As a nation, we do not need a day to remind us of the atrocities during Partition

“Another area that Modiji should not tinker with is the defense services. Our Army, Navy and Air Force have always been our pride and our joy. The citizens of every caste and creed repose immense faith in the institution. A thought has been recently floated that the Army, Navy and Air Force Chiefs should be chosen purely on merit, disregarding seniority. This move has disturbed the dovecotes. At present, the choice is almost certain. Since the promotions at every step of the ladder have been on the basis of merit and performance the process of sifting the chaff from the grain has been in play from the very start of their military careers. Everyone knows who is going to be the next Chief, like all Supreme Court judges know who is to be the next CJI. Why change a practice that has worked well for as long as memory holds?”

Why does Modiji fall back on divisiveness after flirting with the unifying? Sports unites! Modiji’s breakfast at his home with our sportspersons who constituted our Olympic contingent was a welcome step in uniting castes and creeds. Those of us who strive and dream of unity in our country were overjoyed when he displayed leadership of an extraordinary kind when interacting with our athletes, encouraging them, consoling those who lost and celebrating those who won.

And then on August 15, a day of national rejoicing, he spoils our good humor by announcing that August 14 every year will be observed as ‘Horrors Day’ because the subcontinent was partitioned, Pakistan declared its Independence Day and terrible atrocities were recorded on both sides of the demarcated borders.

Every Indian knows of those awful days when men turned into savages. Why spoil the nation’s mood by an unneeded announcement? Who wants to be perpetually reminded of the blood spilt while crossing borders in search of genial neighbors where co-religionists would be there to welcome you?

Whenever mention is made of the Gujarat killings of 2002, my circle of friends recommend a memory loss and a more positive frame of mind moving on to the future! Modiji himself always harps on positivity as opposed to negative feelings about men and matters! Then why is a positive leader seeking to perpetuate ‘horrors’, an intrinsically negative concept? A museum depicting those horrors already exists in Amritsar, something on the lines of the Holocaust museums in Poland and Germany. (My wife and I have visited the museum at Treblinka outside Warsaw.)

The horrors of Partition will never be forgotten. The Armenians never forget the horrors they were subjected to by the Turks in 1915 and thereafter. Women and children were marched through the desert adjoining Aleppo in Syria. They died of hunger and thirst. Their men had been shot earlier in their own villages. The Armenians never forget that genocide. How can they? Now, Turkish ambassadors the world over are equipped with bullet-proof cars to protect them from young Armenians seeking revenge.

So, also, the purge of Bengalis in East Pakistan by the Pakistan army in the time of Gen Yahya Khan, then the military ruler of Pakistan. Hindu Bengalis were specifically targeted. Can Bangladeshis ever forget those atrocities? I doubt it. These are facts of history.

But we expect Modiji to move ahead without stirring up emotions further by declaring a ‘Horrors Day’ to be observed every year a day before our national day of rejoicing. He should realize that citizens of India will forever remember what happened during the Partition, when people on both sides of the border lost their power of reasoning. What could have moved Modiji to ruffle feathers by that unexpected announcement? The Hindu right has always bemoaned the Partition of the subcontinent, which they consider sacred land that should be rechristened Hindu rashtra. Could Partition have been avoided? Can Gandhiji and Nehru be held responsible for agreeing to the Partition of the country? The political commentator, Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar, writing last Sunday on the occasion of Independence Day, gave valid historical reasons why he felt the Partition was inevitable.

From the perspective of law and order alone this old policeman feels that a population almost evenly divided between Hindus and Muslims would be perpetually at ‘war’ on the streets of our cities. The Islamic concept of religion being so diametrically different from the Hindu way of life and with religion playing such an outsized role in the life of a Muslim, the probability of clashes would be extremely high, almost certain, unless power was shared in near equal proportion, something that would not be palatable to the proponents of a Hindu rashtra.

Another area that Modiji should not tinker with is the defense services. Our Army, Navy and Air Force have always been our pride and our joy. The citizens of every caste and creed repose immense faith in the institution. A thought has been recently floated that the Army, Navy and Air Force Chiefs should be chosen purely on merit, disregarding seniority. This move has disturbed the dovecotes. At present, the choice is almost certain. Since the promotions at every step of the ladder have been on the basis of merit and performance the process of sifting the chaff from the grain has been in play from the very start of their military careers. Everyone knows who is going to be the next Chief, like all Supreme Court judges know who is to be the next CJI. Why change a practice that has worked well for as long as memory holds?

Merit is a nebulous entity. In any case a certain amount of subjectivity has already entered the process of selection at every stage. If at the last stage the factor of merit is going to be left to the discretion of politicians, allowing ideology and sycophancy to assume prime importance, then the whole ethos of discipline, camaraderie, loyalty to the men under your command, justice, fair play, etc. will have to be discarded. And that would be disastrous!

The armed forces will be reduced to a civilian unit, like the police, where lobbying for high office has become so commonplace that often the wrong people are put in charge of delivering not what the law commands but its very opposite!

(The author is a highly decorated retired IPS officer)