During my school days, I remember watching the Military parade during Republic and Independence days. It was really amazing to see the soldiers marching in perfect unison. Also they used to do some tricks with the guns (not shooting but just throwing it and swinging it) in perfect co-ordination. I used to wonder how many hours of training would have gone in to put up this perfect show. Because in our school we used to practice for two weeks to put some sort of “Walk Past” during the sports day.
Today suddenly Agent Pal came up with this interesting question “Why do the soldiers need to march. The only place where their marching will be appreciated is in Rajghat. If the battalion does the same thing on the battle field, the enemy soldiers are going to have a good shooting practice. So why do they have to practice so hard to do a perfect march past?”
Well it really sounds a valid question. But what could be the reason…
1. Is it that the army men need to be kept busy all through the year. In a country like India where the PM flags off buses to Pakistan while the enemy is launching rockets from across the border the army really has nothing to do. Reports say that an astrologer had warned the PM to flag off atleast one bus to Pak each month or his post would be in danger. Some highly placed sources also indicate that the next bus is to be flagged from Port Blair!!!.
So is it that since the army is not involved in any battle and at the same time they need to be prepared for sudden attacks, march past practice is made compulsory to keep them busy and prepared.
But this argument would fail in the case of US where the army is always busy either shooting down or humping people in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever people grow huge beards.
2. Agent Pal comes with an answer as well, “The soldiers need to act as one single unit in the battle field. A small mistake by an individual could risk the lives of the whole team. So to develop this team spirit among the individuals, the soldiers are trained to co-ordinate and march as one single unit.”
Sounds good, but there could be a better reason for this. Not sure…
Cheers,
Agent Pal
PS. Please don’t get offended by the criticism of Dr.Singh. I really admire him and his policies, but it is his policy towards Pak that doesn’t appeal to me.
2 comments:
I perfectly agree with you on the Team-Spirit-fostering theory. But here is another psychological angle to it.
Maybe this awesome display of unison & strength also serves to instill assurance and belief to the citizens that our forces are on the ready , if and when required. Surely, that feeling of pride and majesty one gets on hearing about the defence forces is fuelled by the memories of such power-packed parades!
What say?
@Vivek: Agreed. But do they have to spend so many days practicing just to instill confidence in the minds of the people. Wouldn't a show of strength by our missiles and aircrafts be more than enough to create that pride.
But that uniformity in marching has become a speciality of the armed forces. I remember our PT masters telling us march like the soldiers...
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