No country for soldiers

Tarun Vijay | Sat, 13 May 2017-08:05am , DNA It is time people and politicians of India come together to weed out enemies — both internal and external First, they abduct an army officer and kill him, then pelt stones at his funeral gathering. Lt Ummer Faiyaz’s martyrdom and the insult to his last rites should have triggered nation-wide outrage and anger. But to my dismay, I see people occupied with their usual work — the political establishment in the country isn’t up in arms and there is no solidarity that transcends party lines in condemnation of this horrid incident. There is no coming together of sorts to fight the empire of evil unleashed by these nefarious terrorists, no words of sympathy from any known quarters of our academics, column writers or human rights activists. Ours is a strange land. Filled with the Left-jihadi breed of defeatist people who delight in writing against their own people and nation; who willingly testify against their motherland in a foreign country’s senate and who, in turn, receive accolades. Ours is a land where being anti-Indian is a badge that pays dividends to a select few in the form of fellowships abroad. They, in turn, receive awards for their completely fictional and abusive narration against the armed forces. These are the very people who take up missionary media campaigns against people who love and serve their nation. This is the neo-Nazism of the Left variety. There are those who are perpetually busy discussing and condemning gau-rakshaks but have no words to offer on the martyrdom of Ummer Faiyaz. Then, there are the 23 former IAS officers being led by a Gandhi-Vadra family loyalist, who have found time to write a scathing letter to the chief minister of Rajasthan on the Pehlu Khan incident but now are stunningly silent on the brave soldier’s untimely demise. There is no sign that the award wapsi brigade will come back to life protesting this intolerance and shout at the extremists of the Valley who have displayed nothing but their cowardice by killing a 23 springs old, bright army officer from Kashmir, who stood with his blood brothers and gave his life for defending the tricolour. For whom do these soldiers fight? For whom do they die? The outrage among the ‘seculars’ that was seen when a stone pelter was tied to the front of an army jeep is completely absent when terrorists committed the dastardly act of murdering an unarmed Indian soldier in cold blood. I write this column on a day when we are celebrating the courage of Pokhran shown by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1998. Vajpayee showed the world that India is capable of providing for its own security goals and does not have to bother about the shamanist anti-nuclear lobby. Now is the time when India must have a Pokhran III — not in terms of developing its nuclear arsenal — but in eliminating all terror from Indian soil. From the Valley to the jungles of Chhattisgarh — from the Jihadis to the Maoists — those assaulting the Indian people and soldiers must be eliminated. It is a war on India. It is about time that we arouse the Pokhran spirit in us to crush those thugs who killed Lt Ummer Faiyaz and made a mockery of our restraint. The security of our people and the izzat of our armed forces must reign supreme on our mind and we must be ruthless when it is necessary to be so. The war in the Valley cannot be allowed to lapse into a daily routine of fatigued news that fails to shake up our conscience. I have reported on terrorism in the Valley in the 90s and on the Kargil war from the battlefield of Batalik. I know, firsthand, that there are no other people as cowardly and as thuggish as these Facebook loonies. They attack the very army that helps Indians during natural disasters and calamities. Through its Sadhbhavana scheme, thousands of young Kashmiri girls and boys are receiving free education. Presently, 45 Sadbhavana schools in the Valley are functioning where fourteen thousand Kashmiri students are studying. They sing the national anthem with pride, read chapters on Gandhi and Tagore, unfurl the tricolour with passion and patriotic fervour and salute the martyrs of the Indian armed forces. That’s the graciousness of the armed forces that remains unrecognised by Delhi’s elite sultanate of the Left-jihadis. These jihadi stone pelters are insulting Kashmiriyat and are a burden on Kashmir. The common Kashmiri loves India and wants his children to have better educational prospects, and become like Lt Ummer Faiyaz. They must receive state’s protection and encouragement. They are us