926 WORDS
THE LITTLE SOLDIER
MUMBAI-LUCKNOW
-
Bina
Sarkar Ellias (India)
The wheels turned. A split-seconds’ decision found my companion
and me quickly boarding the unreserved
third-class ladies compartment of the Bombay-Lucknow Express, just as it
lurched out of the station. Not having made it past the wait-list in the
air-conditioned sleeper, it seemed the only option to not missing the “Gender
Issues” conference we were heading for in Lucknow.
The tiny Ladies
Only compartment was a bees’ nest of women and children, all of whom buzzed at
the same pitch –– several decibels higher than what we might call a normal
conversation key. Looking visually incongruous in our casual-chic, we were
briefly appraised by our co-passengers and offered ten inches of space each, as
a concession for being such rare species in their midst. It was a “class”
issue. While my companion shrank into a corner seat and shut out her discomfort
with a book, I did a quick survey of the situation. It held promise and
crackled with electricity.
Across me, sat a portly woman in the ubiquitous
black burqa scolding a gaggle of
children from the Dharavi slums. She was Noorjehan Bibi. From atop a trunk near
my seat, a middle-aged woman held forth. She was Leelaben, a Gujarati Hindu who
ran a beauty parlour in a shanty town near Jogeshwari. Leelaben would regale us
with stories of havaldars, the local
cops who hound her parlour in search of hafta,
their weekly commission, and how often, in lieu, settle gleefully for a nubile
beautician. And the aisle, all the way to the door, bustled with tribal vendors
squatting with their vegetable baskets on the floor, shifting and moving until
a comfort zone was located. This was
secular India, in cacophonic co-existence.
Beyond, sat a
young woman and child and with them was a boyish-looking young man in army
fatigue! A man? In a Ladies’s Only compartment? Shripal Singh had obviously
made peace with the outraged women before the train had left the station, for
he seemed perfectly at ease, in sync with the rhythm of the turning wheels.
“I am a soldier,”
was his answer to my polite enquiry “Aapyehankaise?
(How come you are here?), “and this is my family. My wife is too young to care
for the child alone on a journey. I'm also concerned about their safety,” he
said, waving his arm in the general direction of the raucous bunch of harmless
women. “I'm a soldier,” he emphasized. I was to understand that gave him
special privileges. Indeed, she looked barely sixteen and he appeared not more
than eighteen.
It was
post-Kargil, just after the 1999 war involving the horrific deaths of hundreds
of innocents on both sides of the Line of Control between India and
Pakistan. Every news channel on
television showed funerals of young soldiers –– those whose lives were
dispensable for our respective governments.
I watched the
callow youthfulness of the little soldier as he played with his child. He was
returning from a long, demanding stretch at the Cutch border and said how much
he looked forward to visiting his parent’s home in a village outside Lucknow.
What did he think
of the war?
“Kargil?” said
Shripal Singh, “The Pakistanis deserved it.” His soft face hardened and he
continued as if by rote. “They are butchers…
“They killed
thousands of Hindus during Partition. If a thief enters your house, must you
not defend it?” Having heard echoes of this sentiment even among the educated
and privileged, I ventured, “Did Hindus not kill as well?” “But that was in
self-defense!” he exclaimed. “Is it not true,” I asked, “that violence inhabits
all of us? That it can manifest itself in any individual, people of any
religion, community or tribe? As an Indian Hindu soldier, did you not kill?
“Is it not true
that you have been trained to believe the Pakistani soldier/civilian is an
enemy who threatens your home and nation, just as a Pakistani soldier is
similarly programmed? And if you did not believe so, you would not be able to
kill….
“Enemies are
created and wars engineered to benefit a few. Religion and nationalism are
invoked to seed anger and lies are fed to stoke the anger. They believe many lies
become a truth. And people can be bought with that dubious truth.
“Those who
engineer wars are untouched by its brutality and suffering. And soldiers are
their pawns, trained to hate so killing becomes easy, and death for a nation is
celebrated as the ultimate in heroism.”
Sripal Singh sat
still for a long time. Then, his face softened and he said, “What you say is
true. Actually, we do not talk about these things. And we soldiers do not think
too much. We are simple people. We do what we are destined to do. Kill, or die
at war.”
Then he dropped
his voice and said, “The truth is, I have killed. Because I hated the enemy,
because we are made to believe they are evil; fanatics, invaders and rapists.
Recently, we captured five Pakistani men who had strayed into our territory. We
tormented them in custody for five days. Then we had orders to shoot them down
in a barren area.
“They were
innocent. They were probably herdsmen. We had no reason to kill them. “Bus, yoon hi… Just like that…” he said
in a dead-pan voice, “The officer was bored and ordered us to kill. I had
erased this from my mind but now it comes back. Now I understand, we are also
butchers.”
The wheels
uncannily turned slowly to a halt.
****