jayema saṃ yudhi spṛdhaḥ

The logo of INS Vikrant proudly procliams RgVeda 1.8.6 - jayema saṃ yudhi spṛdhaḥ

It could be loosely translated as "We will win against enemies in the war". Some translate it as "I conquer all those who fight against me".

Consider these from Indian Defence (I am no expert, this list is a common man's understanding):

1) Jul 2016, Burhan Wani, India commander of Hizbul Mujahideen killed

2) May 2017 - his replacement Sabzar Bhat killed

3) June 2017 - Junaid Mattoo of Lashkar-e-Taiba

4) July 2017 - Bashir Lashkari (had a bounty of Rs 10lkh) of LeT eliminated

5) July 2017 - Sajad Gilkar, again of HuM killed

 #4 and #5 were involved in killing many policemen including Feroz Dar and Md Ayub Pandit
Also in Aug Stone-pelters help cornered terrorist Zakir Musa flee

6) Aug 2017 - Yasin Itoo - operational commander of HuM killed

7) Sep 2017 - Ishfaq Ahmad Padder involved in killing the 22yr old army officer Umar Fayaz - killed

8) Sep 2017 - Abu Ismail, involved in attack against Amarnath Yatris, killed

The last one in particular had an interesting angle - http://www.firstpost.com/india/let-kashmir-chief-abu-ismail-killed-amarnath-attack-mastermind-was-caught-unaware-while-walking-on-road-4044241.html . Perhaps the security forces could have caught them alive, but looks like they were not interested. These are seasoned terrorists - trained to withstand torture at questioning. So why keep them, with a possibility always of having to lose them again as an exchange for a plane hijack or a politician's daughters kidnap. As the Indian army officers would tell you - "It is God’s duty to forgive the enemies, but it’s our duty to convene a meeting between the two" - shubhasya sheeghram for that

0909 - Remembering the Sher Shah

Had he lived on, tomorrow (09-09) he would have turned 43. But fate did not let him complete 25

Sam Bahadur Manekshaw - India's gutsy witty former Army Chief is once supposed to have said "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha" . He perhaps did not know Vikram Batra at that time !

July 1999 - the vacation after my 2nd year of IITM BTech. If I remember it right, I was doing a mini project at DRDO Bangalore. Naturally the talks were about the Kargil war. In fact for my generation that is the only "closest to a war" that India fought - so far - in our life time. With internet not so common, Newspapers and TV news were mostly the source.   Vikram Batra's name became famous because of his "Yeh Dil Maange More" radio message after the capture of Point 5140 .

That mere attitude was inspiring, but the first time I read about him making that statement, little did I know what real substance this young chap was made of. Then came the news of him being killed in the next attempt. Somehow I don't remember reading the full details - years later I read a detailed account somewhere - I dont remember where, but it was pretty close to what is detailed in his wiki page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Batra#Kargil_War - true "Lion King"

Param Vir Chakra, till date, I believe has been awarded 21 times. 4 of that were for bravery in Kargil. 2 out of that 4 were posthumous. One was Vikram Batra and the other Manoj Kumar Pandey

The least inspiration that these men who died for India instill in us is to live for this Nation.

damned if you do, damned if you dont !

Nirmala Sitaraman has clearly been the highlight of the day. Some twitter handles even went to the extend of comparing Sushama-Nirmala-Smriti as Lakshmi-Durga-Saraswati . Interestingly, I guess none of these names actually directly indicate a goddess' name - perhaps these names mean "beauty", "purity" and "memory". The one lady in the cabinet with actually a goddess' name - Uma - made it to some posters featuring all 4 of them, but most postures were about the 3 .. Clearly, the generation who perhaps looked up to Uma for her heroics (or whatever is the feminine of that) during Ayodhya movement is dwindling, or more likely, even among them "performance with soft-hindutva" scores better than hollow hindutva - signs of the aspirations of India-2020 and beyond ....

Now, there is another school of thought - the whole idea of seeing gender in everything , itself is a leftist notion. So why congratulate Nirmala for being the "first real woman Defence Minister", just congratulate her on getting to one of the top-most positions on her merit.. Remember Indira Gandhi, all said and done, was thrust-in as a heir apparent - though later she may have proved to be good (in some sense). What if she were not born into an "aristocrat" family as the Nehru's ?

pic from: http://www.teluguone.com/vanitha/content/nirmala-sitharaman-944-29139.html#.WawQeWeHqWk

Yet another interesting comment was made by one of the journalists on TV - " This is going to change nothing for the woman who get raped daily in India. For the common woman, this isn't going to change anything". That one is interesting, because if BJP did not have these many women occupying key posts in the cabinet, the typical comment would be "Look, typical patriarchal party". And now that the party did entrust these women, it suddenly becomes "tokenism" for these journos !

An RSS friend of mine, who used to volunteer a lot for some of Seva Bharati's  charity activities (including trying to raise funds) used to tell me - people used to tell (in the 90s..) that instead of trying to build a temple in ayodhya, or oppose valentines day, why doesnt the RSS do some charity ? And now with RSS (and affiliates) as one of the biggest Seva networks in the world, when the same people are approached for funds, the talk goes "Oh no, I don't want to donate to xyz group because it has links with RSS". Damned if you do, damned if you don't

Alright, I quoted this and that, do I have a view here ? Well, yes, and simple.. India is slowly but steadily heading back to its svabhaava - to its natural self. Its svabhaava it is to have Lakshmi-Durga-Saraswati handle important portfolios. And this, is manifesting in a new pan-India way  ... if the AsmaKhanPathans and AnjaliGeorges and SaswatiSarkars are not indications of it, if a JNU educated, Tamil born, wed to a Telugu Nirmala Sitaraman is not indication of it, then what else is ?