Strong action needed For the right click
In the article, “History lessons for current Armymen” (May 26), the author, Aakar Patel, has displayed a good knowledge of history, but it is obvious that he has not been a participant in history-making.
I would advise him to read Jadunath Sarkar’s book, The Fall of the Mughal Empire, the prequel to A Short History of Aurangzib. On May 29, 1658, Dara Shikoh’s army was decisively defeated in the Battle of Samugarh, 16 km east of Agra. But the bravery shown by the Hada Rajputs’ cavalry of Bundi under Rao Chhatrasal, who fought on Shikoh’s side, was outstanding.
Similarly, the Indian Army’s martial traditions is intact today, and does not depend on wars being fought in every generation. The Israeli Army has also not fought a full-scale war since1973.
The unfair criticism of the Indian Army and its chief by the author over the conduct of an action team leader in a conflict situation is appalling. The act of rescuing besieged polling booth staff from a stone-pelting anti-national mob in Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir on April 9, without killing a single troublemaker seems to have horrified the author. Patel has termed the act of tying the stone-pelters’ alleged leader to the bonnet of a vehicle and taking him along wherever the rescue team had to go that day as “kidnapping”.
It is apparent that the author does not know what it means to operate in an active militancy-affected area. What “underhand criminal tactic” is he condemning, instead of lauding the act that saved lives? The Army is the last resort of the state, when all other organs for restoring normalcy has failed. Only strong actions can achieve this in a quick time frame. J K Achuthan Thiruvananthapuram Gogoi for saving people’s life” (May 26), in all the wars that the Indian Army has fought since Independence, it has lived up to the ideal: “Theirs not to reason why/theirs but to do and die.”
Can we expect our jawans and officers to turn their left cheek when slapped on the right by stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir? Surely, it is not the contention of our bleeding heart liberals that only stone throwers are entitled to human rights and not our soldiers, who maintain law and order in the insurgency-ridden state? It was to rescue civilians, security personnel and poll officials that Major Leetul Gogoi resorted to the step of tying a Kashmiri man to his jeep bonnet on April 9, during the Srinagar by-election, which was marred by violence.
As it resulted in a temporary halt to the stone-pelting and the rescue of the intended group, with the human shield suffering no physical harm in the process, the end may well have justified the means. As for Pakistan’s condemnation of the award conferred on the Major by the Indian Army chief, look who is championing human rights!
V Jayaraman Chennai With reference to Abhik Sen’s review for Weekend, “In the right frames” (May 27), is a DSLR the right step-up directly from a smartphone? You need to buy several lenses for close and long range photography, for which your budget will skyrocket.
If you can afford it, okay. But if you want a single camera for all your requirements, a bridge or prosumer camera is the best. The reigning monarch of this breed of cameras is the Nikon Coolpix P900. It has an 83x optical zoom with a 4x digital zoom thrown in. I took mine to an African safari and got great shots for as far as 300 metres and as close as 3 metres.
The Nikon Coolpix P900 is also good for taking party, wedding and portrait shots. As long as the prints are not more than 10x12 and you are okay with JPEG format (not RAW), this camera that costs less than ~30,000 is great. There is no need to change lenses.
T R Ramaswami Pune