What Happens to Our Military Ethos After Retirement?

In the last few days, military WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, and veterans’ fora have been ablaze over the Supreme Court’s decision to remove from service a Christian officer who refused to attend religious parades involving faiths other than his own.

Enough ink has already been spilt analysing that decision, but I am not going there. My question is different.

What I want to examine is this: these days, how does an officer who followed the Army’s inclusive, secular ethos for 20-30 years suddenly erupt into full-time communal bigotry the day after he hangs up his uniform?

Why do some of us retired worthies, me included, almost overnight, turn into our most inconsiderate, insensitive, and intemperate versions the moment the pension starts hitting the bank account?

Are we simply reverting to the bigotry hard-wired into us by the very society we come from, the moment we no longer have to Brasso our pips?

In service we stood shoulder-to-shoulder in mandirs, gurdwaras, churches, and sarv dharm sthals with our troops – because that is what leadership demands. Out of service we start forwarding WhatsApp University lectures on who “invaded” whom in the 12th century, the religious practices of other faiths, and why our faith alone is superior.

So were we secular for 30 years or simply supervised?

Was the ethos truly internalised or just kept under a lid because the Army would never tolerate the real version?

Someone rightly said: the uniform may retire, but honour should not. Absolutely.

Yes, “freedom of expression” applies after retirement – nobody disputes that. But freedom of expression is not “freedom from being called out” when one of us trashes the very ethos that once allowed us to lead jawans from every faith under the sun.

If an officer could not afford to be bigoted in uniform because it would break cohesion, why is the same bigotry suddenly worn as a badge of pride out of uniform?

What changed, the man, or simply the guardrails?

I was taught by my seniors: “The rank will go. The pension will remain. But the ethos you once embodied – or pretended to embody – follows you everywhere.”

And if that ethos collapses the instant the epaulettes come off, then the problem was never the uniform. The problem was always the man wearing it. Maybe we are not suddenly becoming bigots. Maybe we are only catching up with a country that has decided civility was just another uniform – easy to take off when the cameras are gone and we no longer have to answer to our Commanding Officers.

Today, when society itself rewards the loudest bigotry, the uniform’s old guardrails are simply not enough for those who never built inner ones.

And here’s the part that truly rankles: we trained with him, trusted him, saluted him, and handed over commands to him. We even welcomed him into our homes, believing he shared the same values we did. Only to discover, years later, that the “secular officer” we thought we knew was nothing more than a mask he wore because military discipline demanded it – and the moment the uniform came off, the real man emerged: small, prejudiced, and proud of it.

Looking back, I don’t know what’s worse – that he fooled the Army for three decades, or that we ever mistook his silence for character.

Either way, I wish I had not opened my door to him. And I certainly will not make that mistake again.

Wing Commander (retired) G.S. Seda is a former IAF officer and digital creator.

This post first appeared on the author's Facebook page and has been republished, with minor edits, with permission.

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