Himmat Hai?

There were only politicians telling us about 8220;civilisational crimes8221;. But do the politicians whom we celebrate and glorify, have even a little soldier8217;s courage? If they do, let the Government give us LIVE television coverage of the conflict in Kargilnot just standard footage of cannons exploding and jeeps moving. Let the cameras and correspondents go into war.

Let the viewers, safe in their homes, watching people come and go talking of Azhar and Co. apologies to the poet T.S.Eliot, see what it8217;s like to be locked in eternal combat thousands of feet above the sea. If we cannot experience the hardships of war, let us at least witness them.

For many reasons, we must see the battleground of the republic. To most of us, Kargil is up there-somewhere8217;; we can only imagine, never sketch its features. So does the conflict remain unreal, just beyond our grasp. We tend to interpret it through the images of countless war films and innumerable war clips; from the collective memory of earlier, other encounters: 1962, 1965, 1971. But Kargil is completely discrete and different. Unless we see it, we stand in danger of romanticising it into a Haqeeqat or the recent Border.

The more we see of the Kargil conflict, the more we will appreciate the tragicconsequences of this undeclared war. Each time a man8217;s life is lost up there-somewhere8217;, we should be able to better understand the necessity of that loss. The armed forces and their families deserve that the country witness the exploits up-there-somewhere8217;. There has to be a collective catharsis: next time it could be your son, husband, brother, friend. We cannot grieve over the dead unless we know what they died defending. So show us.

We need to see, seek to understand what is going on up there-somewhere8217;, because it is our right. The wages of this war are being paid for with tax payers money and in human blood. For a government which will eventually have to justify both the human and financial losses, it is imperative to let us know what we8217;re fighting, paying for. Especially if the conflict stretches out into a Kosovo.

The best propaganda is that which is closest to the truth. By banning the media from Kargil action stations, we are getting second-hand information from official spokesmen in Delhi;third-hand experience from retired defence personnel; fourth-hand analysis from military and defense experts and hand-me-down grief from politicians8230;but yeh dil maange more.

Let8217;s learn from the Gulf wars and the Kosovo crisis. In the former case, there was live coverage of the bombing of Baghdad. The Iraqis wanted the television cameras there as much as the Allies, so that the world could see what was happening. In Yugoslavia, we have not been allowed to witness the impact of 25,000 or more NATO bombs. But we have experienced the conflict as a human tragedy through the continuous live TV coverage of refugees fleeing across the Yugoslav borders.

Both techniques have worked in the engagement of public opinion. The Milosevic government would have won much more international sympathy and perhaps even support if it had allowed the TV cameras to capture NATO8217;s destructive actions. As in Kargil, we have been left to imagine what happened; but facts are always more telling than fiction. Livetelevision coverage may also be intimidating. If you8217;re scared by what the camera might see, you might think twice before perpetrating barbaric acts. It8217;s a thought worth thinking.

Doordarshan can do it. It has the infrastructure. It has the satellite links. It has the channels. You don8217;t need 24-hour coverage, just on and off. Of course, it could backfire: the more we see, the more we understand, the more we might question. It8217;s a gamble. That8217;s why it requires a government which has guts. Himmat hai?