The military machine and language

Once a college mate of mine who was an officer in the Indian army told me of a visiting military team from Israel. They had been given the opportunity to see a part of the military training for the ordinary soldiers. The Israeli team were more or less perturbed by the brutishness of the training. The Indian army officer (my old college mate) told me in a mood of elation that the Israeli team had commented that what they had seen was not military training, but just pure inhumanity. The Indian army officer was trying to convey to me the extreme toughness of the Indian army training.

It is a fact that most feudal language military systems are quite the very opposite of an English army system. The real inner functioning of such armies depends on the inner codes of their feudal language/s. In the Indian army, it is quite connected to the Indian feudal language code.

Here it may be mentioned that the Indian military, though perfunctorily a continuation of the British Indian army, after independence changed its character fully. Earlier it had been a system that functioned with an inner core of English standards. Now the essential codes are connected to Hindi, a highly feudal language.

Now the beastliness in the training is connected to a very specific theme. The need to erase all fragments of the various hierarchical codes that are inherently attached to an Indian citizen. For example, a Malayalam speaking person would be connected to so many seniors and juniors in society and family by a variety of feudal hierarchies.

These codes are superficially such as Chettan (elder brother), Chechi (elder sister), Ammavan (uncle), Ammayi (aunt), Adheham (respected Him), Avar (respected Him and Her), Achhan (father), Amma (mother) and so many others. All these words are powerfully connected to him by other words such as Nee (lower you), Avan (lower him) and such.

Now once this young man joins the Indian army, the essential requirement for military discipline would be to erase all these hierarchical strings wherein he is under so many commands, and also wherein he is a respected person to so many lower individuals in society. Many of his officers can be youngsters, to whom he has not been mentally trained to be obsequious.

For, they are young. So a very brutal training has to be imparted to him, wherein he understands his meek position in the powerful military machine. His inherent feelings of adoration, worship etc. to other human entities should be removed. Any feelings of mental superiority that he has over any human level based on age, caste, family’s social position and such should be totally removed. To achieve such a level of denudation of innate mental indoctrinations really requires a terrible mental crushing experience.

At the end of the training, what comes out is a total serf of the officer class, who shall keep him at divine positions. Yet, the person is more or less, deficient in much intellectual independence including resourcefulness. Moreover, if at any time, the officer class fails to maintain its larger-than-life superiority, this solder would mutiny. He is a just a mere machine made to perform under the total pressure of the crushing military discipline. Beyond that, his total commitment and loyalty towards the nation and the systems it is trying to protect is always in question.

It may be noted that the brutish military training in the Indian army is aimed at making powerful changes in the virtual software codes.