Today is NCC Day: Me and NCC.

Today is National Cadets Corps (NCC) Establishment Day, the 63rd one. Every year NCC Day is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of November. While in school I was in NCC for four years, two years with the Air Wing and two years with the Naval Wing. And my brother was in NCC – Army Wing for five years, at School and then at College that is in Junior and Senior Divisions. It is just not my brother and me but several friends of ours were in NCC and NCC was active at every School in those days, in the Twin Cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Today the scenario is different, I hardly see students joining NCC. There might be several reasons for it, but I feel students are missing all that they could have learnt in NCC, not just the Motto of NCC “Unity and Discipline (Ekta Aur Anushasan)” but much more. We learnt Parade, we learnt to maintain our uniforms in top condition, we learnt about armed forces, their ranks, arms, about Air Force Aircrafts, Naval Ships, we learnt firing, we learnt rowing, and we attended annual NCC Camps and experienced the life there, we learnt to respect our Armed Forces and our Country. All this, by attending classes two evenings a week, with refreshments at the end of every class!

You can see pictures of the NCC Certificates I have earned in the Air Wing and Naval Wing at the top of this article.

I have a feeling that in present times many people do not know about NCC or have forgotten about it. And today the media instead of reporting on NCC Day and the importance of NCC prefers to propagate cheap news. Under these circumstances, I thought I should write a little about NCC. NCC – National Cadet Corps is the Indian Military Cadet Corps. It was raised on 15th July 1948. It is open to School and College students on a voluntary basis. Cadets are disciplined to obey orders cheerfully, to be punctual, to work hard without fuss and to make no excuses or tell lies. 

The NCC aims to develop qualities of character, courage, comradeship, discipline, leadership, secular outlook, a spirit of adventure and sportsmanship and the idea of selfless service.

I am proud of being an NCC Cadet for four years and having learnt a lot.