RELIGION IN THE ARMED FORCES

 Lieutenant Samuel Kamalesan was recently in the news, as his petition against his dismissal from the army was rejected by the Supreme Court. Being a veteran, we have attended countless services in the temples, gurudwaras, churches and mosques over the four odd decades, while one was in the service of the nation. Frankly as a youngster in the unit, all these religious parades, as they were referred to, was not something one looked forward to eagerly, barring the gurudwara, where the attraction was the ‘kadha prasad’, (the mouthwatering ghee dripping ‘halwa’), and sure enough some of us would even volunteer to help in the distribution as at the end, there was a chance that we would be rewarded with an extra helping. Fresh out of the academies, most of us had just about bid farewell to the teenage, still adolescents at heart and many of our immature actions left our seniors in no doubt about that. While sports fields were fun, the religious worship routines were not, especially if it went on for too long, as the priest/granthi /maulvi invariably made it a point to instil all the scriptures laden sermons onto the gathering. 

Many an articles have been written about the true secular values of the Indian Armed Forces, 

where mutual tolerance is not just for display, but actually practised. The Muslim Commanding 

Officer performing ‘aaratis’ in the unit temple, or the Hindu Commanding Officer observing ‘roza’

 with their muslim troops, no wonder the expectation from each officer was that they would follow this healthy tradition religiously, which almost all of us did voluntarily, some may have followed the diktats

 grudgingly, but none ever refused to toe the line. Perceptions matter, the troops must be 

convinced that we are with them in thick and thin.

 Let us understand the nuances of secularism, then I think we will be better placed to 

comprehend this seemingly harsh action in its correct perspective. I feel as a nation, we 

haven’t really assimilated the true essence of being ‘secular’. The Western definition is, 

‘separation of the state from the church’, i.e. the state should not be a theocracy. Merely 

absence of a singular religion as the official formal religion of the state may qualify strictly as

 per the definition, but in India ours is a deeply religious society which is also a multi religious 

one, we defined secularism as ‘tolerance’ for the other religions. The term ‘tolerance’, has a 

negative connotation, i.e. we may or may not approve of the other’s faith, but are forced to live

 with it, in other words, we simply tolerate it. Hinduism professes, ‘ekam sat vipra bahudha 

vadanti’, meaning the truth is one, the wise express it differently, thus accepting everyone’s 

version, not merely tolerating it. The moment, we start accepting this as a fact, there is no 

dichotomy in our minds. By observing the regimental traditions, we are honouring the unit and

 the men both. There is never an embargo on anyone following his personal religious beliefs in

 his/her own time, i.e. individually one can go to the church or mosque, observe fasts or follow

 any other practises which are mandated by their religion. Collectively, we take pride in 

following the unit traditions, which may or may not be religious, it is here that friend Samuel 

committed this blunder. The act of refusal of a lawful command is a punishable offence and this

 was not by omission, it was by commission, hence it could not have been ignored. 

Unfortunately, the usual suspects in the civil world, who are troubled by the decision, and are

 raising the bogey of majoritarianism, are barking up the wrong tree. As there are countless

 number of cases where, non Muslim officers have been observing roza voluntarily in solidarity

 with the troops, as mentioned earlier. The true religion of a soldier is the “naam namak nishan”

, the  ‘izzat’ of the unit, this is not understood by many in the  civil world. Religion of the officer 

is that of his unit. My earnest request is, let the armed forces be, please leave them alone and

 please do not vitiate the environment in the units by unnecessarily looking for controversies. 

Such actions need to be nipped in the bud. 

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