Ghazala Wahab

As the election season gets underway, it is becoming increasingly clear that the government has built its defences in the graveyard of the martyrs. Defence of the dead has become the final argument of the defendant trying to protect its turf.

Since the government has such a sway on popular imagination that respect of the martyrs has become the biggest measure of love for the nation. While those with limited means express this love for the dead by harassing the living, those with resources contribute to the funds earmarked for the well-being of the martyrs’ families. We seem to be in such a strong grip of morbidity that we have stopped looking at the plight of the living soldiers and their families.

If only we had the patience to peer beyond the rhetoric, we would have realised that Indian soldiers, from the army, but more from the central paramilitary or armed police forces, live and operate in near inhuman circumstances and environment. Of course, because as a nation we don’t believe in conflict resolution — the coffins draped in tricolour fill us with a second-hand sense of militant nationalism —, it is very unlikely that we can alleviate the mental and psychological stress of our men in uniform. Hence, at least, we can make an effort to contribute to their physical and emotional well-being, by r