How the Principles of War Apply to Our Lives
[Music]
okay students
ladies and gentlemen it is an absolute
honour to be standing in front of you
and i think there is no better way for
me to start than to quote
possibly the best military quotation
that i have heard
it goes something like this if you want
to be peaceful
you have to retain the capability of
intense violence
because if you are not capable of
violence
then you are not peaceful you are
harmless
standing in front of you i assure you is
a very
very peaceful man and i’d like to inform
you that
this peaceful man 40 odd years back
was wearing his short pants and sitting
possibly in the same place where you sit
listening to somebody like me expound
from the stage
so is there a common link a common link
between
you and me a common thread which i can
share with you and
we will find that out in the next 15 odd
minutes
uh there’s a question for all of you
how many soldiers in this audience
so i see a raise of about two or three
hands
uh and i’m going to surprise you by the
time i finish
asking you this question has actually
provided me
the wildfire that i intend for today
because i’m going to be the small
spark for this wildfire but i’m going to
ensure that you all
are the small flames you’re the tinder
you’re the strong breeze and you’re the
wood
and you’re the wildfire for my 15 to 18
minutes of talk
so what you see standing in front of you
is a soldier
and a general what you don’t see
is on a day-to-day basis i go through
the same travails as you do
i go through the same fears
the same tests and some
amazing examinations just the way you go
through
so the point i’m trying to make is
there’s a soldier and a general with a
large amount of student in him standing
in front of you
so i ask myself this question is the
converse also true
amongst all these young bright students
sitting in front of me
is there a soldier lurking in you yes
yes
so as students together
i have realized that even when i was a
young kid
there was an inner voice a conscience in
me which told me right from wrong which
told me when to go
when to stop when to do the right thing
the same thing has continued with me
throughout my life
the difference between you and me today
is
that i have been able to ensure that
these have been all identified
as broad rules
guidelines or principles where has you
not been able to firm them in
so i decided as fellow students
to give you the benefit of these rules
or principles which have guided my life
to define them for you to help you
define yourselves
i’m going to start with the most
important one which is the mother of all
rules and principles and that’s aim
you have to be able to define your aim
in life as early as possible
i had a doctor sitting with me the other
day who told me in class
10 he knew he was going to be a doctor
today he is a famous
surgeon in the apollo hospital i stand
in front of you in class
6 and 7 i knew i was going to be a
soldier
your broad aim for your life define it
for yourself
so that you can concentrate all your
energies towards it
and that’s the second guideline
concentration of force we’re talking
about the inner force which is inside
you
which is a sum total of all that makes
you
a person your capabilities your
abilities
your desires your talents your strengths
your weaknesses
concentrate them and ensure that you
are working towards your aim in life
just remember towards your aim in life
they’re going to be many goals
how you achieve each goal is something i
will come to later
you must understand that you have a main
effort
and when we speak about effort we come
to the third rule
which is the economy of effort an
economy of effort
equally means recognizing your main
effort
and the ability to eschew the
peripherals
you must know where to put in your main
effort
in the army we say the more you use the
less you lose
identify that effort offensive
that’s the fourth extremely important
don’t sit back and wait for things to
happen
make them happen the initiative should
always be with you you’ve heard of this
famous term carpe diem
seize the day in the army we say
if you are always acting you will never
have to react
so wake up that action man and action
woman in you
be offensive in everything that you do
surprise the x factor
it is really important to develop and
nurture the capabilities and the hidden
talents that are in you
they could be academic they could be on
the sports field they could be
extracurricular
whatever be your hidden talent nurture
it
every child i believe every child every
student is special
nurture your qualities please remember
pleasant surprises
are accelerators to success they’ve just
spoken about
it was on a whim at the last moment that
i decided that i would
give a pleasant surprise to my command
of almost 1.8
lakh men and tell them that you have to
get physically fit so if a 59 year old
man can cycle to 80 kilometers so can
you
a pleasant surprise flexibility
we’ve all heard about the famous story
of the storm and the bamboo bending to
it
and the oak getting uprooted
we cannot be inflexible flexibility is
an extremely extremely
important quality for a scholar and for
a warrior
if you recollect i spoke to you about a
single aim
and many goals in the army we say
you can lose a battle and still win the
war similarly in your life there will be
goals which you will not be able to
achieve
you will have to shift gears shift goals
but still work towards your aim
that is what flexibility is all about
cooperation stand by me
stand by your men stand by your friends
and families
stand for each other stand with each
other that is what cooperation is all
about
it is extremely important to us as army
men it is extremely important to you
as students you know they say
when you cooperate you divide the task
you multiply the success they also say
in the army
you want to go fast you go alone you
want to go far
you go together cooperation is extremely
important
morale
you all heard of cargill and you had all
heard of
the manner in which the soldiers had to
climb those great heights
to attack an enemy was sitting atop them
it all happened
because of a very very high state of
morale and morale is nothing else but a
positivity of mind
believing good things will happen will
make good things happen
it’s called the power of serendipity
they’ve been books and tomes written
about it one of the best being secrets
by rhonda bryan
just remember if you are positive and
you think positive
good will happen
maintenance of
security
security and administration are two
really important facets for you
to know that your six is guarded to know
that you always have
fallback options it is
through your friends through your
families through your school your
organization
your teachers all of these people
are the ones who back you up who are
your fallback options
if you know that you have a secure
foundation
you can strike out from the shore and
try and cross the ocean so security and
administration
are again two really important
principles
now i’ve outlined nine or ten principles
for you
which are going to be flashed on the
slide
so that you can actually see them
remember them and imbibe them
but there is something which i’m
actually not telling you about here
which i will let you know after i reveal
to you what my anthem is
since i was a young boy
in my 10th 11th in class and then a
young soldier
a middle piece soldier until now i have
followed a single anthem
which actually i know by heart
it goes something like this out of the
night that covers me
black is a pit from pole to pole i thank
whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul
in the fell clutch of circumstance i
have not winced
or cried aloud under the bludgeonings of
chance my head is bloodied but unbowed
beyond this place of wrath and tears
looms but the horror of the shade
and yet the menace of the years finds me
and will find me unafraid
it matters not how straight the gate how
charged with punishments the scroll
you are the master of your fate you are
the captain of your soul
now this is the famous poem called
invictus
it is the strength of these words either
the strength of these 16 lines
that nelson mandela spent 27 years of
incarceration
it is on the strength of these lines
that i have actually worked my way up
through some amazing situations some
amazing travails and tests and reached
the rank i have this is my anthem
but the last two lines are extremely
important it’s important for you
and they’re important for me i am the
master of my fate
i am the captain of my soul
you know soldier very interestingly
is a noun and a verb so the noun stands
in front of you
but all that i’ve done on my life was
the verb i’ve soldiered on
soldiering on applied to nelson at
mandela soldiering on applies to all of
you
so the point i’m trying to make to you
ladies and gentlemen what i’m going to
reveal to you right now
these 10 principles that have revealed
to you
these are actually the principles of war
which are followed by the indian army
every army in the world every army in
the world has principles of
war some of them have five some of them
and eight
the indian army has ten principles of
four and when i was coming out here to
address you i thought there was no
better way
than to align you and make you
understand that these principles of war
they apply as much to every soldier of
the indian army
every officer this general they apply to
you
they apply to all of you so i believe
just the way as a soldier standing in
front of you there’s a student in me
i believe as a student sitting in front
of me there is definitely a lot of
soldier in each one of you
so i’m going to finish by asking this
one question again
how many soldiers in the audience please
raise your hands
wow thank you you just made my day jai
hinds thank you