“Indian family sacrifices its son
in Bush’s war”, screamed the headline of the
lead story on page one of a popular English daily last
week. It was quite a tear-jerker too, outlining the chain
of events and circumstances which saw 21-year-old Indian
national Uday Singh landing an assignment with the US Army
as army specialist - whatever that means - and
subsequently being deployed to police America's latest
acquisition for Coca-Colonisation, Iraq, where he was shot
dead last Monday during petrol duty.
It's another thing the news report, to its
credit, did not omit mention of the inspiration
behind the young man’s rather unlikely career - it had
nothing to do with patriotism or anything, as you’d be
forgiven for imagining. It was simply to find his way to
citizenship of the planet's most powerful nation,
much-coveted for the materialistic conforts that go with.
Wrong reasons for a wrong decision, you could say.
In contrast, the news report detailing the death on
November 29 of Major Uday Veer Singh, SM, in
terrorist-related violence in Jammu & Kashmir - the
troubled State which, at the way things are going right
now, may well end up as a nuclear wasteland in the
not-too-distant future – found less than passing
reference in the media the following day. So it barely
registered people much too used to waking up to such news
just about every other day to be moved tears.
Major Singh was, of course, cremated in Delhi cantonment
with full military honours on December 1, in keeping with
his status as a martyred war hero. The tricolour-draped
casket bearing his body was ceremoniously honoured with
marigold wreaths by the Chief of Army Staff, followed by a
dozen other defence personnel decorated in medals and
swords shimmering in the mellow November afternoon sun.
The army band in attendance struck a soulful tune with
bugles and, in its wake, came the final, formal salute by
a contingent of soldiers. They fired three shots each from
automatic rifles skywards.
And then, it was time. The national flag was taken off,
neatly wrapped and presented to the deceased army
officer's grandfather, and the body partially uncovered to
afford one final glimpse to family and friends before
being consigned to flames. This is when many of them,
stoic so far, broke down, despite efforts by the uniformed
officers attending the cremation to console them. You are
supposed to rejoice rather than grieve for a soldier who
attains martyrdom in the process of fighting fop the
nation.
The pyre was1it, the logs crack1ed, and the flames leapt
into the air. The sight left some of the onlookers
transfixed, rooted as they remained to the place. Sometime
later, the gathering began to thin down. Mobile phones
rang, and the hush enveloping the grounds gave way to the
rustling of clothes as the mourners walked past the young
soldier's family, shaking the hands of the father and
grandfather and hugging the mother and sister. And then
they were gone in their big airconditioned cars. Leaving
behind the family members and their close friends, who
kept gazing at the dying flames, perhaps asking themselves
if patriotism wasn't just a chimera, a mirage, in a
country whose own form of Coca-Colonisation has left the
average Indian caught in vortex of materialism.
For, it may not be long before the Uday Singhs of the world outnumber the Uday Veer Singhs. It really is time for all Indians to look within themselves as a people and as a country, so as, to reclaim their values and ethics, before these are lost forever.
By Rahul Gul