Abhinav Surya, an IITian wrote a letter to his institute director in which he said: “I am still not able to digest the fact the institute has given platform to such a speech filled with hatred, instigating violence among the students. A lecture that was heavily loaded with brewing enmity, inhumanity and glorification of brutality.” In the letter he claimed that GD Bakshi also glorified nuclear weaponry and its usage. Surya further wrote: “The underlying implication behind his constant call to “give tit-for-tat” was for calling out students to take up violent aggressiveness as their strategy (This might even be the reason for the violent behaviour of few students in the hall who were intimidating the students who were trying to question the speaker).”

Surya further wrote: “As much as I want freedom of expression to be upheld, I am seriously concerned, as a student of IIT Madras about the sustenance of peace and harmony among various students of IIT Madras. I hope necessary actions will be taken.” While General Bakshi replied to them in a Faceboo post, two more student from IIT-Madras replied to their classmate in a letter. Written by PhD scholar Deepak Ojha and project assistant Chirag Khalde, claimed that the reaction to GD Bakshi's speech was 'a case study of how a few people defame the 'patriotism' of a retired army personnel'.

Read the full letter below:

An attempt to get heard amidst heavy intellectual firing

The post Maj Gen GD Bakshi's lecture “outpour by left-liberals” is a perfect case study of how a handful of radical students can manufacture a National level controversy. It is a case study about how a few people defame the 'Patriotism' of a retired Army personnel in guise of fake care for humanity.

The lecture took place on Thursday in the jam packed CLT hall in IIT Madras. Speaker gave a stunning presentation where he discussed the history of Indian Army and spoke frankly about the threats to our National security. There have been 3 main phases which have shaped the military history in India - Mauryan Empire, Mughal Empire and British Empire.

He spoke widely about the psychological war played by Chanakya against the massive Army of Alexander and how he managed to unite whole of India in a single strong political entity. He said that it was the first time Macedonian people have seen huge 13 feet creature called "Elephant" while fighting against Porus. That was the innovation of that time which gave huge benefit to us while fighting.

Chanakya send court dancers and other such people in the Army establishment of Alexander and planted the stories of huge elephants which are found in the Magadha empire and how they are trained in crushing the skull of the enemy. Such stories terrified the soldiers of Alexander and India was saved by the attack of brutal Macedonians. Sadly, in the articles which are surfacing now on the social media, this story about the head-crushing elephants is taken out of context and quoted as "he glorified the ‘skull-smashing elephants’ of ancient India".

He went on to say that the next innovation was brought by Babur where he used the cannons and sound to disperse the elephants. Underlying lesson? The state needs a constant modernisation of its arms and armaments so as to face the fresh challenge. Such modernization didn't happen and we couldn't face the rifles and war tactics of the Europeans who used of stand in the file of 3 and shoot thousands of bullets within minutes. He went on from weapons to ask a very important question.

"Do we know what happened in February 1946?" Barely a couple of hands were up. He lamented the fact that in the guise of projecting ourselves as people of 'Ahimsa', we have disgraced the sacrifices of thousands of Indians who were arguably the reason for the freedom of India in 1947. For any state to rule, it must have a strong control over the army.

Exactly was the case with Britishers who were able to have a control over the whole of India with a handful of British soldiers. Netaji Bose acted at this soft point and formed Indian National Army which announced the war against the colonial powers for the freedom of the motherland. Three of his officers, one Hindu, one Muslim and one Sikh were hanged in Red Fort as a punishment which incited flares in the minds of soldiers. Soldiers revolted amidst massive brutality and Britishers were forced to leave India as they can't exercise control over the Indians now.

Such reasoning is being berated by the so called Humanists by writing, "The speaker made the utmost insulting comment when he said mocked our freedom movement and made fun of it. According to him, only Indians in Indian army got us freedom and whatever everyone else was doing in the name of ‘Ahimsa’ was nonsense!".

Whereas the speaker only highlighted the point that Azadi was not achieved 'Bina khadag bina dhal', but over a lot of sacrifices of common people. The speaker didn't insult any freedom fighter but said that the power was transferred in such hands who didn't even care to take the sepoys from Navy and INA back into Indian Army or building a 'War Memorial' to acknowledge the contributions of those Bharatiya who gave their life for the motherland. It is indeed valid question to ask why the intelligence inputs about the movements of the family members of Netaji Bose was passed on to the British Intelligence Agency MI5 even after we got independence for around 20 years. Isn't it?

A soldier doesn’t beat around the bush. Similar was the case with General GD Bakshi who was quite frank and outspoken about the past incidences. He praised decisions of ex. Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi who was staunch in her opinion of launching a war against Pakistan in the lights of the brutality inflicted by Pakistan in Bangladesh and millions of refugees fleeing to India.

He saluted such strong minds against those people who are afraid of war and give direction to not step a foot across LOC. He applauded Shri. Lal Bahadur Shastri who gave the orders to cross Pakistan border during 1965 war which turned the tide against Pakistan. He said, 'Man to a man and Indians are the best in the world. We have Gorkhas, Punjabis and Nairs who have those genes which make them the best fighters in the world.' “Don’t be timid! Jo dargaya wo margaya”-he said.’

He vented out his anger against Pakistan. Any why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't anyone who knows about the wars imposed on us and who have seen his compatriots dying? It is a simple realist concept in the field of International Relations which says that nations are inherently hostile. In Pakistan's case, it had been and is being extremely hostile in its efforts to destabilize our nation. He did say “In our generation, we split Pakistan into 2. Your generation should split it into 4. Only then we can live in peace!” and he had a solid reasoning behind it. Mind you, he is a soldier and he knows the ground realities better than most of us who reacts. It is always desirable to have a peaceful relation with your neighbour but it is equally important to know the veins of your neighbours. But would you call it “speech filled with hatred, instigating violence among the students.”?

Being a veteran fighter, he is just cautioning us about our neighbour. So my dear friends, you would have known that he was not here for some peace sermons. If you are so weak hearted to absorb the actual realities across border, you would not have come to the lecture. And don’t forget his acknowledgement for the years of efforts of Miss Sharmila Irom where he says ‘If she becomes Chief Minister, I’ll be the first person to congratulate her.’ Think AFSPA now? Point is not about AFSPA but the stability of a region.

He spoke about the latest weapons purchased by India. He spoke about the progress we had in developing our indigenous versions of weapons and how careless rather we have been in developing them. He explained about the artillery and the decisive role, aircrafts and the fighter planes play during the war. So friends, it was about war. It was about the blood. It was about sacrifices for the country. It was about living in the conditions which are directly opposite to the kind of comfortable life in which we live inside the campuses. It was about the hostile designs to break the unity of India. It was about the terrorism.

And we students felt that intensity of thoughts which a soldier embraces in his mind to protect our motherland. We felt that the country is secure till the lions and tigers like Sir GD Bakshi are there in our Army. It is very easy to become an armchair activist and hurl abuses over the Army but one must realise that the bomb planted by the infiltrators will not ask you how many abuses have you given to the Army. It will just blow you up.

Worst part of the lecture begun when the handful of communists incited our fellow Kashmiri brothers to disrupt the lecture. Just a handful of them started shouting frantically when the topic of Kashmir came along. But that show turned into an interesting discussion between the Kashmiris and Sir Bakshi.

He prompted them to ask questions in a democratic way and patiently answered all of them. One of them said that Kashmiris don't want to join Pakistan and don't want azadi from India. They want to live a life of dignity. The soldier responded that the very fact the you are in IIT stamps your dignity.

He clarified that the restrain of the army can be gauged by the fact that the casualties have heavily come down. He also said that the number of terrorists in J&K has come down from thousands to a meagre number 140. Personally, the discussion between the speaker and J&K brothers was the best part of the lecture. But when the anti-social purely-undemocratic Left liberals realised that he is answering each and every question so precisely, they left the room.

On one hand, the lecture was about the display of sheer patriotism by the soldier and on the other hand it highlighted the corrupts within the society. The letter which was addressed to Director was leaked to the media. And media, instead of printing what actually happened in the lecture, got another 'Krishna Kanhaiya'.

But the same highly democratic Krishna Kanhaiya was not patient enough to listen to the replies of the gentleman whom he accused as ‘war-monger and left the room abruptly after making a monologue. Such hypocrisy. The lecture was not remotely associated with any party or any ideology. But it did highlight the importance of our leaders using indigenous language instead of the colonial, which was a sign of cultural independence in 2014. It is shameful to see how this noble soul is been labelled as 'War-monger' and 'Trump at IIT Madras' by some of our National Media.

Basically anyone who will show the guts to speak against the existing order will be labelled as Hitler or Hindutva etc. And once branded as Hindutva, a person becomes untouchable and a punching bag of all the hatred of left inclined media and academia.

At the end, a young army man stood up and express his sorrow over the kind of intellectualism floating around in the institute. He asked the soldier that who are the forces behind this Chakravyuah. The soldier replied that things are not the bed of roses and plans are being hatched by the external forces to break India and bleed India. He referred to the book 'Breaking India' written by Rajiv Malhotra and spoke about the doctrine of 'War of 1000 cuts'.

Effect of such cuts can be felt in the Valley and in some of the institutes like JNU, Hyderabad University and Jadavpur University. We sincerely hope that our institute will resist all such forces and the students will work to make India a strong and sincere Nation.

Jai Hind