https://www.dropbox.com/s/34phetyszz4itia/Kashmir%20Times%20Op%20Eds%20Ali.pdf?dl=0
Kashmir: Strategic Sense and
Nonsense
Kashmir Times Op-eds 2010s
By Ali Ahmed
Ali Ahmed is a former UN official
and military officer. Currently, he is an academic affiliated with a central
university in New Delhi. Views are personal and have no relevance to any
organization the author has been associated with.
For the people of Kashmir
Preface and acknowledgement
The title needs explaining. I believe a
nonsensical strategy has attended India’s Kashmir problem over the past decade.
In the United Progressive Alliance government period, the government was afraid
of its own shadow. It missed a splendid opportunity to address the Kashmir
issue meaningfully. No doubt, it had the shadow of the right wing looming
across it staying its hand. As for the right wing, when it came to power, it
has willfully messed up the situation further. As the right wing has another
lease of life in power, there can only more nonsense up ahead. The assumption
is that Kashmiris will bear the brunt and, therefore, it is not of consequence
for the rest of us in South Asia. This is untenable. The right wing is
perfectly capable of worse and this shall surely come to pass too over the
coming five years.
This volume of my opinion pieces in the Kashmir Times over the 2010s are proof
of India hurtling down hill as a country, taking Kashmir down with it and
looking to drag down the rest of South Asia with it too. This understanding is
reverse of the popular notion that it is Pakistan as a failing state that is out
to drag India down with it. I believe the democratic take over of India by the
right wing is an existential danger to the subcontinent. Its conjoined Kashmir
and Pakistan policies are not merely potentially explosive, but are an
explosion in slow motion. The answer is not to be found in Kashmir. It is to be
looked for in the rest of India, where the electorate needs to rethink its self-interest.
The apprehension is that this will not happen till the calamity impending is
not over and done with.
In the main, the commentaries here deal
with Kashmir and India’s Pakistan policy as relevant to Kashmir. There are
several largely critical pieces covering the counter insurgency campaign. Since
a significant proportion of the army is deployed in Jammu and Kashmir, the
op-eds covered the meaing of the 'strategy' in Kashmir - of which the army was
a major instrument - for the army as an institution. The commentaries link India's
Pakistan and Kashmir strategies to internal politics in India, in which the
ascendance of the right wing meant preclusion of any peace headway. The
constant call is for the passing opportunities to be seized. The needs of the
strategy of Othering that brought the right wing to power in India account for
the advocacy being ignored.
The nonsense in the Kashmir strategy
owes to contamination of strategy by ideology. It is no secret that the
strategic establishment owes right wing allegiance. The strategic community has
had its share of right wingers, who were in the closet till early this decade.
Since a major plank of such cultural nationalist thinking is anti-Muslim, any
strategy geared to addressing South Asian Muslim issues cannot but be
contaminated by ideological baggage. To expect a rational strategy – even one
based on realism – is to be wishful. The Pakistan strategy needs no
edification. Needless to add, that the strategies will fall flat in good time.
The issue is how to survive the deneument.
Plainspeaking is the need of the hour.
The compilation is to focus minds. Nothing can be done to avert the
catastrophe, but seeing off the right wing back to the margins would require to
be done once the dust – hopefully not radioactive - has settled. This would
require the shoulder of all institutions. In alerting the nation, the
collection of op-eds would have served a purpose.
The compilation would be of interest to
students, academics, practitioners in uniform, policy makers and the attentive
public. The issues dealt with are at the interstices of strategic. security and
peace studies. It has insights for the military engaged in countering
insurgency, for their political masters and the bureaucratic intermediary layer
both in Srinagar and the national security establishment in Delhi. The book is
dedicated to the people of Kashmir, both within and outside of the Valley.
I thank Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal for her
unstinting support. Her liberality shines through. Her paper Kashmir Times has ploughed a lonely
furrow and done a national service in keeping the liberal torch aloft in trying
times. I thank the editorial staff for the support over the past decade of my
writing for the paper, the writings put together between these covers: some 100
op-eds comprising 1.25 lakh words. Needless to add, all shortcomings in the
language, style and facts are mine. I thank my family for its usual
forebearance. Hope their optimism that the essays shall prove useful is proven
true.
Contents
1. Kashmir: Snatching defeat from the jaws
of victory, 6 July 2019 1
2. At The Doorstep Of Indian Military Politicization,
6 June 2019 2
3. Kashmir: As The Army Surveys The Next
Five Years, 12 June 2019 4
4. Event management is no substitute for
strategy, 3 June 2019 6
5. Gratis advice for the next National
Security Adviser, 21 May 2019 8
6. Kashmir: Radicalisation and what to do
about it, 10 May 2019 10
7. The Doval And Hooda Prescriptions
Examined, 5 April 2019 12
8. Balakot: Divining India’s strategy from
its messaging, 9 March 2019 14
9. Reminding The Political Class Of
Clausewitz's First Injunction, 18 Feb 2019 16
10. The Army's land warfare doctrine, 9 Feb
2019 18
11. Operation Kabaddi Revealed But Only
Partially, 26 January 2019 20
12. Kashmir: Towards peace with dignity, 17
Dec 2018 23
13. Contextualising the army chief’s news
making, 6 Dec 2018 25
14. Governor, 'root causes' matter, 6 Nov
2018 27
15. Divide and kill, 30 Oct 2018 28
16. Ajit Doval's platter: Centralisation with
a purpose, 16 Oct 2018 30
17. India on the brink, 24 Sep 2018 32
18. India's spooks: Getting too big for their
boots?, 4 Sep 2018 34
19. Noting the spokesperson-minister’s
remarks, 19 Jul 2018 36
20. Human Rights: All so unfortunately ho-hum,
3 Jul 2018 37
21. The army chief as regime spokeman?, 16
May 2018 39
22. The 'incident': Nothing but political, 2
April 2018 41
23. Is there an Indian 'deep state'?, 23
March 2018 42
24. A political army or an apolitical one?, 6
March 2018 44
25. The Army: Introspection is warranted, 10
Feb 2018 46
26. War in 2018?, 25 Jan 2018 48
27. Spiking possibilities: What is the army
chief up to?, 4 Jan 2018 50
28. When Ideology corrupts Strategy, 10 Oct
2017 52
29. Pakistan: Not down for the count, yet, 23
Sep 2017 54
30. Kashmir: From conflict management to a
conflict resolution?, 14 Sep 2017 56
31. In defence of Hamid Ansari, 16 Aug 2017 58
32. Debating the 'harder military approach', 4
Aug 2017 61
33. An Army to fear: The Army's future?, 12
Jun 2017 63
34. Reading the Army Chief's words, 8 June 2017 64
35. Ummer Fayaz: Another Kashmiri icon, 16
May 2017 66
36. Kashmir's scenery makes its way to the 'hinterland',
9 May 2017 68
37. The hovering nuclear clouds, 25 Apr 2017 70
38. To the army: Any gentlemen left please?, 22
Apr 2017 72
39. Terror: More serious than most know, 11
March 2017 74
40. Stolen gold: A ghost from the past that
scares none, 24 Feb 2017 76
41. COAS selection and the doctrine of
‘relative ease of working’ with, 25 Dec 2016 77
42. Saluting Bipin Rawat but with a caveat, 20
Dec 2016 80
43. The nuclear doctrinal implications of
'surgical strikes', 15 Nov 2016 82
44. The myth of ‘strategic restraint’, 16 Oct
2016 84
45. How much of a departure since Uri?, 4 Oct
2016 86
46. India-Pakistan: In a dialogue of sorts, 23 Sep 2016 88
47. A problem wider than Kashmir, 24 Aug 2016 90
48. A War at Hand, 15 May 2016 92
49. Handwara: Going Beyond SOPs, 19 Apr 2016 94
50. Book Review – Op ed, 21 Feb 2016 95
51. Gen Rao’s place in the history of Kashmir,
5 Feb 2016 98
52. The conspiracy angle to the Pathankot
episode, 7 Jan 2016 100
53. India-Pak bonhomie: Can it last?, 15 Dec
2015 102
54. Is Mani Shankar Aiyar right?, 19 Nov 2015 104
55. What the next war spells for Kashmir, 4
Nov 2015 106
56. Getting practical over an important
report, 15 Sep 2015 107
57. A cautionary word for the NSA, 11 Sep
2015 110
58. India-Pakistan: Silver linings and band aids
are not enough, 7 Sep 2015 112
59. Kashmir: Not the moment for a tryst, 1
August 2015 113
60. Kashmir and India’s Muslims, 10 Jun 2015 115
61. Kashmiri Pandits: Undoing injustice, 25
April 2015 117
62. Kashmir: Fifty years since 1965 War, 28
Feb 2015 119
63. Looking Back a Quarter Century On, 20 Jan
2015 121
64. India-Pakistan with Kashmir in between, 11
Dec 2014 123
65. Hooda Walks The Talk, 10 Nov 14 126
66. Politicisation of security and its
consequences, 15 Oct 2014 127
67. What is Mr. Modi's Kashmir strategy?, 8
Sep 2014 129
68. Modi forges a commitment trap, 19 Aug
2014 131
69. The echo of Gaza closer home, 1 Aug 2014 133
70. What the PM did not say out loud at
Badami Bagh, 16 Jul 2014 135
71. The coming threat of politicization, 26
May 2014 137
72. India's brass: What the controversy
misses, 9 May 2014 139
73. Second Guessing Modi's Kashmir Policy, 11
Apr 2014 141
74. Kashmir and the bomb, 29 Apr 2014 142
75. Pathribal: Back in the news, 29 Jan 2014 145
76. The debate between the generals, 13 Dec
2013 147
77. Ideologues as 'strategists', 28 Nov 2013 149
78. The expansionist agenda , 31 Oct 2013 151
79. Vanzara gets it right: The meaning for
J&K, 16 Sep 2013 152
80. The LoC incident calls for
self-regulation by the army, 13 Aug 2013 154
81. Distancing from Cloak and Dagger, 18 Jul
2013 156
82. Implications of a NaMo foreign policy, 11
June 2013 157
83. Daulat Beg Oldi: More than a storm in a
tea cup, 13 May 2013 159
84. Countering insurgency and sexual violence,
8 May 2013 161
85. India’s security under Modi, 11 Apr 2013 163
86. Lessons from Bandipore, 8 Sep 12 165
87. Kashmir: More of the same, 3 Jul 12 166
88. The agenda this winter, 6 Nov 2011 168
89. Fixing responsibility CI decisions and
consequences, 29 Aug 2011 170
90. Solving Kashmir: Feasible?, 9 Oct 2011 171
91. Acknowledging the blind spot on Kashmir, 27
Jan 2012 173
92. Kashmir: Declaring premature victory, 2
April 2012 175
93. AFSPA: A Question of Justice, 13 Feb 2012 176
94. An agenda point for the foreign
secretaries, 16 June 2011 178
95. Kashmir: Its now or never, 9 Dec 11 180
