'India Must Come To Terms With Its Military History'


NEW DELHI:  India, which contributed over four million soldiers during the two World Wars and has fought five sub-continental wars since Independence, must come to terms with its military history. Otherwise the war memorial of the kind envisaged in the national capital would be jingoistic, says the author of a new book on this country's effort during WW-I.

"As a country, we are perhaps uncomfortable with the role of the military. We need greater emphasis on the role of the armed forces, particularly post-Independence. We need to be quite open about our military history... otherwise the (proposed) war memorial becomes a jingoistic exercise," Vedica Kant, whose first book, "India and the First World War", has just been published, told IANS in an interview.

"We need to be quite open about our military history. We need to examine the campaigns our armed forces were involved in; what went right and what went wrong.

"Our military history post-1947 has not been properly chronicled. For instance, we still have not officially released the Henderson-Brooks report (on the 1962 debacle against China)," added Kant, who is in her late 20s and is currently based in London where she works for a leading political risk consultancy.

 

(Presenting the budget for 2014-15 on July 10, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley announced that a National War Memorial and Museum would be built for 400 crore ($65,000) in the vicinity of the India Gate memorial to the unknown soldier. India Gate was built in memory of the Indian soldiers who had died during the First World War.)

Source: IANS