it does take pride in what the armed forces stand for. Though the spotlight at the January 26 parade this time was on US President Barack Obama, two women stood out. Wives of Ashok Chakra recipients Major Mukund Varadarajan and Naik Neeraj Kumar Singh, both of whom died fighting terrorists in Kashmir, they moved an entire nation to tears with their poise. With what one of them, Indhu Varadarajan, said later, she gave all of India a reason to introspect deeply: “I knew he would have liked me to take this award with pride. Sorrow is my personal matter, the country needs to see the man he was. I won’t blame the country if it forgets, because I don’t expect much. I want my family never to forget. I just want him to be remembered patriotically.”
A familiar answer in jest and in all seriousness in the armed forces to the question of “who supports the troops” is “the troops themselves”. They will continue to do so doubtlessly. The country has forgotten that it has to as well. At all times.