Ethics a soldier lives and dies for
Please show me the dead bodies of soldiers,’ I had repeated my request to the CO with empathy. As a Rashtriya Rifles sector commander (Brigadier) in troubled South Kashmir, I was at an encounter site in Bijbehara tehsil of Anantnag district. Standing on the outskirts of a notorious hinterland village — a terrorist haunt nestled between bare karewas (hills) connected by radial kutcha/broken tar roads where IEDs could be easily planted — we were reviewing the unit’s night-long anti-terrorist operations. Things hadn’t worked out as planned. We’d neutralised three terrorists but lost three soldiers, their bodies covered under a hastily spread tarpaulin. However, it was the CO’s reluctance in complying with my request that was puzzling. That’s because the CO was capable, steady under fire and led a battle-hardened unit. He knew I hugged dead soldiers before saluting them one last time. Yet, he hesitated.
We’d got intelligence that a big terrorist conclave was planned in an abandoned outhouse on the hill overlooking the village. The planning was meticulous, including that for contingencies. The unit, in a recent encounter, had taken out a top terrorist and was on a high. Yet, war-fighting has its own ebb and flow. Visionary Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke wrote in 1871 that the finest war plans don’t survive first contact. That frosty morning, his prediction had stood the test of time. Despite our preparations, mistakes were made.
It is easy to be judgmental when things go wrong. However, our military ethics teach us otherwise. Naam, Namak, Nishan — honour, integrity, flag — has said all that’s needed to be said for the millennia, and that day on the hilltop it was no different. As the elder in this small group of soldiers, morale had to be instantly restored. I demanded that they repeat the unit’s war cry thrice after me. That did it.
My next job was to honour the dead. Finding the CO still inexplicably stricken, I turned to my ‘buddy’ (a soldier who shares symbiotic behaviour with you in that you guard each other’s backs in encounter situations) to do the needful. My buddy was carefully selected; an ever-smiling, tall, wiry, alert, very fit soldier.
That morning, his scream on uncovering the dead soldiers haunts me. Among them lay his younger brother. ‘Mujh se bahut accha tha saab,’ he said, controlling his emotions as I hugged him after hugging his brother. The CO knew and had acted with great restraint. I saluted him.
As we celebrated Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, I hope people spared a thought for those whose ethics in life, and death, will forever remain Naam, Namak, Nishan.
