We want our soldiers alive, not in coffins draped in the Tri-colour. We want them to vanquish enemies and return home as heroes. We want them to stand firm and proud wherever they are and inspire us. We want our soldiers amongst us narrating tales of bravery, sacrifice and camaraderie. No, we don’t want them dead. No way.
Someone must tell those behind the ceaseless war-mongering on television channels, social media and elsewhere that war is not a joke. It’s not some kind of a mobile game where you shoot and kill enemies at the push of a button. And if you die, you spring back to begin the game afresh. It is also not like the movies where the protagonist looks heroic even while dying. In movies, he can afford a smile and maybe squeeze in a few audience-pleasing dialogues as his life oozes out.
That does not happen in the real world. Death is brutal and painful here. There could be unimaginable savagery if captured by the enemy. And every step a soldier takes is fraught with risks and uncertainty. He cannot be a sentimental fool while conducting a raid or defending a post. His heroics must be backed by thorough calculation and attention towards precision in execution. He is a family man too. His death or incapacitation leaves a huge void back home.
As you watch television anchors in army fatigues drawing assault plans on your screen or frothing from the mouth shouting war or running down people advocating caution, you realise that war has been reduced to a source of mass entertainment in our times. Soldiers are not human beings braving out the tremendous odds out there on hostile terrains, but items in a circus. For television channels, they are, and war is, a surefire TRP generating subject. People need to prove their patriotic credentials again and again to friends and acquaintances on the social media. War and soldiers come handy as subjects.
This could be ignored as signs of our dumbed down times, but the malicious joy peeking through such discourses on mass platforms makes one cringe. We have managed to trivialise war and the lives of soldiers. There appears to be some sadomasochistic pleasure in the breathless narration of dead soldiers coming home on television and digital media and the raucous debates thereafter. Someone has to feed someone else’s jingoistic urges. Who’s a better fit than the men in uniform?
The confounding questions here is: How can public sentiment decide whether the army gets involved in a war? What exactly is the motive behind a big section of the media whipping up war frenzy? Any decision of this kind is taken after thorough strategising and on the basis of tactical considerations. Even if there is no war, it comes after careful weighing of pros and cons and cost benefit analysis.
The problem with such hysteria is that it raises public expectations irrationally high. If the actions of the government and the army do not measure up to the expectations, then there is a possibility of them being called wimps. They lose respect. If they decide to satisfy the public then they invite great risks. Surely, the jingoism going around is not doing them any service.
War is not an IPL match or a reality show. Its consequences are negative and heavy even for the winner. The lives of our brave soldiers are involved. Let us not turn it into mass entertainment or fodder to feed our bloated sense of national pride.
We need our soldiers alive and fighting. We need them as exemplars of courage and discipline. We don’t want them in coffins. And definitely not as subjects for television and social media tamasha.
