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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

An Army captain proposed. The morality police reported for duty

India's adoration of the armed forces has a curious strain of moral puritanism that elevates military personnel into national icons and then resents them for behaving like ordinary people.

An Indian Army captain completed his helicopter training, walked across the tarmac after the passing out parade, dropped to one knee and proposed to his long-time girlfriend. There was a helicopter in the background. There were cheers and photographs from friends and colleagues. There was, by all accounts, a young couple celebrating a milestone.

But because this is India, a controversy was born.

India has a peculiar relationship with its armed forces. The ideal Indian soldier, at least in the public imagination, is to exist in a permanent state of duty. He is brave but never playful. Patriotic but somehow detached from the ordinary joys and anxieties of life. He can stand guard on a glacier, he can fight a war, he can die for the country. But laughing, loving, flirting — that too publicly — is just not acceptable. That will lead to an internet debate and even a reprimand from the Army.

The objections were as old as time. How could a military officer use a helicopter as a backdrop? Was the uniform being “misused”? Has professionalism been sacrificed at the altar of social media?

India’s adoration of the armed forces has a curious strain of moral puritanism that........

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