When a jawan’s mind goes berserk...

On Monday, the nation woke up to the shocking news of a BSF jawan shooting dead four of his colleagues at a camp in Amritsar and finally falling to a bullet. A day later came another disturbing piece of news from Murshidabad in West Bengal where another BSF jawan shot dead his colleague and then killed himself.

These are jawans who tirelessly guard our frontiers risking their lives while sacrificing their personal freedom and happiness to safeguard the nation’s citizenry. Their integrity is never in doubt and so why do these brave men turn their guns on their colleagues and tarnish the image of the force they belong to?

The reasons are complicated. For one, these are ordinary men like any of us who have been trained and shaped into fighting machines , But deep inside, they are just as sensitive and vulnerable to emotions and outbursts. They have families and friends, farm fields they love and hometowns they would have never parted with if it had not been for the lure of the uniform or the need to earn a livelihood. It’s the daily stress which plays havoc with their mental equilibrium and sometimes makes them engage in acts which are nothing less than dastardly.

In fact a recent study says that more personnel lost their lives in suicides, fratricides and untoward incidents than in terrorist or counter-insurgency activities!

It is a recognized fact that stress affects combat efficiency of soldiers and their health too. And what induces stress? It could be frequent relocations, non-grant of leave, inadequacies in the quality of leadership, lack of dignity or conflict with seniors. Long and arduous months in the war zone and on volatile borders where lives could be snuffed out in the space of a second, the absence of contact with near and dear ones and insensitive remarks and actions by colleagues could also be some of the reasons which drive a soldier to resort to insane actions like firing on his colleagues.

The fact that soldiers are supposed to present a macho image, also makes it tough on young men, used to a lighter and easier way of life.

So where does the solution lie? There are no shortcuts and the forces will have to have to evolve a long-term process for drawing out the tension in overworked minds and making a better soldier of each man joining the forces. A liberalised leave policy, better officer-soldier interaction improved financial perks, counselling and stress management lessons by experts will go a long way in making our jawans shed their worries and become worthy sentinels of the nation.

Considering the number of training sessions and resources spent on each recruit to turn him into a hardened soldier, this is a small price to pay to prevent them from crossing the brink.