Armed forces is a conglomeration of professional combat personnel who go beyond natural boundaries of normal human and work for a larger cause of safeguarding a larger political entity. Our rights as citizen of India are protected by the Constitution of India and guarded by Indian Judiciary. But when we assign temporal and spatial aspects to any of the processes and structures, we get fundamental precepts from it. So in the same way, when we consider Constitution as a supreme law of land, we must understand that without a spatial entity i.e., India and temporal aspect i.e., since Jan 26, 1950 it would not be possible to imagine Constitution in any way. Thus every nation state must have a solid spatial state/entity to call something as a ‘nation’. So historically some systematic structural institutions have been built to safeguard the spatial aspect and one of the most important among them is armed forces. Some may argue that a nation or state is a imagined entity in the minds of a community, obviously it is true even, and it is a basic survival instinct of human species and provides some sense of security to a society. Historically, the world had seen many kingdoms and empires, their rise and fall. The never-ending wars due to possessiveness towards territorial expansion and territorial disputes have kept people engaged in wars and population under-check.
Comparatively, the deaths due to wars and conflicts & number of wars that happen now are far less than that of past. But the potentiality of damage or even extinction due to war is very high because of technology and nuclear weapons that nations hold today. Some argue that nuclear weapons act as deterrence, but when there are in-built contradictions in the system, the disaster is one button way.
The stability and in-built instability are both due to armed forces of various nation. In the present scenario, to get some narrow sense of stability in a narrow geographical area, it is pertinent to have armed forces. We cannot completely divorce ourselves from reality. This argument in itself depicts the significance of armed forces in maintaining stability of a nation.
When we come to our main question, whether social media should be banned in armed forces or not, the conundrum continues…The tussle between individual rights (right to liberty, life, & privacy) and larger common welfare(safeguarding sovereignty) endures till the end of nation states. The perfect blend of both is what every nation strives for. In many countries, we find that there is a separate law for military i.e., martial law and further armed forces are exempt from many provisions of the constitution. This is so because, the so-called ‘stability’ or survival of law book is itself dependent on the survival of a nation. So protection of this element called Sovereignty comes to the forefront. The armed forces are trained in rigorous fashion to act in a swift, spontaneous and stable manner. The matter of winning and losing is a matter of life and death in the battlefield, So sense of
nationalism,discipline and mental alertness are prerequisite to armed forces. The principle of fixed working hour and fundamental rights like right to life, personal liberty etc. are to be principally violated in armed forces. At this juncture, it would have been clear that rights and luxuries of common man are not enjoyable by armed forces grossly because of the nature of work.When we have articulated such broader aspects of armed forces, then when we tilt our discussion to social media it seems to be of a smaller significance. But social media has become a world in itself.
The word ‘social media’ itself suggest that it is a means of communication among a group or society.
It is more viral and mobile nowadays. Armed forces, in general, lack social communication even with their families due to nature of work. Despite these factors, they also have emotions and social media becomes a boon to them when they are posted in remote areas and when they wanted to communicate with their loved ones. Social media also will help in bringing accolades and appreciation for their selfless work from all corners of the society, which may act as booster to them. Social media will also help them to get out of stressful daily routine and relaxes them during tough tiring times. Social media is a great way to understand, connect and interact with a global community of military professionals to engage in professional discourse and debate. It also helps in breaking the generational strata and gaps that is more predominant in armed forces all over the world. It has a capability to foster and improve transparency in military organisations, which are considered as closed institutions.
.jpg)
0 Comments