Living in the war zone

Instilling in the young qualities such as character and comradeship is one way to defeat the temporary triumph of terrorists.

WHEN the Government of India decided to replace the old University Officers Training Corps with the National Cadet Corps (NCC) it moved away from the limited purposes of the former - of meeting the shortage of officers for the Army - to a larger mission. The NCC Act of 1948 set out the following objectives:

- to develop character, comradeship, ideals of service and capacity for leadership in the youth of the country;

- to stimulate interest in the defence of the country by providing service training to youth; and

- to build up a reserve to enable the armed forces to expand rapidly in an emergency.

It was ambitious enough, but clearly the leaders of the time, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in particular, saw this Corps as a means of instilling some values in the young, as well as the discipline for which the armed forces are renowned.

This mission was made even more ambitious, even grandiose, by an amendment that declared the aims of the NCC to be:

- to develop qualities of character, courage, comradeship, discipline, leadership, secular outlook, spirit of adventure and sportsmanship, besides the ideals of selfless service among the youth to make them useful citizens; and

- to create human resource of organised, trained and motivated youth, provide leadership in all walks of life, including the armed forces, and always be available for the service of the nation.

The earlier crisp, and precise aims, spelt out in impeccable English had given way to a florid, waffling statement in the inevitable babu English that has spread like a disease through all government documents and statements - but the intentions are clear enough.

But the point of this being cited here is to highlight the concern that our leaders had, even in 1948, just a year after independence, to build discipline among the young and instil ideals in them. It was never going to be enough, but it was, at least, one means of imparting these to a society not known, as now, for order or to have any ideals worth the name.

This, again, is something that most people shrug off as something we have to live with. Except those youngsters who join the NCC the rest see it as a curiosity, and are either wary of it or amused, in a louche manner, by the sight of numbers of young men and women parading up and down in uniform.

The reason that one brings up the NCC at all is, oddly enough, not a sudden exasperation with our abiding slovenliness and avaricious ways. It is something else, something that perhaps preys on this, and certainly uses it when necessary. It is the carefully planned war that has been started within the country, the systematic attempt to destroy our society from within. The war that erupts at regular intervals in mass murder - in recent years in Ayodhya, Varanasi, Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. An undeclared war, but unmistakably war. Except that in this war the enemy is perceived to be ordinary people going about their work, and victory is the killing and maiming of as many of them as possible.

This is quite different from the attacks by naxalites, or the militants in Nagaland or Manipur. Those are, in comparison, limited insurgencies, with stated, obvious objectives; they are violent, true, but are essentially political movements that have within them the seeds of resolution through some kind of negotiation and an eventual agreement, however difficult it may seem at any given time.

Not this war. This is a war that has no room for negotiation, because there is no one who will negotiate. This does not seek a perceived freedom from oppression or anything similar. It sees victory in killing as many people as possible, not soldiers in open conflict - that would, to them, be a little too close to being defeated and disgraced. It is a war where the primary weapon is stealth and secrecy. It places a great premium on hiding, of moving around among people as if they too were doing nothing other than going about their everyday work, and in planning carefully, rationally, what manner of attack should be carried out where victory is great, that is, measured in terms of people killed, damage done.

To these shadowy forces Mumbai must rank as a great victory. The attack went as planned, created just the kind of damage they had intended, and they themselves have melted into the crowds, retreating to their dens to plan the next attack. They have no true religious or ideological motivation; what clearly keeps them going is the heady triumph of killing. Killing can be a terrible addiction, as any hunter will testify. And once one kills one wants to kill again and again. Wounding and maiming is not relevant and does not count, really, any more than a wounded animal or bird does, unless it is possible to go up to it and kill it. Then it counts, and the headiness returns.

All countries have experienced war in one form or the other. The First World War was the last war where there were defined battlefields and war zones, well away from them life was lived with a degree of orderliness and even placidity. There was entertainment, restaurants did good business, people travelled and children went to schools and colleges. The Second World War was different; the war came to civil society, and many thousands died in bombing raids. The war against Japan was ended not by killing Japanese soldiers but also by killing Japanese civilians. The citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki won the war for the United States by dying in their thousands. The secret of winning wars slowly dawned on everyone.

Thus today there is no defined war zone; only defined enemies - ordinary people. Killing them is seen to be winning the war. It has happened here; it has happened in other parts of the world. Whether one wants it or not, we are all combatants, except that we have no weapons, would not know what to do with them if we had them, and we have no idea who our enemy is.

Is one saying, then, that we should strengthen the NCC - which was why this essay began with a reference to it? No, not really. What one is saying is that, again, not because we wish to particularly but because right now we have no other choice, we need to look at the mission statement of the NCC and to realise that, alien though it sounds, some parts of it must begin to inform our lives.

Character, comradeship, ideals of service ... odd qualities, one will readily concede, but ones that need, perhaps, to be dusted out and looked at. There are some qualities that have already emerged - surprising, in the noisy raucous and brawling people that we are. We have seen it in Ayodhya, Varanasi, Delhi and most recently in Mumbai. Resilience, the ability to suffer and to bear it with fortitude, the ability to move on and not lapse into chaos or mindless rage and violence. This must have taken away from the triumph of the terrorists to a great extent. Repeatedly, their planning appears to have gone wrong on this score. Left to ourselves we have a stoic resilience, and in contrast, it shows up the violence that is deliberately whipped up by politicians who seek to exploit other incidents, like the pogrom in Gujarat after Godhra.

As soon as it is realised, and accepted, that we are the enemy, that the war zone is here in our quiet residential localities and in our bustling commercial centres, the stoicism will need to be buttressed by a little more - by wariness, by comradeship and service. A great deal of that was seen in Mumbai where it was spontaneous. In a war zone one will need an even greater consciousness of it. It is what keeps soldiers going in battle; and that is what we are in the middle of now, unreal though it may seem.

We may not wear flak jackets and helmets, or heavy boots, but we are unmistakably at war, and we are in the war zone. With no uniforms and weapons we all need character, comradeship and the spirit of service, as Mumbai has shown.