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Indar Jit Rikhye, an Indian peacekeeper
Jun 7th 2007
From The Economist print edition
SUCH a meeting was not easily forgotten. The small, bald, wiry man, dressed in a dhoti and leaning on a staff, peered through his spectacles at the 17-year-old schoolboy, who was too abashed to speak. “This silly boy wants to go into the army,” his father was saying. Mahatma Gandhi did not miss a beat. “But that is good!” he cried. “We need good, educated young officers in the army of free India!”
Indar Jit Rikhye did not get the lecture on peace he expected. That was as well, for with his young head full of military parades, war novels and tales of his family connections with Maharajah Ranjit Singh, “the Lion of Punjab”, he was not inclined to listen. But Gandhi was wise, and possibly foresaw that Indar Jit's life as a soldier was in fact to be all about peace.…
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