Siachen

As I dutifully focus on the guard post across the yawning snow, the stove next to me splutters. Tea leaves boil in the all-purpose fauji tin-can. The stove cannot be placed farther, for the beverage will freeze if I don’t drink it straight from the stove. Heavy goggles cover my groggy but alert eyes, lest the glint of the sun on the glacial ice blinds me. The ravenously cold barrel of my automatic weapon weighs against my thickly gloved palms, but it may have to spit fire any moment, or never at all. In this unforgiving and stern lap of Mother Nature, I stand with my brothers to fight the adversary. But there are times when I wonder who the adversary really is. The enemy is most certainly at the gates, but is that the enemy without or within?

The question has confronted me on numerous occasions.

I think of the ambushes, cordon and search operations I routinely do in the valley and the north-east. Generations of residents, pushed to the limits by government apathy and/or political strategy and denied the right to a respectable life, teeter on the brink of insanity. When the law refuses to stand by them, many of them are driven to become what analysts term ‘separatists’. Chaos and carnage ensues, with enough entities ready to fan the smoldering fire. The powers that be are disturbed, and I am called in to ensure “area dominance”. Nobody tells me how to make out a foe from a friend, because nobody knows how to. I am ambushed by the same people I am tasked to protect. I do what I have sworn to do – my job. I thus become the enemy. I patrol the streets knowing that the innocent and the guilty both view me with equal contempt and want me removed. Stray incidents of indiscretion and irrationality from some of my own make things further complicated. Slogans are shouted against me as I put my life on the line to neutralize armed attackers. And I wonder who exactly I am fighting. And if I end up making what is termed as a “supreme sacrifice”, wreaths are placed on my coffin and business goes on as usual.

I think of the flag marches I have done to ensure people don’t kill each other off based on caste, creed, religion, this, that, anything, everything. Power-mongers have quietly arranged for sparks to set the dried timber of poverty and unemployment on fire, have watched voyeuristically from a distance, and have then called me in. Nobody has probably wondered how I, who come from among the same people baying for each other’s blood, have managed to remain unbiased and almost mechanical. But I have, as I must.

I think of the studied lethargy of the governments that has always forced me to work with strained resources and information. Decades are expended in finalizing any major procurement order, and indigenous development projects run decades behind schedule. State-run units work with the smugness of assured monopoly, and even basic equipment like carbines remain in short supply. Coffins are allegedly procured with kickbacks and procured bulletproof jackets are substandard. Indian private manufacturers are shut out, and a Military Industrial Complex remains a pipedream. And I stand out there in the open, knowing that a gun never dies, it just falls silent sometimes.

I think of the dents that are waning away my organization’s reputation for honesty, diligence and ironclad principles. Flag-rank officers have been accused of graft, immorality and irregularities and valuable funds have allegedly been utilized for sprucing up the lifestyles of the top brass. My once unwavering trust in my superior, that he will watch my back while I walk into danger, is now under severe strain.

All this makes a dangerous concoction in my mind. My hands tremble for a brief flash of time. And then I remind myself that I joined this organization because I believed in something and because I wanted to live a life less ordinary. I assure myself that the clouds hovering over my country and my organization are but temporary. And I decide to stand up and be counted. And then I pick up the gun and promise every citizen – Sleep sound, for I will protect you, always.