Everybody loves the same heroic story
The valour of the Bihar Regiment in Rediff, Deccan Chronicle, India Today and ANI
For someone touted as “The Great Communicator”, Narendra Modi finds himself in a peculiar position, where what he said on Friday (above) has to be clarified on Saturday, and still the world is no clearer on what it means, even on Monday.
Did he misspeak?
Was it pragmatism?
Or was it not?
20 dead, 76 injured, 10 taken captive. [For what?]
The Telegraph newspaper had to deploy three reporters, pull out the Mahabharatha, call up a former Ambassador to China, and display the mangled mess that is chowmein on its front page to explain three sentences in the PM’s statement at the all-party meet.
The odd part of claiming that “no one has intruded on Indian soil, nor is any one sitting on Indian soil, nor has any post been seized by anyone”, is that the Modi still tells Biharis without a hint of irony: “Today when I am speaking to the people of Bihar, I will say every Bihari is proud of the valour was of Bihar Regiment”.
Put simply: why did the soldiers die if not while throwing out the Chinese? (And who speaks for the Punjabis who were in the Bihar Regiment?)
As part of the denial and deflection, a three-pronged valorisation is on.
One, Gen V.K. Singh, the former Army chief who is now a minister, says “if 20 have been killed on our side then more than double would be dead on the other side”.
Two, a post-facto narrative is being scripted that the Bihar Regiment gave as good das they got. “Let the Chinese prove us wrong if they have the guts.”
Three, just like Pulwama before the general elections, to question the government on Ladakh before the Bihar elections, is “anti-national”.
This report (below) in Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad, and its sister publication, The Asian Age, on Saturday appears to have set the stage of what is to ensue.
Sitting in Hyderabad, the Deccan Chronicle journalist paints a crystal-clear picture of what happened in the heights of Ladakh, courtesy “inputs” from “multiple sources”.
“Using the most primitive fight methods ever, Indian soldiers launched the most brutal counter-attack against the People’s Liberation Army, snapping the necks of at least 18 Chinese soldiers and smashing their faces with stones, some beyond recognition.
“The 16 Bihar soldiers were reportedly joined by the ‘Ghatak’ troops and unleashed a reign of terror, unheard of in modern military history.
“PLA had a tough time handling the bodies of their soldiers, many of whose limbs were broken or severed. The bodies were scattered all over the ride and the nearby gorge…. Some had their necks dangling from their bodies.”
All this begs the simple question: did the Bihar Regiment cross the LAC and do this? Or, did it happen on the Indian side of the LAC, which means the Chinese crossed it, unlike what Modi claims?
The Deccan Chronicle report, dated June 19, appeared on the morning of Saturday, June 20, and received due play in Swarajya, the magazine owned by BJP MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
And on Sunday, June 21, the story was on the front page of Prabhat Khabar, the Hindi daily published from Patna and Ranchi, whose former editor Harivansh, a JDU MP, is now the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
And, at 12.27 pm on Sunday, June 21, Asian News International, the video news agency to which Narendra Modi has given the most number of “interviews” since coming to office, tweeted its version.
And at 4.34 pm, India Today’s Shiv Aroor reported that there were three skirmishes in Galwan Valley on the evening of June 15, with 16 Chinese fatalities.
But before Deccan Chronicle, before ANI and before India Today, at 9.23 am on June 19, Bhaavna Arora, an “Army brat” turned writer, had woven a 13-tweet thread.
“A CO (commanding officer) is someone next to your father… Around 60 soldiers of the Bihar Regt went on a rampage upon hearing their father figure like CO (Col Santosh Babu) was killed in such a manner… one of the most fearsome attacks of primitive fight methods…
“At least fifteen PLA soldiers were left with their necks snapped, dangling from their body, few had their vertebrae broken… few had their faces charred probably stoned heavily…. the tremendous and ferocious guts which Biharis showed.
Ms Arora’s first three books were The Deliberate Sinner, Mistress of Honour and Love Bi the Way. The second was released at Kargil by Lt Gen Hooda, Army commander northern command. An upcoming fourth book, Undaunted, has a blurb from Gen Bipin Rawat, the chief of the army staff.
Ayush Tiwari, a journalist at News Laundry, joined the dots between Bhaavna Arora’s tweets and the Deccan Chronicle report.
But, wait.
The day before Ms Arora’s tweets, on Thursday, June 18, the journalist David Devadas, who has authored two books on Kashmir, wrote of the Bihar Regiment’s bravery on the web portal, rediff.com.
“They showed courage beyond the call of duty… Like men possessed, the Bihar Regiment soldiers fought bare-handed with no less intensity than lions. A CO is after all something of a father figure to an Indian soldier… "there is no doubt" that the Indian soldiers fought valiantly and with tremendous grit "till the last".
All the Bihari stuff may play to the BJP base with access to Made-in-China mobile phones in Bihar, but it got to some Biharis. Sankarshan Thakur, the Delhi-based national affairs editor of The Telegraph, called it “crude and cynical”.
But there is a world of difference between mainstream media and social media: as Mark Twain said, a lie can go half way around the world before truth puts its boots on.
And there is a world of difference between English media and Hindi media. On Monday, most English newspapers had seen through “Surender Modi”.
So a week after the killing of the 20 Indian soldiers, if India’s position has to be summed up, it is this: Nobody intruded. Soldiers died. They fought hard. We won’t be provoked. Bharat Mata ki Jai. We have weapons of mass distraction.
Conceded. Gave up. Denial. Betrayed. Self-goal. Soldiers deserve better.
But at all moments of despair in a nation’s diplomacy, there is an oddly satisfying Bhojpuri song to make up for it. Here is one, and here is another.
And, finally
Let not India’s “surender” mislead you into thinking that India has won the Corona war. The battle against Coronavirus is very much on, even as several European countries report that rates of confirmed #COVID19 cases are increasing again.
Spend just 30 seconds to watch a video of how India is faring, as of today.
US 22.79 lakh+ cases
Brazil 10.83 lakh+ cases
Russia 5.83 lakh+ cases
India 4.25 lakh+ cases
UK 3.05 lakh+ cases
Based on current trajectory, civil engineer and data analyst James Wilson says India will have 600,000 cases on July 2, and 700,000 cases by July 7/8.
Dr Mohamed Hakkim, an emergency physician in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, has posted an image of how a doctor’s hand looks after removing his gloves after 10 hours on the job. It’s a sobering sight of the hands that guard us.
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