In a recent interview with Barkha Dutt, Brig Sandy Thapar (Retd), a veteran and an Army father, claims that not only does this kind of bigotry have the risk of affecting the army, it probably already has. Adm Arun Prakash (Retd) has also taken to social media to express horror at the repercussions of xenophobia and religious nationalism on the armed forces and the other uniformed forces that have taken an oath to defend the Constitution. Ditto Gen Ved Malik (Retd). Other equally respected veterans have voiced their concerns about this issue.
I found myself thinking back to something that happened to me two years ago. I remember ‘inheriting’ my late father’s email account after his passing, and was unlucky enough to see conversations in an email group of ‘PSU Absorbees’ that were not only full of racial and religious hatred, but bordered on what could be clearly classified as hate speech. A lot of it was also filled with various kinds of woo and superstition, WhatsApp U ‘knowledge’, and general ignorance not expected from a gathering so august (as is generally considered by civilians). For me, of course, having been born in a Puneri Brahmin family and having grown up in the various cantonments across the nation, in close proximity to the armed forces, it was only mildly surprising, and not at all shocking. The surprising part wasn’t from the content or tone though, but the intensity and passion with which the hatred had seeped and was being spread as well as the total lack of even a modicum of resistance from people you’d expect a certain aggressiveness as a given.
Before closing down the account, I wrote back to them, and later published my response. Here it is for those who care.
Later edit: On 10 March 2022, there was a research paper published by some researchers at the University of Michigan, USA, titled ‘The Discursive Value of Military Support for Indian Politicians on Twitter’. Even though it only speaks of the veteran’s behaviour on a specific social media platform, it is an eye-opener.
