A recent RTI case in India asked whether the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Defence use the phrases “martyrs” or “shaheed” in official terminology. MHA and MOD both responded that this is not official usage:
“”The respondent from the Ministry of Defence stated that word ‘shaheed’ or ‘martyr’ is not used by the MoD. Instead the one used is ‘battle casualty’. The respondent from the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that in the MHA the word used is ‘operations casualty’,” Azad said.”
It’s worth noting, though, that the CRPF, BSF, and MHA use “martyr” in their website lists of killed-in-action (which Drew Stommes and I are just about done putting into dataset form). Not a particularly important issue, but worth noting the disjuncture between official bureaucratic policies and the actual languages of politics that those institutions use.
Paul Staniland 