Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)       As a nation, we choose silence. And it is in the shadow of our silence that treason spawns its many sons. Its primary weapons are intellectual elitism and social snobbery. We are told that to be a nationalist is to be cerebrally stunted, showing little understanding of how we are really meant to be, as citizens of the world. In this synthetically manufactured utopia, common sense is a supposed clue to lack of breeding. So we, the people, must close our eyes to the ugliness that manifests itself in so many forms each moment, and celebrate an idea that is never…

Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)       Some soldier with a funny bone at 102 Infantry Brigade (Base Camp) will tell you that Siachen means ‘Rose Garden’. Its true. Maybe its funny, in a self-deprecating sort of way. Most soldiers crack jokes, which only they can understand. It’s been a violent year, both emotionally and physically. Never was the Indian Army attacked by those that they loved. Except for this year. We won the wars fought on the Line of Control and across. We lost those fought inside our country, because those who attacked us were our countrymen. When I was in the army my Commanding Officer told…

Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)       Mahender Mishar (Mishra) of Behar (Bihar) was a short, dark man who, had you met him in a dark alley, would have probably greeted you with a polite “namaste” and moved forward, head bowed. Until one fine day in probably the mid-1930s (year not known), the British media reported that this seemingly innocent man was a criminal mastermind who had perfected the art of counterfeiting British currency. Mishra was packed off to prison. Emmerich Heisenberg, a Nazi secret agent in London read about this in the “Daily News” with a great deal of interest. So impressed was he with the entire…

Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)       Secularism is the separation of religion and state. Simply put, religion has nothing to do with how a country is ruled. The state itself, at least structurally, is atheist. No one will be discriminated against, on the basis of religion. This is the most widely accepted definition of secularism. There are a few other motivated definitions, which border on selectively perpetrated fraud. As a soldier, I am absolutely apolitical. I have nothing whatsoever to do with any political party. I do not understand politics, and neither do I wish to. But I understand defending the physical and the ideological frontiers of…

Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)       All soldiers want peace, and this is an undisputable fact. They want peace because they are the ones who die in war. I get messages from doves that accuse me of warmongering. They say that I have an unhealthy obsession with war and blood; that I don’t value human life. Think of me as a surgeon who recommends amputation of a limb that is severely infected by gangrene. If the limb is not cut, the gangrene will spread. The limb has to be cut to save the patient. The surgical procedure is not pleasant. But that does not make me a…

Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)        “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…  No one writes like this any more. Charles Dickens would approve. After all he wrote those immortal lines. Pre French Revolution Paris and London were twins of their unfortunate selves. Envy, greed, lust, subjugation, hopelessness and despair; never were two cities so conjoined in misery. Certainly not until the late sixties when Pakistan…

Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)       Yesterday, eighteen of my brothers were martyred in a terror attack in Uri Sector. Eighteen homes were shattered. Children were orphaned. Their fathers will come home in a coffin, wrapped in the tri-color. eighteen homes will not celebrate Diwali this year. Yes, we will grieve for our dead. We will take care of their families, for that is our way of life. But we will save our tears for later. Today, we will sit and plan retribution. I have had enough of you peaceniks; enough of you people lighting candles at Wagah. The day you lose a brother, you will know…

Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)       Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War For seven decades, there has been a systematic and institutionalized humiliation of the armed forces of India. It started with Nehru and the then ruling elite wondering why we needed an armed force, to begin with. The police was all that was needed to maintain law and order, they argued. After all, hadn’t our forefathers conceived of the unique concept of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”?…

Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)       General Sam Manekshaw paced up and down his office, his furrowed brow almost touching the center of his forehead. His lean frame was ramrod straight, his gait long and striding, typical of infantrymen who spend their lifetime walking over harsh terrain. He knew that his army was plunging headlong into war. It was only a matter of time. It had all started a year back in 1970, when Pakistan refused to accept its own election results. The Awami League had won 167 out of 169 seats in East Pakistan, making it the largest party in the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament). Its leader Sheikh…

Major Gaurav Arya Indian Army (Retd.)       When did it exactly start? No one knows. But it can be said with a degree of certainty that in the early nineties when the Pakistanis decided that JKLF or Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, a “pro-azaadi” terror outfit in Kashmir, should cease to exist, it was the beginning of Islamic Jihad in the Kashmir valley. JKLF wanted Jammu & Kashmir to be ‘free’ from India. Pakistan applauded it. But JKLF also wanted Jammu & Kashmir to be free from Pakistan. Suddenly, JKLF leaders started getting killed. Look at the names of the terror outfits operating in Kashmir today. You have Lashkar-e-Toiba,…