“I wonder whether those of our political masters who have been put in charge of the defence of the country can distinguish a mortar from a motor; a gun from a howitzer; a guerrilla from a gorilla, although a great many resemble the latter”
These glorious words were spoken by Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. A man of vision. But perhaps, limited vision because he failed to foresee that the gorilla-esque fools wouldn’t be limited to just politicians.
There is a strange sort of obsession among the self-proclaimed left-liberals with cutting off their nose to spite their face. This asinine obsession transcends all bounds of reason, sanity and decency. They doggedly pursue some misplaced ideal, less out of love for those ideals and more, out of their unbridled desperation to be accepted into an incestuous cabal that undermines every value that this great land stands for.
Today, Economic Times published an editorial cartoon strip by R Prasad that did just that. Defy decency and reason to pander to this well-entrenched cabal.
Judging strictly on logic, this illustration was downright asinine which drew ridiculous conclusions. Firstly, illegal immigrants are not residents. They are trespassers. They are elements who had jumped over the guarded gates of the residential society and expect the residents to open up their homes to them, to let them feed off the already paltry resources and consider them a part of the family.
In fact, some of these trespassers even have knives and guns that would probably be used to shoot the very people who are forced to open up their homes to them. They have been declared a security threat.
In such a scenario, it’s the chowkidar’s job to haul those trespassers with the edge of pants and physically toss them out of the residential society.
The liberals are, however, known to be logically impaired. So the fallacy of the argument itself doesn’t bother me as much. The elephantine moronery is rather expected. It is the ethical deprivation that bothers me on a much deeper level.
The vilification of the Armed Forces has been a constant in the liberal cabal. They protect the ones who scream “tum kitne Burhan maroge har ghar se Burhan niklega”, they question the Army for dealing with Kalashnikov wielding terrorists in the only language they understand – the language of the bullet and generally mock the Army with the “they are paid to do their job” rhetoric.
The innate lack of respect for the ultimate sacrifice or even the willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice so these very “liberals” can sleep peacefully at night without gun toting trespassers threatening their pristine little wine-sipping existence is rather staggering.
Over their cut-glass crystal cutlery when they talk about Pakistan and the mushaira’s they so miss, they rue the ‘barbaric’ Indian Army and how war is never the answer. The hope that the two countries would just talk. Only if those ‘damn trigger-happy soldiers’ could stop shooting at the less privileged terrorists who picked up the AK47 because of poverty or this, that and the other. The barrel of the gun simply being a euphemism for the elite. A euphemism for their misplaced sympathy that washes away their own inadequacies. After all, while leading a pointless life of page-3 parties, ‘peace’ is a lofty cause to gulp down with that glass of wine in the evening.
But everything has an opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of our tolerance towards the ‘liberals’ is foregoing the luxury of living in a society whose collective IQ doesn’t drop every time the ‘liberal’ opens their mouth to speak. The opportunity cost of peace, however, is the blood of the ‘damn trigger-happy soldier’ who stands a post and lets the ‘liberal’ sip their wine in peace without their palace being torn to rubble by some terrorist.
Every bullet that pierces through the armour of an Indian soldier is the cost that is paid for every breath a citizen takes.
On a more earthier level, I believe most citizens are patriotic. Most citizens respect the Armed Forces and the immense, unimaginable sacrifices they make. Every citizen realises that for them, freedom is free because the soldier has already paid the cost for it.
But for the ‘liberal’ sitting in his intellectual castle in the air, who would never get his hands or op-eds dirty by talking about real issues, the Army is a tool, the vilification of which, gives his sorry life a loftier purpose. That of peace without the ones who protect the very peace he preaches off.
Capt Manoj Kumar Pandey said, “Some goals are so worthy, it’s glorious even to fail”. Knocking sense into these self-proclaimed conscience keepers is an exercise in futility, but try we must.
While the ‘liberal’ cajoles the knife-wielding thief because they believe humanity is offering the other cheek and mock the very soldier who lays his life down to save their sorry tuchus from being blown to smithereens by terrorists, the Nation, by and large, appreciates the sacrifices made by these men.
