Mike Tyson, one of the legendary pugilists, is known
as much for his knockout punches as for his “Bad Boy” image off the ring. Our
Army does pack a punch for sure and what our soldiers do for us apart from
guarding our borders cannot be measured in words. For instance, the rescue and
rehabilitation work post the Uttarakhand floods didn’t start moving at all till
the defense forces joined in. Whenever our soldiers have got together, be it to
fight for the nation or to help the fellow citizens in need, they have led by
example.
Time and again though, there have been allegations
of rape and other wrong doings against our soldiers in places like Manipur and
the Kashmir Valley. The Pathribal case immediately comes to mind at this
moment. I do not know the truth behind those allegations for I have heard that
there have also been attempts by various groups to somehow get the defense
forces out of those states on some pretext or other. However, what I know and have witnessed on
many occasions is the misconduct of soldiers in service or post retirement in a
civilian social setup. And this is why I got tempted to call it “Mike Tyson Syndrome” for the good of
these men also got negated by the evil in them. It’s almost as if they can
never let go off their “camp lifestyle” even when they are thousand miles away
from their colleagues.
The latest incident happened just a few of days back
on the train that I took back to Delhi post my vacation in Shillong. We boarded
the train at morning and found a man lying asleep on the middle berth. Overnight
travel had taken its toll and so I asked my father to get some sleep in one of
the other middle berths which belonged to us. The Saint (ofcourse my father) replied that it
would be inconvenient for fellow passengers. While I climbed up onto the upper
berth, my parents and another family managed to adjust themselves in the
opposite berth. My father preferred it
that way as he didn't want to wake the sleeping passenger. When the breakfast
was served, my father requested the man to wake up and come down so that
everyone could have breakfast properly. He didn't pay any heed to the request
and my father, being the peace loving man that he is, got down to eating his
breakfast while staying low in the sitting posture. Just then Mr.Idiot (let’s
give a name to the bugger) woke up and started to climb down. One of the
passengers apparently requested him to wait for five minutes and yet the man
climbed down from the wrong end and almost put his foot on my father’s plate. He
then pulled out his bag without even bothering about whose foot he was crushing
or whom he was kicking. He took out his toothbrush, paste and two bottles of
whiskey to get his engine started for the day.
The noise of bags being pulled in and out from
beneath the seat was too much a distraction for me to keep lying down. I don’t
know whether he brushed or not but it was pretty evident to all of us that he
was drunk at 9 O’Clock in the morning. He again came and on the pretext of
searching for some stuff, took out all his clothes from the bag including his
undergarments and put all those in a heap on the seat next to the ladies. The
ladies were visibly embarrassed and turned their heads in the other direction.
His play with his bags continued unabashed and then I asked him to either stop fiddling with his bag or shift his
bag to the edge of the seat and play with it all day long. He cursed me saying
that I forced him to shift his bag because I wanted my bags to be kept away
from the aisle for safety sake. I laughed and the other passengers joined in as
well. He got into a tiff with the waiters next for no reason and abused one of them
with choicest words while blabbering about the inferiority of a waiter before
the might of a soldier. This man had liquor flowing through his veins and in
hindsight it seemed then that waking him up was a mistake indeed.
The next act
of this man really got us fuming and it would be embarrassing for the other soldiers
to know that a fellow Indian soldier in a public place went about requesting almost
every passenger to zip up his trouser. Drinking is fine but being a nuisance to
others is not. We had to confront this man and threatened to throw him off the
train in the next station. He was taken away to the next compartment by a
colleague of his and we breathed a sigh of relief for we heard that he would
sleep there itself at night. A man along with his little daughter shifted to the
troublemaker’s berth instead. At midnight again though, Mr.Idiot came and forced
the sleeping child to vacate that berth apparently because the other
compartment had kids who were being very loud. Waah ab aur kya kahe…..!!!
An area where Defense Services need to work on is
the social skill/discipline of its members. The soldiers stay away from normal
society for too long and so it is natural that they often do not fit into a
civilian society easily. That is where the Human Resources Division should play
its part. In a crowd, it is still easier to identify a soldier than identifying
a Banker or a Doctor. Everytime a soldier errs, the great institution gets
dragged into the filth. In fact, my personal view is that so called “liquor
quota” is an excess best left restricted within the place of service. What is
the need to allow liquor bottles in the baggage while travelling by public mode
of transport???? They are soldiers, not drunkards. Celebrating with a drink or a
daily peg or two is understandable but drinking as an Art of Living is beyond
me. Not every soldier is that educated or intelligent enough to recognise the
immediate environment and behave accordingly. That is when they err and bring
disrepute to their esteemed organisation. At a time when there are often talks of wrongdoings
by defense forces against civilians; code of behaviour for soldiers in a
civilian setup should be the priority. It is not the effects of alcohol but the
social behaviour in general that should be taught to the soldiers especially to those in the lower ranks.
Exit Counselling for servicemen on
the verge of retirement is important to facilitate a smooth transition of the
soldier into a civilian. They need not feel insulted and get psyched up if the world beyond that gate acts a bit indifferently henceforth. It is normal if the watchman does not salute now or open the gate on time or that the priority service is no longer extended to them. High handed
behaviour is often a result of difficulty in accepting the fact that Ranks usually do
not matter in a normal social setup. Infact, I may be speaking out of ignorance and perhaps the Defense Services training
establishments have already been working on these lines since ages and in which
case I can only say that it is my misfortune that I mostly happen to come
across the worst students in the class!!!
