Participating in other religious functions doesn’t mean giving up your faith: D.S. Hooda

Before we dive into the core issues, I would like to know your perspective on the recent Supreme Court judgment in Lieutenant Samuel’s case, and what is the most significant principle that the court has reinforced with regard to faith in uniform?

Regarding Lieutenant Samuel’s case, I think the Supreme Court ruling is something that we who have served in the military—serving officers and those who have retired—instinctively understand: your personal faith cannot be permitted to create a distance between an officer and his troops. I look at it not as a matter of religious freedom or religious faith, but as the larger issue of trust between an officer and a soldier.

Officers occupy a special place in the hierarchy. They’re leaders expected to set standards, values, and ethos. Anything that could dilute the trust between an officer and a soldier must be completely discouraged. The Supreme Court ruling has reaffirmed this principle.

I think there are three aspects which need to be understood. First, in the military, faith is personal. Any visible assertion of your personal faith that tries to override institutional rituals—for example, refusing to attend a prayer meeting—is completely discouraged.

Second, the military has its distinctive set of values. When we talk about loyalty, discipline, comradeship, and instant obedience, these are not merely morally desirable qualities—they are absolutely essential for military functioning. Will the army function if there is no obedience, no loyalty, no comradeship? These values cannot be overridden on personal grounds.

Third, when you read about Samuel’s case and arguments favouring him, they talk about personal conscience. But we need to be careful with this argument. Conscience has a moral element—distinguishing right from wrong. If you start equating conscience with religious dogmas, with such rigidity that you refuse to attend a puja with your troops, that would affect the efficient functioning of the military.

For people outside the military, how would you explain the significance and sanctity of places of worship inside army units?

All religions must be treated equally. The reason we have the concept of Sarva Dharma Sthal is that under one roof, you will find Guru Granth Sahib, Ram’s murti, a Buddhist statue, pictures of a holy mosque, and Christian symbols—all together. The idea is to tell everyone that you can enter this sacred space, and entering it means displaying equal respect to every religion. It doesn’t mean your own religion is getting diluted. Your personal faith can coexist with the faith of other communities.

When I joined as a young officer, the first thing I was told was: your religion is the religion of your troops. That doesn’t mean I have to give away my faith. I’m from a Gorkha regiment, and I’ve seen Christian officers and Sikh officers in the unit. When a Christian officer goes to a mandir and performs a puja, he’s not discarding his own faith. We’ve had images of maulvis and pujaris performing havan together. That doesn’t mean the maulvi has given up his religion. We need to look at it from the perspective of the respect it brings to each other’s religion and the bonding that happens.

Are these values tested by societal polarisation?

Certainly. What we are seeing in society today is greater polarisation happening on religious grounds. Obviously soldiers come from society and cannot be immune to it. That’s why the military doubles down on its system of values—these are primary core values and ethos that must be followed by every soldier so that the effects of religious polarisation are gradually reduced.

In civilian workplaces, we talk about collaboration. In the military, yes, collaboration is important, but we actually go beyond collaboration to trust. Soldiers must have implicit trust in each other. If you see your comrade in danger, you don’t think about whether he’s Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, or Christian—he’s your comrade, he trusts you, and you go to his help.

This is why trust between officer and soldier is absolutely essential. Seeing what is happening in society, we need to double down on our values and reinforce them daily. Any dilution will reflect on our professionalism. We call the military the last resort of a nation, and we need to make sure none of these values are diluted.

How should forces handle situations where personal belief seems to collide with institutional unity or duty?

I’m going to be a little harsh here. We need to clearly clamp down on this. Why is the army called an institution and not an organisation? Because institutions rely solely on their values. The Supreme Court is an institution. You can’t have a judge say his religious values conflict with the values he’s supposed to follow—that would completely dilute the institution.

Any such issues—if we can handle them with maturity, fine. But if somebody insists that their personal values clash with institutional values, then he needs to leave the institution. I may sound harsh, but this is something I firmly believe we should completely discard.

Suppose you are in service and a young officer comes to you [being] uncomfortable with a certain ritual outside his own faith. How would you guide him?

I would explain that participating in other religious functions doesn’t mean you’re discarding your own religion. I have seen Muslim officers going to mandirs—they are not excommunicated from their religion. I have seen Hindu officers going to churches, mosques, and gurdwaras. Does that make them lesser Hindus?

Participating in other religious functions doesn’t mean giving up your faith, but displaying respect for other religions. As officers, we swear an oath to the constitution, not to faithfully serve the government, any ideology, or any political party. The constitution tells us that secularism is an essential and integral part of our way of life.

I would also explain that his actions could damage the ethos, culture, and values the military promotes. This has a larger impact. A majority of our officers are Hindu. If someone serving in a Naga regiment, which is mostly Christian, says he won’t go to church, or an officer commanding Sikh troops says he won’t go to a gurdwara, we don’t want to open this pandora’s box because we don’t know where it will go.

From global militaries, are there examples about balancing personal conscience with organisational discipline? Are there lessons we can learn?

Before I cite examples from others, let’s go back to pre-Independence India where officers were all British and soldiers were all Indian. Were these British officers not participating in religious functions? I’m from a Gorkha regiment—British officers gladly attended religious functions. These were mainly Christian officers, so this argument that religions are different and therefore participation is uncomfortable is not true.

On comparison with other militaries: they give greater individual religious freedom to their officers. But we should understand that the structure of the Indian Army is very unique. In other militaries you won’t find single-caste regiments or mixed-caste regiments. We have Naga regiments with mainly Christians, Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry or Jammu and Kashmir Rifles which are predominantly Muslim. There are units where one company will be Sikh, one will be Jat, one will be Muslim.

We have a very unique structure in the Indian Army—not so much in the Air Force and Navy. Any direct application of practices followed abroad would not be appropriate. Plus I don’t see this kind of cultural and religious diversity in any military as we have in India. Therefore we have to find our own ways and processes to ensure the culture and ethos are not diluted and professionalism remains high.

During your service, what have multi-faith traditions in the army taught you about military leadership?

Equal respect for all faiths is the way forward. When you put on a uniform, you become a soldier. When we say we are the brotherhood of the military, brothers in arms, it means the relationship between two soldiers in uniform is more important than their faith.

This is visibly shown. For example, in a passing-out parade of recruits from different religions, when the oath is read out, you will find a priest, a pandit, a maulvi, and a granthi all walking ahead of the parade with their religious books. When we inaugurate important places—war memorials, for example—you will find prayers read out by all religions before the inauguration.

This aspect of trusting each other, soldier to soldier rather than by religion, is what bonds the military together. Let me give you one story. Lance Naik Goswami was a special forces soldier awarded the Ashoka Chakra, the highest gallantry award. His patrol had been caught in an ambush, and the two leading soldiers were very seriously injured by terrorist fire.

Goswami immediately rushed into the ambush site and rescued both soldiers. In rescuing them, he himself was killed and was awarded the Ashoka Chakra. He was not given an order to rescue these people. At that stage he didn’t think about what religion or caste they belonged to—these are my comrades, these are my soldiers. That is what drives the professionalism of soldiers.

Finally, looking ahead, what steps do you think are important for preserving the military’s integrity and neutrality?

What is distinctive about the military? What has served us well? The current ethos and culture in the army promotes secularism and fosters confidence and trust. Values like honor, loyalty, obedience, courage, and comradeship—if we can keep these values intact, that would be the primary element of retaining what we are today.

Secondly, I have no hesitation in saying that some symbolic pictures we are seeing of officers performing their faith and posting them on social media need to be questioned. There is no bar on visiting religious places, but there is no reason for these pictures to be on media. Any display that creates an impression that we prefer one religion over another could be damaging.

In fact, in 2024, the army came out with an order saying that in uniform, items of your faith should not be visible. You can’t have a tilak on your forehead. You can’t have a religious thread around your neck—if you want to wear it, it has to be tucked inside. No visible display of any religiosity when you are in uniform. These are things we need to reinforce.