Red Jihad Page 2

  He made his way towards the scene of commotion. He saw his junior, Sandeep Rathi, an assistant commandant freshly out of the academy, approaching the scene cautiously from the other side of the fence with a sullen expression on his face. Rathi saw the lieutenant colonel and saluted midstride, to which Yadav simply waved. He hoped Rathi did not notice his suppressed rolling of the eyes. Not good for the morale, he thought.

  They met and made their way towards the gate, Rathi trailing slightly in deference. 'This should not be happening, sir,' he said in between his lanky strides and pointed at Gate No. 1 of the complex, 'this is a restricted area. They should not be here! In fact, no one should be here but us.' He added as an afterthought, 'We allowed them to protest and look! One of them almost killed himself if it was not for our timely intervention.'

  Yadav wondered if Rathi had always been like this. Yadav did not blame him, though. Not really. Yadav had served from Doda to Silchar and had realized that when one's life hung on a fine balance, everyone was a potential saboteur, and one needed to be on one's toes constantly–a lesson drilled home by military training academies all over the world.

  Paranoid megalomaniacs, the grand old critical insider thought, cannot ever comprehend that the actually dangerous civilians do not look dangerous and the lethal-looking usually turned out to be quite harmless. After fourteen years of counterinsurgency operations, he had realized that classifying civilians based on their appearances was futile. They often reacted contrary to his expectations, throwing the entire system in disarray. The Wellington administrator at the back of his mind whispered, 'An unstable environment passes on its flaws even to a stable system, which is why the system needs to be inherently iron-willed and fortified by discipline and espirit-de-corps in order to survive.' Unfortunately, this very discipline acted as a limiting factor on the adaptability of the system against the environment's onslaught, thereby rendering it ineffective in the end.

  Catch-22.

  Morton's Fork.

  Hobson's choice.

  Yadav's mind raced to find suitable words to encapsulate the paradox. A long time ago, so long ago that it seemed almost like another lifetime, he had read sociology at a university before sitting for the Combined Defence Service Examination. He had wanted to join the air force but flunked the Pilot Aptitude Battery Test, and was offered a permanent commission in the army instead.

  He had joined, though, with a bitter taste in his mouth. He had now realized how the outcome of a simple joystick simulator test almost two decades ago had changed his life forever. Instead of a fancy suit and a fluffy uniform, all he had was combat overalls soiled by mud, and a stupid gun that never jammed.

  Yadav wondered if there was a God up there, toying with people like him. 'Think as much as you want, dear believer, but just when you think you have it all figured out, I am going to change the rules a little bit. There you are, my boy, now bow before me and donate munificently. And don't forget to organize a riot and a bombing now and then, my child. You may go.'

  A gentle yet firm voice interrupted Yadav's reverie, 'Sir, shall I have them dispersed? More of them could try to immolate themselves right in front of our nose,' Rathi said, trying to delve into what he perceived to be his superior's stoic, calculating silence.

  Yadav landed back to earth, shook his head, and said, 'Come on, Rathi, these guys are just tribal farmers.'

  Rathi snorted, 'So are the Naxalites,' and kicked a pebble with his left foot. It landed in a puddle, splattering his trousers with mud.

  'My, they really are thorough with training these days, aren't they?' Yadav looked at the poor indoctrinated chap with pity. If only he knew what they were doing to him. They were trying to get his soul. They were trying to brainwash him. They were trying to make him, Yadav gasped, paranoid. Yadav puffed his chest out with pride at the realization. He was not a mindless automaton. He knew the faults in the system. Or at least he thought he did.

  Rathi looked at him, trying to find any sarcasm. He decided that silence was the best course of action. Let the senior continue, they like preaching sometimes. It is not enough to be in command; people need to feel they are in command.

  Yadav continued, 'If some people want to protest against the evil effects these missile tests are doing to their lands, let them… Dharna and protests are an integral part of our national ethos.'

  Rathi opened his mouth to speak but the lieutenant colonel, expecting his objection, continued, 'As long as they do it peacefully and do not hamper our work, which I do not think they are doing. This is a democratic country after all.' Yadav spread his arms wide and shrugged helplessly at the word 'democratic'. He added, 'I know a little bit of their history. As per tradition, only one of them can immolate himself, or at least try to, and offer oneself to God every year. The quota for this year is complete so all is well. Secondly, we need to have them here to give them immediate medical care, or else they will die.' Yadav's eyes were suddenly sad.

  'But, sir, just look at them! Some of them do not look like tribal farmers at all. Just hear their slogans. Bourgeois aggressors...neo-imperialist reactionaries? Where did they study? Stephens?' Rathi pronounced it with a 'v' instead of a 'p'. Clearly, he was a man of breeding and much learning.

  Yadav decided against craning his neck and looked upward prophetically, 'Hmm…times they are a-changing, boy. It is fashionable for our bourgeois to apply for ten days' leave after an important business deal, pack their American traveller bags, fly to a hotspot, stay in a four-star hotel, and join the local protests with their intellectual inputs. Sometimes they even join the protestors in solidarity. If foment does not exist, then create one, for governance is all about hiding things from the people, is it not?' This time the sarcasm was unmistakable, Rathi noticed, and heaved a sigh of relief. Better that the lieutenant colonel indicted the Indian middle class than his henpecked subordinates.

  Rathi merely nodded, prodding Yadav to continue, 'Such is the system here, yaar. Let them do it, it keeps them sane and guilt-free. Otherwise the great Indian dream will come crashing down.' Yadav mimicked an airplane crash with his free hand as the INSAS on his shoulder twitched due to his sudden movement. I am good at this, he thought, and made a mental note to picture him in this pose for his Facebook profile. Let Sunita see this!

  Rathi looked up, visibly relaxed. 'But, sir, the security concerns...' he said.

  Yadav gave Rathi a look almost similar to the one he used to give his nine-year-old son when he insisted that Yadav sit away from the window seat in an airplane because the kid thought that it would make the plane change course to Dhaka.

  'Believe me, Rathi, I have been posted here for the last six months and these poor tribals come here every week from the adjoining island. A witchdoctor had told them that our presence will ruin the crops, stop the rains and make the earth barren and so on. However, they are entirely peaceful. They just come here, raise a few slogans and go back. Moreover, nothing untoward has happened so far except today. But even then we need them here. The situation is under control.'

  Rathi did not sound very convinced, 'But, sir...'

  'Fine!' Yadav snapped, fed up of the trigger-happy punk. 'Go ahead, open fire or do what you feel like. Go on, do it, but be prepared for tomorrow's news –'500 crores of public money down the drain!' Our special correspondent reports that the Indian government's multi-crore Jarawa Tribal Welfare Programme that was launched to protect tribal heritage, came to a sudden and tragic demise yesterday as the CISF opened fire and killed the last members of the last native tribe of Andaman. Now the government plans to appoint a commission on how tribal heritage can be saved when all the tribals are dead. CISF expels the erring assistant commandant and he faces severe charges.'

  Rathi opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself. He thought of his mother watching the news and hiding in embarrassment from their talkative neighbour whose son was a deputy collector by now, and then writing a letter to Rathi, groaning, 'Kyun beta…kyun! Humne kya kiya tha jo aise d
in dekhne padhe?'

  Rathi, fully convinced, barked orders to the sentries to let the protestors be, and withdrew to a distance where he could ponder over his narrow escape from the unrelenting and brutal media coverage. No longer will the bearded freak on the famous crime news show scream, 'Yeh dekhiye khooni assistant commandant ka asli roop, Vardi main chhupa jallad, CISF ka vehshi chehra', and flash Rathi's smiling gun-toting picture on national television.

  Rathi smiled weakly at Yadav, thanked his wisdom, saluted him, and started walking back towards the base. Yadav watched the receding figure of Rathi against the sun. Poor kid, he thought. He is upset about being away from home. He wondered how he himself had been able to stay away from home for so long. Thankfully, he was no longer posted in the volatile regions of Kashmir, the Red Corridor* or the Northeast. He was now in the Andamans, a peaceful and serene island chain in the Bay of Bengal. Nothing ever happened here. No gunfights, no encounters, no raids, nothing at all. It was like a very long holiday. Perhaps this was the reason why the Andamans was chosen as the site for the newly instituted NMRC. For the safety, secrecy, and virgin testing grounds it provided.

  Yadav enjoyed being the security in-charge of this base. It gave him a sense of direction in life. Just hold your line and make merry drinking beer on moonlit beaches. It was true that a very important project here was nearing completion, but he did not sense any danger. Who would want to attack this ultra secret base designed to build a prototype that might not work when there were other more accessible targets like SHAR and VSSC?

  He was so lost in his thoughts that he did not realize he had reached the main gate. He peered out and scanned the area. He saw some forty-plus farmers shouting and chanting at the gate. Yadav did not try to talk to them. There was no use of any dialogue. No one, absolutely no one, could make these people see sense, except of course a good old AK-47, as he had learned from experience.

  God, I am talking like them, he thought. They are succeeding, but another voice muttered, who exactly are they? He ignored it.

  Yadav had a problem. He thought too much. Sometimes way too much. However, the detached observer in him liked to watch these protests and later the romantic in him used to imagine himself in the crowd as he stood waving a protest banner and raising his hand as if reaching out for the future. And the next moment he would laugh at the futility of such attempts. Might is usually right, he had learned with age. The poor can only protest. Rarely is their voice heard. Rarer still the powerful pay heed to it.

  He stopped brooding. Soon he would be promoted to a full colonel, and with his hard area posting over, he would reunite with his family. He flopped down into a chair overlooking the gate on one side and the dense forest on the other. Yadav closed his eyes and started to think about what to gift his wife, Sunita, on their forthcoming anniversary.

  ____________________

  * The Red Corridor refers to the region in the east of India that experiences considerable Naxalite-Maoist militant activity. It can be said to roughly run from Pashupati (Nepal) to Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh).

  Research Laboratory Alpha, NMRC

  Local time: 1100 hours

  Date: 23 April 2014

  A blank expression on his face, spectacles delicately perched on his nose, Dr AA Suryakant, Scientist-D, cocked his head to one side, his tongue protruding from between his teeth, the way it always did when solving a complex problem, and stared at a tiny point on his office notice board. Finally, when he could bear it no more, he sighed, scribbled something in his notebook and closed it shut with a dull thud. He had been awake the entire night. Not that he regretted it. He was a scientist, and any scientist would happily sacrifice a night's sleep for a day's work. Or a day's sleep for a night's work.

  Nishachar, that was how he was known. But he was not to be blamed. This is how we do things, he mused. The class of 1985. IIT Kharagpur. Suryakant still had the class picture taken at the graduation day ceremony, with him standing in the last row alongside Wali, Bhau and Ray. In fact, he did not merely have it, he had it pinned on his notice board.

  Those were the times, he reflected, the times. His batch was one of the most politically active batches to graduate from IIT after the fiery Naxalbari movement of 1969. Engineering, education, and life had no longer been the same. The people of this country deserved better than nepotism, corruption, hunger and poverty, he had realized. Suryakant unclipped the photo and slid it lovingly into the pocket of his overcoat.

  History was all that he had. After a first-class degree in aeronautical engineering from IIT, Suryakant chose not to go abroad as many of his fellow IITians did. He wanted to serve his country. Serve in the real sense, not like those who went to the US, raked in tons of money, donated some to religious and political charities back home, started an online political party, and bought mangoes and gifted them to relatives in India. Suryakant was not one of those who would go settle abroad at the first chance they got. 'Hell, my English is not good enough for converse with people there,' he used to lightly remark, until he actually started believing it.

  Therefore, after IIT, he decided to enroll for MTech at the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, and followed it by a doctorate in cryogenic propulsion. Suryakant was immediately spotted and offered a job in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) with an attractive grade pay and soon, amidst much fanfare, the path-breaking CE-7.5 was operationalized.

  Suryakant had toiled hard to become a team leader (Guidance Systems) in the Pralay-LGMS project. The project aimed at the production of a solid-fuel, stealth, intercontinental ballistic missile that was capable of being fired at a very short notice, and that too from mobile platforms. Pralay was the code name of the missile, the 'L' indicated that the missile was supposed to be silo-launched; the 'G' meant it was designed to attack ground targets, the 'M' reflected that it was a guided missile, and the 'S' referred to it being a stealth design.

  Pralay was regarded as a natural extension of India's Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) that had given her a lot of teeth. India now had potent surface-to-surface missiles such as Prithvi and Shaurya (tactical) and Agni (strategic); surface-to-air missiles like Akash and Trishul; an anti-tank missile Nag, not to mention Pradyumna (ballistic missile interceptor), apart from Sagarika and Dhanush, the naval variants of Prithvi.

  IGMDP had given India a leading edge over the Pakistani Baaz-V missile, developed by the National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM), that copied the North Korean Taepodong design, and kissed a range of 5,500 kilometres. However, policymakers on both sides of the border knew that the difference in ranges of the premier missiles of the two countries was not what mattered. With Agni-VI, India was able to take out any Pakistani city. With Baaz-V, Pakistan was capable of crippling any major Indian city. However, India's defence policy was no longer Pakistan-centric. Though Pakistan still had to contend only with India, making its delivery systems based on threats from the Indian mainland. India, on the other hand, had to handle two potent threats simultaneously during the past three decades – Pakistan in the west and a belligerent China in the east. Moreover, China was working diligently on Songfeng, the 9000-km ranged beast that was capable of being launched from under water, striking any Indian city any time.

  Although things were changing, boundaries were dissolving by way of the creation of Economic Cooperation Zones, nations were coming together, even old foes, but it was better to be prepared for the time when things went sour and past bitterness surfaced. Suryakant never forgot lines from a Dinkar poem he had read as a child:

  Kshama shobhti us bhujang ko

  Jiske paas garal hai

  Usko kya jo dantheen

  Vishrahit vineet saral hai

  (Forgiveness is becoming of

  The serpent with venom

  Not the toothless,

  Poison-less one.)

  Pralay was to be the feather in the cap of IGMDP. From the moment orders came to fire, Pralay-LGMS could be airb
orne in about eight hours, including the time it took to assemble it from its core constituents. For that, its components were kept in a semi-assembled state and solid fuel cells were attached to the main body. Harmless canisters and parts were capable of being integrated and becoming deadly in just eight hours – from the scratch–in the shape of Pralay.

  Suryakant was proud of it. He believed that only with military self-reliance could the foreign policy of a country be truly independent, and only with such a policy could there be economic development. Multinationals, FDI, FIIs, and oil politics led to the creation of two Indias, and the majority remained poor and at the mercy of a small elite. Things had to change now.

  Suryakant wanted to pay the bad guys back in their own currency. However, what constituted bad guys changed shape in his mind every day. Today, it was the mess manager. How can they have a Delhi-wallah supervising mess workers cooking sambhar? It is monstrous! It is a travesty of the natural order of things! It is just not meant to happen! It is as efficient as him working as a fashion reporter in Milan, he thought. Then he calmed himself. He had lived in Delhi and sambhar there was not half as bad as chapattis down south. He grinned at the irony.

  Back to work, you foodie, the buzz at the back of his head grew stronger. He shrugged. This was usually the time he logged into the mainframe to play Counterstrike. Techies loved LAN primarily because it gave them a chance to kill each other in various shooting games. However, he had no time right now. The directive from the Ministry of Defence was clear; urgent. Build. One Missile. Sleek. Shiny. Kick-ass. Now.