Why are Indian Soldiers Being Martyred on the Border?

Question: Sadhguru, India has been a country that has always wished and prayed for peace, yet we have been ravaged by wars from times immemorial. How do you think we should manage this? 

Sadhguru: We like to say that Bharat or India is a cultural entity. Yes, it is all true on one level, but essentially a nation is a piece of geography. Except in the oceans, none of our other borders are properly defined. How do you make a nation like this? Is your Western border clearly defined? No, you have a LOC. On the Northern border you have LAC. On the Eastern border we face many troubles with the perforated borders there.

Borders Define a Nation

After seventy-five years of independence, why have we not defined our borders? Because someone did not understand what a nation means. We only have fancy ideas. We can wish and pray for peace but peace will not come that way. We must do the right things so that the ambiguity about the border and the reason for any kind of confrontation is reduced. Once that is done, peace must be enforced. This is the way the world works. 

Even peace within myself is enforced. I am peaceful and joyful because I enforce it. Otherwise, if I look at the outside situations, I can also get depressed. I have decided that such things do not happen to me. I enforce it within myself that I will never be disturbed or unhappy, I will be peaceful and joyful. This is an enforcement that I have made within myself. The same thing is needed as a nation. Whether it is at the border or on the streets of our nation, we have to enforce peace. But enforcing peace is extremely difficult when there is ambiguity about what is our nation and what is not our nation. 

Killed in Action 

We are putting our army out there and every day, soldiers are being killed in action because there is so much ambiguity. We did not understand that to be a nation, we have to secure what is the boundary. Whether we lost something or gained something is not important. The important thing is that there should not be endless ambiguity about what is our nation and what is not, because at any time someone can rake up a problem. The sooner we define our border, the better it is. Now after seventy-five years, nobody is willing to listen to us. We should have done it the moment we got Independence. We should have defined our border within the first few years. This is very important. We did not understand this. This is a serious flaw, but this is a reality. At least now we should strive to somehow define the border of this nation so that every day, we do not have to martyr young people on our borders.

Putting the Soldier First 

If a human being has to function in extreme situations, the most important aspects are balance, clarity and a limitless sense of exuberance towards what we are doing. In extreme conditions, the human body and mind tends to take a dive psychologically, emotionally and even energy-wise. Our soldiers are all highly inspired men, and in the last few years we at Isha have been attempting to provide a different dimension of inner strength for our forces by offering various Yogic practices. There is an entire system of Yoga to develop one’s body, mind and above all, keep one’s energy and spirit at the highest possible level. I feel every soldier who serves this country must benefit from that. If you do these practices with involvement, within three months, the body and mind will be functioning at a completely different level. This must happen to those who guard our borders. They must function at a much higher level within themselves than they are right now. 

In the making of a nation, preserving the sovereign borders of a nation is the most important thing. Without a well-protected border, there is really no nation. Different dimensions of the country are working in different ways – the industry, the business, the social aspects, the spiritual dimensions, many things are happening but our soldiers are the basis for all that to happen. If they had not given us a peaceful situation for us to function in, none of these things would work. 

One phenomenon in our country and particularly in most parts of South India is that we do not even get to see a man in uniform on a daily basis or even once a month for that matter. A soldier is not seen even in the school textbooks. We need to bring this in. I feel that in Northern India, the awareness about the army is probably much better than in Southern India because there are no big army cantonments in the south. 

There is definitely immense regard, respect and awe for the army but I feel that when soldiers are martyred, particularly from the South, it must get much more amplified attention and people should understand that someone has laid down their life for the nation. They did not just go and die somewhere, they laid down their lives for you and me. This must sink into every Indian citizen.