Would present-day political leaders desire a repetition of the old days when troops carried “colours’ ~ often the flag or standard of the king ~ into battle.

They rallied around the colours, for its capture signified defeat. Modern warfare has rendered that practice irrelevant. As utterly irrelevant as the present argument about whether the NDA government conducted more cross-border strikes than its predecessor ~ which according to the ruling dispensation were little more than video-games.

Clearly, the politicians have hit a new low in their bid to seek electoral gain from military action. It is an accepted reality that since no “victim” will ever admit to have suffered a military setback, assessments of success or failure will always be one-sided.

Or should the system of “colours” be revived to end political argument? There was no confirmation of the strike against insurgents operating from Myanmar as the junior minister for I&B had claimed a couple of years back, nor was incontrovertible evidence ever furnished of the post-Uri strikes more recently. The major difference is that once upon a time the word of the security forces was accepted as the apolitical truth.

That is no longer a given ~ neither is the claim of politicians who are ever economical with the truth. The real casualty is the credibility of the military: if today’s soldiers feel justifiably slighted at doubts being raised over the aerial assault on a JEM terror-training camp at Balakot, so would earlier soldiers when the Prime Minister ridiculed their essays as video-games.

Are the forces to be dragged into such murky waters? The Congress leadership, Rajiv Shukla to be precise, is to be condemned for entering into such unhealthy competition with the Prime Minister. And the last word on the subject has yet to be uttered, by the politicians anyway. Over 150 veterans recently appealed to their Supreme Commander against being plunged into the ganda nullah of politics.

It is not known if President Ram Nath Kovind advised his government to function in a more elevated manner ~ there are no signs of a corrective at work. Perhaps only the serving brass can seek effective intervention by the defence minister ~ if indeed she has the moral fibre to address a rapidly deteriorating situation.

The unemployment situation, which the government seeks to deny, will result in vacancies in the officer cadres being oversubscribed but quality youth will increasingly look elsewhere if such politicisation of the military continues. The Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, is honour bound to caution the Cabinet Committee on Security on the dangerous development. A pity that so few in India bother to heed Michelle Obama’s words, “when they go low, we go high.”