Mourning the War Dead

R Hariharan

Generally we seem to be picking up the wrong things from the U.S. and miss out on some of the things that have made it a unique nation. I read this article a few days back written by Chiristina Bellantoni in the Washington Times on how the U. S. President Barack Obama, in spite of his busy schedule sends out condolence letters signed by him as ‘Barack’ to the parents of soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan.

In a touching comment, Thya Merz, mother of Marine Lance Corporal Julian Brennan killed on Jan 24 in Afghanistan referred to President Obama’s letter said, “This was real, it was personal, it was so important to us." She further told the reporter that the letter was signed “Barack’ and not 'president,' just his first name, and it just felt like, OK, my son has been acknowledged.” Incidentally, Julian was married to his fiancée six weeks before he was sent on to fight in Afghanistan.

The president was not just reproducing a master copy of a condolence letter to be sent to all. He drafted them in his own hand and sent it for typing! He personalised each letter after gathering details about the person, his hometown and where he was stationed. Can we imagine this happening in our country or for that matter in any of the South Asian countries, where thousands of soldiers die every year and the newspapers in most cases do not even give their names! And it is not their fault. The bureaucracy considers the dead soldiers as numbers and the politicians do not want too many body bags to be seen in public for political reasons.

This is where the U.S. culture is different. President Obama who did not support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had this to say to a news channel on this duty that falls on every president. He said the duty falls to him, though he did not initiate the wars and opposed the invasion of Iraq. In those moments of signing the letters, “you realize every decision you make counts.” As the supreme commander the signing of the condolence letter affirms the President’s ownership of the war. And it is not only Obama who signs such letters. His predecessor George W Bush was equally committed to this duty. That unfortunately is not the equation in India.

I had given the example of our attitude in my blog on January 28 titled “Martyr’s widow not allowed into Rashtrapati Bhavan” regarding a war widow who had come to receive the medal in honour of her dead husband at the Republic Day parade. She was not allowed into the Rashtrapati Bhavan to attend a reception because the young soldier’s wife had two small kids. And she was not smart enough to leave them elsewhere to fend for themselves! Will that ever happen? I am not optimistic. For us people are nobody because we are one too many. And soldiers are mere numbers. If one or two die the newspapers may not even report such news. But for every family of the soldier such a national attitude is galling.

Let us not confuse our national attitudes with ahimsa and the philosophy of non violence. It has nothing to do with that. It is the way we look at the dead. Life is not sacred here, even for vegetarians. In the end I would like to quote Mrs Merz. She said “One of the things I felt committed to even though I didn't agree with our military ventures was reading the names of the troops killed as they were listed. I just need to think about these people as individuals, and I hope that as a nation we are doing that and seeing them as real sons and daughters.” That is exactly what we are not doing.