The Hindu Business Line : `Whom should I die for?'

DR MANMOHAN SINGH has earned the distinction of being the first Indian Prime Minister, to have visited the Siachen glacier. Without in anyway detracting from the trouble he has taken and the empathy he has shown, it is only fair to recall the example set by Mr George Fernandes, who was the first Defence Minister, not only to visit Siachen a number of times, but also to force the mandarins of his Ministry to go there so as to bring them round to deal sympathetically with the proposals for facilities and equipment for those who were prepared to give up their lives for the country.

Indeed, it is said that more personnel of the Defence Forces have died from the rigours of the near-Arctic conditions at such heights than from actual fighting. The Gandhian statesman and one of the founding fathers, C. Subramaniam, had on a few occasions, while pleading for a speedy resolution of the Kashmir dispute, cautioned the Government against the possible erosion of the morale of officers and men brought on by the continued stationing of troops in such places of extreme hardship.

It will be unwise of the politicians in power to think that an occasional visit for a few hours by them can absolve them of their paramount obligation not to make the defence forces bear the cross for their follies. For all their disciplined upbringing, the soldiers too are human beings gifted with intelligence and emotions, and they should not be made to feel that they are shedding their blood not for the country but because of the wrong policies of the Government.

Millions of soldiers have died in unjustified wars, while Presidents and Prime Ministers who started them, sometimes, as in the case of Iraq, based on chicanery, lived in cosy comfort in their homes with their families.

These thoughts are reinforced by an article, "Whom should I die for?", by retired Gen. D. B. Shekatkar who, after narrating the misdeeds of politicians, says: "I feel sick, frustrated and demoralised. Are these the people I fight and die for? Is it worth shedding my blood for the security of corrupt, subverted, characterless, `sold and bought' human beings?"

We may be sure that in asking this question he is only echoing what must often be passing in the minds of the soldiers.

B. S. Raghavan

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