Oh and there is no need for “exemplar” situations from the “betters”. There is no glory in war and less glory-seeking by the “betters” is better for the “worsers”.

Btw, India is the only country where the military is truly under civilian control. You can add UK to that to some extent. In every other country, military does control upto the highest level and are subordinate only to elected officials (if they exist.) In India, the military is subordinate to another layer of bureaucracy which adds a much needed civilian perspective to the management of military affairs and conflicts. Also, India is one of the few countries where a military uniform cannot help in launching a political career. It makes sure that military staff does not indulge in hijinks with an eye on future careers. In most other countries, people have a serious hard on for military uniforms. I have never understood why.

The article raises an extremely basic question - is it universally “noble” to be in the armed forces ? When did killing human beings become a “noble” task ? Yes, when you see the military as a licensed killing machine, you suddenly realize the pathetic nadir that we as a civilization seem perennially stuck in. All the sugar coating of patriotism, duty towards the country, offering the ultimate sacrifice for protecting the borders is all crap - CRAP. The military is a means to kill - kill fellow humans on the other side of the border. Or much further - like in Vietnam, or in Iraq or in Kosovo.

Come to think of it, people in the military are treated by the civil society with a lot of respect - even though the military are paid to kill (and can do hardly anything else). The military should probably be called the oldest profession in the world. And it deserves all the stigma that is unfortunately associated with this phrase currently.

One would have expected the armed forces (especially the ones that go with sugar coats like “peace keeping forces”, and if they were truly “noble”) to define a roadmap for self-obsolescence. Rarely has this ever happened. Armed conflict is self-perpetuating machine.

The “betters” in the society should recognize this nadir of human endeavor and therefore stay away from it. More importantly, they should educate the less betters to realize the simple fact that military is all about killing people, and pave the way as in some (western european) countries, to making the military gradually obsolescent.

I went through your article again. You could have avoided lot of unnecessary comparsion which has no basis with military and talked specific issues. I think People like you want to harm us “for what we believe in

1 I went through your article comparing us with Mac Donald, but was bit busy to reply you.

2 Whatever may be the reason of you excluding us from better half of society, I would like to at least tell you that this profession serves the people not by giving burgers but by providing a socially useful and necessary function: defending the country.

3 Now this requirement of increase pay packet is his meeting of a society need but it does not make any difference to the righteous officer own moral dimension of the Army’s professionalism as well as the noble character of the individual officer’s service to his fellow citizens.

4 All I would say that once we join we are firstly treated equal with no distinction between your so called ‘betters of society and less’. The entry scheme is from a varied schools and colleges. Also when we commission all of us live by what is embodied explicitly on Chetwood Hall and a pledge in the commission there is implicitly with own self of a moral obligation & moral commitment always to put service before self. All of us then pass out as Indian Army Officers with no distinction of class of society

5 Therefore, if involved in the type of any crisis for the country , unlike your so called ‘betters of society’, there will never be in the Indian army officer’s mind the need to preserve self. To the officer of this fine army , self is always to be abnegated to the higher calling through the disciplined application of moral or physical courage.

6 Given this attitude and behavior, coupled with the concept of selfless service noted above, fear of the truth also holds no power whatsoever over the officer. It is, in fact, his or her very best companion during the long journey of service.

7 Thus, application of these principles yields attitudes and behavior often at odds with those within the society of your so called ‘betters’ the officer has chosen to serve. Does this then mean that the officer is in any manner less than those in high society even when he does not believe in that unethical spoiled living ? We do not believe so. It means only that the Indian army officer is different, and has unreservedly chosen to be so.

8 We live by self-righteousness & do not become MacDonald employees serving for daily wages under capitalism . We are serving and fighting against the enemy of this country and we have disdain for stunts by which your high society is trying to empower the country . Unlike your rich employees, the officers of Indian Army are operating in camaraderie under the imperatives of their commission, to tend in a principled manner to each other, to their profession and to its ethos.

A message for your ‘better half of society’ who are not joining services

‘Honour sinks where commerce long prevails’

Bye regards
brando

As per Clausewitz, the three tendencies from which war is composed are:

1. the blind natural force of primordial violence, hatred and enmity
2. the play of chance and probability, within which the creative spirit is free to roam
3. the element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to pure reason.

The modern historians (in a typical Hollywoodisation of complex theories) reduce Clausewitz’s dynamic trinity to his quite secondary reference to government (or state), army and people. Instead of Clausewitz’s rich and contradictory trinity of hatred and violence, chance, and politik, war is simply reduced to its agents. As the British historian Michael Howard pointed out, Clausewitzian dialectics embraced the relations between means and ends; moral factors and physical forces; historical knowledge and critical judgments made in the field; absolute, or ideal, war and real war; attack and defence, and tactics and strategy.