How fraternity won the day

Lt Gen Zameer Uddin Shah (retd)

THE breathtaking evacuation of the 41 workers who were trapped in Uttarakhand’s Silkyara-Barkot tunnel was celebrated across the country. It was a team effort by various agencies, with the Army being called in at the eleventh hour; as always, it reaffirmed its credo, ‘Service before self — always and every time’.

The media gave prominence to a small gang of ‘rathole miners’, a derogatory term for these members of deprived sections who eke out a living tunnelling for coal at great risk to life and limb. This group had been roped in to manually clear a passage over the last 12 metres. It has now emerged that the ‘saviours’ were not engaged in any unlawful activity but were working for a Delhi-based company, Rockwell Enterprises. They had experience of excavating small tunnels for laying sewer and water lines, a risky and hazardous profession involving work in dirt and grime in narrow confines.

My thoughts went back to the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. It was the ninth expedition that attempted to scale the highest mountain in the world and the first that was confirmed to have succeeded when Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit on May 29, 1953. The expedition, organised and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee, was led by Col John Hunt. There were several contenders for the leadership role, but the committee decided that Hunt’s experience of military leadership, together with his credentials as a climber, would provide the best chance for the expedition to succeed.

The expedition succeeded, but most of its details have been consigned to the pages of mountaineering books. Only the names of Tenzing and Sir Hillary are remembered.

For us, fraternity is a constitutional value alongside liberty and equality, aimed at achieving social harmony and unity. The rescue operation demonstrated this value. In India, the ‘rathole miners’ will be remembered for long. Despite the wide publicity, they declined monetary compensation on the plea that they undertook their mission for the sake of the country and fellow workers. This noble gesture needs to be recognised by the nation and they must be officially honoured for the services rendered by them.

The framers of the Constitution recognised the importance of fraternity in a society plagued by social inequalities. In the case of the tunnel disaster, fraternity was at play when danger beckoned. We witnessed the togetherness of human endeavour, irrespective of caste, creed, colour, religion or domicile — they all put their shoulder to the wheel.

At the end of the day, fraternity stood tall. It won and will always win the day.

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