A Soldier's Concept of Religion

Journal of Management (JOM) Volume 5, Issue 5, September-October 2018, pp. 15–22, Article ID: JOM_05_05_003 Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/JOM/issues.asp?JType=JOM&VType=5&IType=5 ISSN Print: 2347-3940 and ISSN Online: 2347-3959 A SOLDIER’S CONCEPT OF RELIGION Ashwani Kumar Research Scholar, Guru Kashi University, Bathinda, Punjab B. S. Dhaliwal Former Vice Chancellor, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo, Bathinda, Punjab ABSTRACT The accommodation of religion in a soldier’s way of life poses two challenges for an Army, firstly subordinating religious authority to military authority and secondly maintaining unit cohesion. Religion is a source of motivation for the solider in an Army. Battle cries are frequently religious in nature. Religious teachers give inspiring sermons and reassuring advice to soldiers ahead of operations. In India, religious conflict is an integral part of the present environment in which the soldier executes his tasks. When joining the Army, the soldier takes an oath on the Constitution of India and their respective religious texts to uphold the honour code of the Army. In addition, the Army celebrates all religious festivals and leaders, regardless of their faith and ethnicity participate in all festivals' with the led' with equal fervor. This article makes an endeavor to understand a soldier’s concept of religion and how the Indian Army has made a concerted effort to accommodate various religious tenets in a nation with multiple faiths, while simultaneously remaining apolitical and maintaining cohesion as an effective pillar of a National Security and State craft. Key words: Defence Forces, Civil Administration, Coordination, Natural Disasters. Cite this Article: Ashwani Kumar and B. S. Dhaliwal, A Soldier’s Concept of Religion, Journal of Management, 5(5), 2018, pp. 15–22. http://www.iaeme.com/JOM/issues.asp?JType=JOM&VType=5&IType=5 1. INTRODUCTION Over the centuries India has not accepted any religion as a state religion, thereby implying that India maintains absolute impartiality and neutrality towards all religions. The provisions relating to “Right of Freedom of Religion” of the Articles 25 & 28 of the Constitution of India make India a secular state. To further strengthen this assurance, the 42nd amendment of the constitution inserts the term “secular” in the preamble of the constitution. Article 25 of Indian Constitution grants freedom to every citizen of India to profess, practice and propagate his own religion. In addition, the preamble of the constitution professes to secure to its entire citizen’s liberty of belief, faith and worship. The Indian Army is possibly one of the corner stones of this Constitutional preamble and it is by virtue of this that the Indian soldier remains insulated from both politics and religion. In addition, the entire recruitment policy has remained on the basis of merit only and not on reservation as is mandated in other Government organizations / departments. This is partly the reason that the Indian Army commands the strong reputation it does today. http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp 15 [email protected] A Soldier’s Concept of Religion 2. RELIGION AND WAR The instrumental use of religion can be traced to the British colonial army and before. After the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, the British colonial army executed and imprisoned hundreds of religious teachers. And yet, in the following decades, the colonial military had once again begun to tolerate independent pundits, maulvis and fakirs in its cantonments. According to Nile Green, “the relationship between the religious traditions of the soldier and the exigencies of the British Empire was one of give and take”. He writes, “The religion of the Indian soldier was capable of assisting or resisting imperial agendas, lending mechanisms of loyalty no less than rebellion”. The British consciously tolerated these teachers in spite of their danger, as they were the brokers who promised protection, promotion, comfort and miracles to their soldiers. Overall the British realized the significance of these religious men in the lives of the sepoys and therein, their importance of being accommodated. Some examples are: The Hindu Gurkhas are known to use the battle cry “Jai Ma Kali” (Victory to the Goddess Kali). The victory cry “Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal” (Blessed is the one who proclaims the truth of God) can be heard among the Sikh Light Infantry and the Sikh Regiment. Muslim soldiers in the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles, Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry and the Grenadiers have used the battle cry “Allah hu Akbar” (God is great). In countries with officially recognized state religions, militaries may remain autonomous (as in Pakistan and Bangladesh) or subordinate their authority to religious officials to varying degrees (as in Iran and the Holy See). In either of these instances, the army’s capacity to act can be heightened by religion. On the contrary, honor or izzat, is a powerful norm in Indian Army. Religion has been one of the most motivating factors to a soldier both for his spiritual and psychological preparations. ‘Dharma-yudhas’, ‘Crusades’, ‘Jihads’ have been fought in the name of religion to either uphold an ideology, expand it or to contain the expansion that was perceived to threaten a particular credo. The cause the Allies of World War II found and propagated successfully against Hitler and Mussolini, was the absence of righteousness from the Fascist and Nazi ideology that militated against the basic tenets of the Christianity. The Russians also saw it as a threat to Leninism and Marxism. The Germans were equally convinced that Communism led by the Bolsheviks needed to be eliminated in the interest of Christianity and the fight against the Europeans and the Jews sought to undo the injustice caused to them by the Treaty of Versailles. The latter manifested in its fury to inundate entire Europe. Against the Japanese, the Allies found a cause to crush the cruel “graphitization” by Imperialistic Japan that threatened peace and tranquility in Asia-Pacific regions. Religious and the moral dimensions were primary stratagems used by the Americans in their fight against the Russians during the Cold War. They branded the former as the “Evil Empire” and “Godless Empire”. Similar names are now being surreptitiously attributed to the remnants of Communism in Cuba, North Korea and China. As the world moves into the twenty-first-century, some crystal gazers have begun to see nature of future conflict due not only to traditional territorial disputes, economic domination or the historic ethnic grievances but a fashionable concept of “clash of civilization”. It presupposes a conflict between the Christians and the Muslims each attempting to dominate the other. Whether it does happen or not, the basic cause nonetheless would have been found, perhaps at the goading of the fundamentalist elements of the two major religions of the world. The above hypothesis, in fact, generates, from the cyclic recurrence of wars, all human efforts at maintaining peace, notwithstanding. In several ways it seems to support the idea of http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp 16 [email protected] Ashwani Kumar and B. S. Dhaliwal JFC Fuller who wrote in the Decisive battles of the American Civil War. “War should be looked upon as a whole, just as life is a whole and therefore, its activities must be related to the cycles of peacefulness out of which war arises and into which they sink. In short there is rhythm between peace and war and next war and unless it is measured there can be no true understanding of either peace or war…” Religion is a source of motivation for soldiers of the Indian Army. Although there is no denying the fact that it can lead to conflict in such a diverse army as ours. The Army is maintaining its religiously diverse forces by maintaining a strong cohesion in religiously diverse armed forces. This cohesion is maintained by recruiting from a diverse religious society as it exists today and also conducting operations in an environment across all states which have people from all faiths. The solider has to operate sometimes in the same conflict ridden religious society from where he has been recruited. The challenges that religion might pose for the solider exist but the army relies on carefully nurtured institutional mechanisms for the solider to cope with these challenges. It is ironic that an Indian soldier defends a state that is constitutionally secular, while remaining a strong force of believers. This paradox poses distinct challenges for the institution. The Army respects the each and every religious faith, religious practice and culture of every solider, (which are precious to him) while continually establishing the primacy of the ‘olive green’ uniform in a soldiers mind. This uniform which he dons while in service directly depicts institutional authority over religious authority. In India, religious conflict is an integral part of the present environment in which the soldier exists. The Army is regularly called upon in aid to civil authority, to enforce the writ of the state in periods of domestic insurgencies and internal strife when the state machinery is unable to contain the situation. In this situation, the open connect of religiosity with its practices exposes the soldiers to the danger of faith-driven mutiny’s and interfaith conflict within its own ranks. These faith instigated or related challenges have a bearing on the military’s organization and operations and have to be nipped in the bud before they spread across some fault lines. The reaction of certain Sikh units in the aftermath of the Golden Temple crises bears adequate testimony of such a situation. 3. RAISON D’ETRE OF ARMED FORCES The cause a country gives to its army becomes its mission, a mission that calls for any sacrifice.

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