Rumi Nations

War-fighting requires morale though not morality. Soldiers are supposed to be tough. Bravery can’t be fickle. If soldiers are going to be able to show bravery in battle, then they should be able to deal with ordinary, everyday corruption. Perhaps every nation claims that its armed forces are the best in the world and the soldiers the bravest. How do you quantify the bravery of the British in fighting the all-conquering Germans at the beginning of the Second World War? Was it not incredibly brave of the German soldiers to have accomplished all that they did? The soldiers of the Soviet Union made a lot of sacrifices too. The Japanese soldiers were also nothing if not brave including the kamikaze fighters and the soldiers who preferred to take poison and die rather than be prisoners of war. Indian soldiers have not really fought any major war with their back to the wall. India has never faced an enemy in the six decades since independence who wanted to occupy the land or the people....

Our revered Army Generals after all turned out to have feet of clay. Surveys generally tend to show the Army as the most 'trusted' institution, as the one institution that has not succumbed to the rot that has become an intrincsic part of most or all other institutions of India. But I always thought that this was a somewhat wishful sort of thinking. If the Army is not as tainted with corruption as other institutions, may be the simple reason for that is that the Army does not have too much scope for indulging in corrupt activities. Where there is some scope for indulging in corruption, Army men show themselves as susceptible to the lure of the lucre as any other Indian. So, the recent land scam in which top generals seem to be involved was not really unexpected. In a country where politicians and bureaucrats and others routinely indulge in scams running into thousands of acers, what is a few acres of land ... I say, let's give them some slack, shall we?