Sham Trial of Jadhav: Reticence is no Sagacity

Sham Trial of Jadhav: Reticence is no Sagacity  

Major General Mrinal Suman

Abducted Indian Kulbhushan Jadhav has been declared a spy and sentenced to death by a kangaroo court in a farcical trial held in complete secrecy. True to its past track record, Pakistan remains incorrigible as a devious and antagonistic neighbour.

It is India’s great misfortune that it has been cursed with a neighbour like Pakistan. A nation born out of hatred needs hatred for its continued sustenance. The day Pakistan sheds hostility towards India and adopts a conciliatory stance, it would amount to negating the two-nation theory, the raison d'être for its very existence. Therefore, it will be naïve to expect Pakistan to have a change of heart and be friends with India.

Independent Pakistan started its track record with the betrayal of Kashmir. Thereafter, breaching undertakings given to the US, it surreptitiously used American equipment to launch a surprise attack on Kutch in April 1965. Under the Tashkent agreement, Pakistan gave an undertaking to adhere to the principles of non-interference, only to intensify the proxy war through its notorious secret agencies.

Bhutto gave a solemn undertaking to accept LOC as the de facto border. Instead of abiding by his word, Pakistan redoubled its efforts to create turmoil in India. While the Indian leadership was trying to break ice through the ‘bus diplomacy’ in 1998-99, Pakistani military brass was busy planning the notorious Kargil incursion. Modi’s out-of-the-box gesture of birthday stop-over at Lahore was followed by a fierce terrorist strike at the Pathankot airfield. It has been a saga of treachery and duplicity.

Due to decades of indoctrination and brainwashing, most Pakistanis suffer from an extremely brutal and vicious anti-Indian streak. While dealing with India, a strange sadistic instinct gets aroused that takes control of their behaviour. The treatment meted out to the patrol led by Lt Saurabh Kalia in May 1999 by the Pakistan army puts even barbarians and animals to shame for its sheer cruelty. Contravening all conventions and norms of humanity, they were subjected to brutal torture for 22 days and then shot dead.  

The venom of anti-India feeling is too deeply ingrained in Pak psyche. Pakistan has made India the whipping boy for all its ills. Anti-India propaganda goes to the ridiculous extent of accusing India of extracting electricity from the river waters flowing in to Pakistan, ‘thereby rendering the waters worthless’.

Even a casual visitor to Pak websites and blogs gets shocked to see the venality of comments against India. There is hardly a sane voice that advocates need to promote amity. Anti-India feelings are so pervasive that the whole country lauded the Pak cricket team for conspiring to lose a cricket match during the World Cup to ensure India’s elimination. It reveals sickening depths to which Pakistan can stoop to in its pursuit of anti-India mania.

‘Be patient with a bad neighbour: he may move out’ is a common proverb. Unfortunately, such hopes cannot be entertained with respect to a malevolent neighbouring country. The only way out is its breakup and that is what India should strive for.

Raising of the Balochistan issue was overdue. If Pakistan can cultivate a Kashmiri separatist constituency within India, India can cultivate a separatist Baloch constituency in Pakistan. If Pakistan can dedicate its Independence Day to Kashmir, India can dedicate its Independence Day to Balochistan, Gilgit, Baltistan, and PoK. India should also support independence of other provinces like Sind. Pakistan must be splintered into as many countries as possible.

In addition, India should intensify its efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally. It should not be major challenge as Pakistan has already acquired notoriety as the prime breeding ground of terrorism in the world. Pakistanis are looked at with suspicion the world over.

To start with, diplomatic relations should be downgraded. All concessions like MFN should be withdrawn. Rail and road contacts should be suspended. Cultural exchanges should be stopped. Regional forums like SAARC will be better off without Pakistan. Using its formidable influence, India should have Pakistan expelled from the cricketing world. If South Africa could be debarred for apartheid, why should Pakistan not be banned for promoting terrorism? As cricket is a national obsession, it will hit Pakistani psyche hard.

A proactive policy should be followed to make friends with the countries who feel threatened by the growth of terrorism in Pakistan. Simultaneously, leveraging its enormous economic clout, India must convey its displeasure to countries that help Pakistan pass anti-India resolutions in various comities of nations. No nation that supports Pakistan’s anti-Indian motions can claim to be India’s friend.  It is time India asserts itself.

Unfortunately, a section of Indian intelligentsia continues to claim that a united Pakistan is in India’s interests. These biryani-lapping lapdogs of Pakistan advise India not to mix politics with culture, art and cricket. They echo Pak stance to mislead the Indian public. In their quest to please the Pakistani masters, they deliberately ignore the fact that Pakistan is not playing politics but waging an open war against India and killing Indians. But then, treachery of self-serving citizens has been the bane of India for centuries.

Finally, like a cancerous tumour, hatred for India has made deep inroads into Pakistan’s national psyche and has been devouring its vitals. In its obsession to harm India, Pakistan has chosen the path of self-destruction. It is in India’s interest to expedite the process by triggering the required implosion.

Pakistan cannot be allowed to get away with the sham trial of Jadhav. It is a defining moment for India and the government cannot fail the nation. The only language that rogue countries like Pakistan understand is of strength and retribution. In world affairs, reticence is considered a sign of impotence and not sagacity. 

Is Bollywood out of sync with Indian soldiery?

Is Bollywood out of sync with Indian soldiery?

By Sudip Talukdar

Bollywood has now latched on to surgical strikes and military campaigns as a way to garner popularity and box office successes, having practically exhausted the staple of love stories, song and dance sequences, sex and sleaze. In its long journey, the film industry has neither developed the will nor the capacity to make credible war movies. Scores of eminently forgettable productions have trivialized the image of ex-servicemen as loud characters who also double-up as the butt of jokes. He is usually a hot-headed, trigger happy retired colonel or brigadier, with an outsized moustache and several oddities. The veteran's reel life stereotyping as a cigar-puffing and whisky imbibing character is far removed from his real-life persona, who actually conducts himself with dignity and decorum in private and public life. 

The notable exceptions are Haqeeqat, Prahaar and Lakshya, which not only remain imprinted on the public psyche for their realism and portrayal of the fauji but also stand as benchmarks for others to follow. But the first is not without some notable flaws which detract from the gravity of the subject. For instance, the protagonist’s utterly pointless romancing of a hill woman and her battling the Chinese hordes by his side, until the end. What redeems the movie, however, are some of the most iconic scenes such as the one in which Balraj Sahani, as a major and company commander, shares cigarettes with his NCOs, before briefing them by the light of a kerosene lantern in a tent, amid the foreboding gloom and darkness. Or of the steely determination of exhausted and hungry jawans, who ford icy streams with the help of a rope or scale sky-high rock faces, even on the verge of physical collapse.

Nothing could have conveyed the subhuman conditions under which the Indian Army fought the Chinese in freezing temperatures more evocatively than these stark images in black and white, which linger long in memory. On the other hand, Prahaar demonstrates how and why soldiers develop such extremes of endurance, even if it be through a mode of punishment. For instance, the instructor imposes a stiff penalty on a trainee for making catcalls in a girl’s presence. The ‘guilty’ subaltern, midway into a punishing exercise, is made to heft a fellow officer on his back, along with the weight of their combined kits and rifles. Exhausted and gasping for breath, he cries for water. The roles are instantly reversed when the instructor catches the piggybacking officer red-handed in the act of emptying the contents of the water bottle into his carrier’s mouth. The entire sequence is so realistically done that the moviegoer ends up believing that the slightest of transgressions can invite the severest of penalties, which is what the Army does to keep everyone fighting fit.

Thankfully ‘Lakshya,’ which has been shot on a much bigger scale and focuses on Kargil, brings a verisimilitude seldom showcased in India, imparted by a Hollywood A-Team which undertook the cinematography. Not only does the movie ample justice to the training at the Indian Military Academy, the drills, weapons handling, the classrooms and the passing out parade, down to the close cropped hairs and correct uniforms, it is also about how well the officers and men bond together on and off the battlefield. The detailed combat sequences, beginning with an artillery barrage that light up the night sky, come alive with an immediacy rarely experienced on the big screen. What is more, ‘Lakshya’ even features a regimental medical officer for the very first time, recognizing his worth as a healer and the last resort of the dying and wounded men.

Even though the public has watched enough of hardships that soldiers underwent in Kargil and continue to do so in Siachen, thanks to a surfeit of TV documentaries, they have no idea about how faujis have to struggle every inch of the way up sheer cliff faces, using all the skills and strength at their command and vanquishing the harsh side of nature. Never before has this been showcased  more graphically on the big screen than the sequence  in ‘Lakshya’ in which men from 13 Punjab climb a dizzying, thousand foot high rock face, to dislodge Pakistani intruders sitting at the top and cutting off our supply lines with impunity. Midway, the protagonist manages to get atop a ledge, using his hands and feet with amazing dexterity. Once the team reaches this space, the leader ascends higher and fixes the rope, from which he swings like a pendulum, dangerously, to fasten himself to an inaccessible, perpendicular crevice further away. He finally makes it on the third attempt. The edge-of-the-seat sequence is one of ‘Lakshya’s highlights. Yet none of the critics has taken any notice of the movie’s genuine efforts to break out of Bollywood stereotypes, instead lavishing their praise on the likes of overly dramatized ‘Border’ and the ‘LoC,’ completely out of sync with war genre. 

It is easy enough for actors to pose as Para Commandos and strut about in a show of flamboyance, complete with an array of ribbons and medallions pinned on their combat fatigues, especially in movies like Pukaar, Zameen, Madras Cafe, Baghi 2 and lately Uri. Should they not be humbled by the fact that only a few out of a hundred qualify for the coveted Purple Beret, which these ‘stars’ take so lightly. Uri, the movie most hyped by the media, showcases the last surgical strike with all the bravado and make believe that Bollywood could muster. There is something radically wrong with the image of the bearded hero as he swaggers through a passageway in combat fatigues, a scene repeatedly flashed on television during promos. His zombie-like posture and greyish shade of uniform unmistakably convey the impression of a security supervisor out on his rounds, not that of an infantry officer, let alone a Para Commando!

The rot started with Major Saab, as a bearded Bachchan, a company commander, goes about heckling cadets at the National Defence Academy (NDA). The movie justifies the display of beard by inserting a line that the practice was not followed in the Army. However, Major Saab glorifies rebellion, insubordination and vandalism, sacrilege in a soldier’s code, projecting an extremely distorted version of life at the Academy. Can “gentlemen cadets” who breach discipline, harangue the instructor, stage frequent escapades or settle scores with the underworld or indulge in love affairs, be fit enough to lead the Indian Army. Yet this is what has been postulated in ‘Major Saab.’ “An officer of the rank of Major was shown living in a huge house which in fact is the official residence of the Commandant of the NDA," (a serving Lt General), writes strategic expert and blogger Maj Gen Mrinal Suman. "The whole movie was a very poor projection of the military ethos, culture and functioning and showed it as a law-flouting organisation,” he concludes.

Significantly, the protagonist in Uri has admitted being inspired by movies like Border, Prahaar and Saving Private Ryan. One fails to fathom how a pot-bellied extra in Border, sporting an ill-fitting jungle hat and even a tighter uniform and miscast as the battalion’s commanding officer, could serve as an inspiration! Unfortunately, the movie’s male lead, hurling abuses at the enemy’s armoured columns, behaves more like a local tough rather than a responsible military commander. On the other hand, Prahaar turns the spotlight even more intensely on the soldier's psyche and his dilemmas, actuated by the harsh real world, which neither seem as uncomplicated nor as ordered as his past life in uniform. The soldiers, their uniforms and training look so real in Prahaar that nobody can assert that they are not army men, unlike some cardboard cut-outs that win mainstream media's instant approval. It is doubtful whether any of this has rubbed off on Uri.

Lastly, Saving Private Ryan, easily the most graphic and realistic portrayal of war in entire cinematic history, represents a paradigm shift in how these movies are conceived, visualized and shot. It has inspired hundreds of movies worldwide, with varying degrees of success, but hardly any in India, with the possible exception of Lakshya. Spielberg had his technical team even shoot at animal carcases to register how a bullet impacted flesh. Tom Hanks and the supporting cast too have performed so convincingly after undergoing only a week of boot camp under a retired Marine officer that it speaks volumes about their commitment and Spielberg's cinematic genius. On the other hand, producers of Uri claim that their cast went through six or seven months of 'rigorous training' in Mumbai, none of which is visible in the movie, except in scenes featuring parades, paying homage to martyrs and crying "How's the josh. It's high sir."

Despite all the fireworks, combat sequences in Uri appear too mechanical and contrived to be convincing! Compare it with the Chinese movie Assembly, which exposes viewers to the horrors of close combat, as bullets and shrapnel rip into human flesh. The movie, matching the best in Hollywood, is dozens of notches more real than the likes of Uri. Chinese film makers have learnt their lessons diligently, but Bollywood lags way behind. The distinction between appearance and reality is also blurred in the final sequence of ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ when a close-up of a stocky figure on a lead Tiger tank appears on the screen, huge sunglasses wrapped around his peaked cap. The image immediately clinches his identity as Field Marshal Rommel who led from the front. The cameo, linking the legendary Desert Fox with the fate of US Rangers, is a prime example of artistic licence plausible enough, even if historically inaccurate.  

Can the world’s largest film industry, churning out scores of big-budget movies annually, wash its hands off the real world? This might pass muster in the name of mass entertainment because a formula-driven set-up can blithely dispense with authenticity or verisimilitude. But when film-makers overlook these factors in themes based on war or military operations, they unwittingly step into a minefield of faux passes.  For instance, Georgette patches, introduced in 2004, make their appearance on the collars of a brigadier in Haider, set in 1995. Junior artistes, in various stages of obesity, parlayed infantry officers. The movie questioned AFPSA’s role in Kashmir. If the Army bore such ill will towards the state, will someone explain why it mounted unprecedented rescue operations to extract hundreds of thousands from the jaws of death, during the floods there. 

Filmmakers might argue that a factual presentation might put off cine-goers, so they have to sweeten movies with layers of make-believe or fantasy. But then how it is possible for movies like Saving Private Ryan,‘The Thin Red Line, A Bridge Too Far, Assembly and TV serials like Band of Brothers, Generation Wars  to succeed beyond expectations. Significantly, Europe and China are far ahead of Bollywood in terms of cinematic excellence and production values, besides assimilating the latest in technology. For instance, Generation Wars, a German TV serial based on World War II, won accolades in the US for its thematic brilliance and graphic realism in combat sequences, after being released as a two-part movie!  Chinese and Korean filmmakers are also catching up with their Hollywood counterparts.   

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---Sudip Talukdar is an author and strategic affairs columnist

Courtesy: Indian Defence Review