http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=112843#

General Rawat’s legacy in civil-military relations

General Bipin Rawat has etched a place in military history, not so much by way of martial feats as much for his contribution to civil-military relations of New India. He was first recipient of governmental favour in its resort to ‘deep selection’ as a policy for selection to higher rank. His showing in the successive appointments – army chief and chief of defence staff – places the policy under a pall, showing it up as a ploy for the regime’s attempt at institutional capture of the military, quite in the same vein as it has truncated other national institutions.

Deep selection

Rawat came into limelight as corps commander when two cross-border raids into Myanmar were undertaken simultaneously. These caught the eye of the national security adviser (NSA), who was curiously on hand to oversee a tactical level action, with the army chief in tow. It is not known how many hangers-on and camp-followers - and therefore in the reckoning of international humanitarian law, noncombatants – were among the 60 killed in the camps struck.

It cannot be said with any certainty which of the two influences on NSA Ajit Doval – Rawat’s operational skills or his being an ethnic kin - resulted in Rawat’s elevation for field army command in Pune, outpointing one of his seniors, PM Hariz heading the training command at Shimla. Hariz was doubly-handicapped, being a mechanised warfare expert, but - more pertinently - a Muslim, anathema in New India then emerging.

Later, called to Delhi as vice chief, he outflanked yet another senior, his earlier boss in the North East, General Praveen Bakshi. A journalist recounted how Rawat, as vice chief, was heard hailing the surgical strikes launched by the government after the terror attack on Uri garrison. Did Rawat anticipate a shift to ‘deep selection’ to substitute for the seniority principle in selection of the apex military leaders or was he tipped off by his new found mentor within the new regime?

Such questioning is pertinent when contrasted with General Bakshi, for his part, by underplaying another surgical strike into Myanmar, did precisely the opposite. As it turned out in the run up to change over of army chief, men in shadows whispered against the front runner, General Praveen Bakshi. The deep selection policy had a positive start in the precedence set by the two officers superseded soldiering on.

Whether Rawat played with a straight bat at this juncture comes into question. He did not live up to the precedence in which two officers offered the chair of the army chief stepped aside for their senior being superseded: Generals Nathu Singh and Rajendrasinhji in favour of the senior most Indian officer, General Cariappa.

Operational showing

It soon became evident Rawat was selected for implementing the regime’s soon-to-unfold policy in Kashmir. Operation All Out was just that: a take-no-prisoners approach between 2016 and 2019. Rawat as its principal agent brought about a cultural makeover in the military’s approach, best exemplified by infamous ‘human shield’ episode.

The operations set the stage for the voiding of Article 370 by preemptively de-fanging any potential armed backlash. It is lost to history what Rawat’s input on this was, since the action has resulted not only in present-day aggravation of the situation but also in a long term threat lingering in Kashmir.

To keep Pakistan on a tight leash, Rawat touted surgical strikes. The second surgical strike did not involve the army directly, but the riposte of the Pakistani air force almost got its northern army commander, then visiting the forward defended localities, leaving the army rather red-faced.

But the more significant military event on Rawat’s watch was the Ladakh intrusion. Whereas early in Rawat’s tenure, the army had mobilized and held its own at Doklam, the outcome turned out vacuous. The Chinese reckoning that a similar outcome was possible in Ladakh, launched a massive intrusion in early 2020.

Rawat, by then chief of defence staff (CDS), did not exhibit any dexterity in a timely, equivalent grab action elsewhere. The army always has such contingency plans up its sleeve and its operational formations have intrinsic capability. It had exercised this capability only the previous autumn. Covid outbreak is not a plausible excuse for settling for ‘mirror deployment’, on over the last two winters, only redesignated as ‘proactive localized deployment’. This year, the army even stepped back from the Kailash range, which it had taken over amidst some auto-backslapping last year.

Apparently, CDS Rawat was persuaded that Chinese comprehensive national power was improbably of the order that a regional power, India, could not indulge itself in a perfectly legitimate and militarily plausible, localized, border war. Arguably, Rawat can be faulted for taking the counsel of his fears in his advice as the principal military adviser to the defence minister.

For its part, the government got the advice it bargained for, having chosen a counter-insurgency expert as top military adviser. So enamoured was Rawat with ‘grey zone’ war theory - on which the army doctrine put out under his tutelage is based – that the military appears to have concluded conventional war is passé. Since this emphasizes the ‘half front’ of the ‘two and half front war’ formulation put out by Rawat, it inserts the army into an essentially civilian domain, leading up to the logic articulated by the NSA that civil society is the new threat to national security. 

Elusive Jointness

Rawat’s approach to war-fighting played out in his controversial public face-off with the Air Force. To universal surprise, he admitted to a view that the air force was but an extension of the artillery. This appears a hangover of 1962, when the air was kept out of the conflict. The air force, with a self-belief as a service with a strategic purpose, was quick to publicly contradict Rawat.

A similar run in was with the Navy. While the silent service wishes for sea control capabilities, based on carriers, Rawat instead plugged for a sea-denial capability built on submarines. The argument reached such proportions that Rawat skipped the last Navy Day ceremonies, instead scheduling a lecture at Ajay Singh Bisht’s pocket borough, Gorakhpur.

With turf wars as this, Rawat’s legacy, being associated with the inception of the joint theatre command concept, is dead at birth. Rawat over-interpreted the press note on the appointment of the CDS. The mandate given therein does not state require front-specific joint theatre commands, pressed for by Rawat.

Rawat was unable to see through the politician’s ploy of shooting from his shoulders by not providing him with political direction. Rather than calling out this bit of political abdication on the part of his political masters, he instead went for a bottom-up solution, ordering the services to come up with studies on theatre commands. Though Rawat ran out of time wrapping up jointness, his successor must convince political masters that their investing political capital is necessary.

Inroads of ideology

It is for historians to unravel if Rawat’s forays into the headlines from time to time – the latest being his defence of lynchings – were because he sat on a difficult chair in the worst of times or because he was a regime acolyte. In favour of Rawat, it can be argued that seeing institutions fall like nine-pins around him, perhaps his foremost worry was to preserve the military from a similar fate. A choice to sway with the political ill-wind in such a case could arguably be taken as a pragmatic one. Unfortunately, in Rawat’s case there is no evidence yet that he ever had it mind to defer to the right wing political line only for pragmatic reasons: to ward off worse to come if he were to embark on confrontation. Clearly, the lessons of Admiral Bhagwat’s sacking reverberate through the decades, as perhaps they were meant to.  

However, the foot-in-mouth syndrome that persisted all through his tenure prevents unambiguously ruling out that he was not purveyor of an ideological line, impardonable in a uniformed office holder. Till biographers tell us otherwise, Rawat will have to be held partially accountable for the departures from traditional civil-military relations in his time at the helm. 

 

 https://m.thewire.in/article/security/what-will-be-general-bipin-rawats-place-in-indias-military-history

What Will Be General Bipin Rawat’s Place in India's Military History?

Now that the dust from the helicopter accident has settled, it is worth examining General Rawat’s contribution at the apex of the military. He occupied space at the highest levels for some five years, more than anyone in independent India, having been army chief for some three years and chief of defence staff (CDS) for close to two years.

During this period, significant and unprecedented military developments took place in respect of Pakistan and China and, equally importantly, in regard to Kashmir and the North East. Consequential military reforms were also undertaken, including his elevation as the first CDS, first permanent chairperson of the chiefs of staff committee and secretary of the newly created department of military affairs (DMA) within the defence ministry. The greatest shift has been in terms of cultural transformation under the mostly-indirect influence of the foundational philosophy of New India, hindutva. These form the backdrop for determining the General’s place in history.

Pakistan figured large in the early part of the General’s tenure. Right off the blocks, he cleared up  India’s best kept puzzle: its conventional doctrine. India had not owned up over some fifteen years of its existence to the Cold Start doctrine. Not only did the General take ownership of the doctrine, but initiated steps for its operationalisation in the creation of integrated battle groups (IBG), the work horses of limited offensives into Pakistan in case compelled by Pakistani proxy war provocations.

Even so, it is a retrogressive step since it more or less accepts a lack of adeptness in maneuver warfare. There is no compelling need for preconfigured, objective-specific IBGs, when mechanized formations can flow into battle reconfiguring on the march. If they do not have this felicity at the outset, then it is incomprehensible how these battle groups can outlast the first bullet fired, which as military history teaches puts a spanner in the works of the best laid plans.

This betrays a military incapacity, brought about, in part by the counter insurgency fixation over past three decades. Incidentally this focus led to General Rawat, bolstered by supposed counter insurgency expertise, pipping at the post two of his seniors, from the mechanized forces, to the rank of general. Arguably this professional preoccupation led to India being blind-sided by China’s intrusions into Ladakh.

Though the army under General Rawat had taken a firm stand at Doklam, it proved a meager deterrent. The Chinese apparently rightly reading India’s reluctance to up the military ante walked into Ladakh, clubbing a score Indian soldiers to death as they did so. This unwillingness to chance escalation suggests a deficiency in the exercise of operational art in terms of manipulation of the escalation threat in order to make the other side blink. As CDS, Rawat was overly impressed by the gap in comprehensive military power between the two sides, resting on his oars with mirror deployment, jargoned as ‘proactive localized deployment’, rather than going for a quick counter-grab in riposte. 

It is in relation to Kashmir that the General’s military reputation stands to suffer most, since it’s the site of his expertise. Not only did the General oversee a human rights-insensitive counter insurgency campaign, Operation All Out, but did not alert the government to the adverse long term effects of its Kashmir policy twist, the voiding of Article 370. As the lead agency in the Valley, the army should have asked for voicing its input and done so by thumping the table against the initiative. That it did not do so bespeaks of either being persuaded by the action or not having the gumption to take a stand. Either way is unedifying.

The post-Uri terror attack surgical strikes were prior to the General’s tenure at the helm, but were based on his stewardship of similar high-publicity strikes into Myanmar as corps commander in the North East. These led to his catching the eye of National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, an ethnic fellow. Similar strikes the following year were downplayed by the then eastern army commander, General Praveen Bakshi, resulting in part in his being sidelined from the army Chief’s chair, since it deprived the political masters of an opportunity to grandstand over a military feat.

Surgical strikes have thus had more of a domestic political fallout than an external strategic one. Pakistan, the intended target of deterrence, has gone one-up over India in its aerial riposte to Balakot. That Pakistan has been relatively restrained over the General’s tenure in Kashmir owes to its privileging the Afghanistan denouement over the past few years, rather than being impressed by India’s strategic shift advertised by surgical strikes. 

The recent botched military operation in Nagaland shows up vulnerability, accentuated in the ongoing long-duration crisis with China. Whether and to what levels General Rawat input the government’s policy is not known. For instance, the Nagaland imbroglio continues since the Framework Agreement cannot be operationalised as the Nagas insist on a separate flag and Constitution. India, having only recently deprived Kashmiris of the same federal privileges has in effect shot itself in the foot twice over. Strategic level input from the army, the lead counter insurgency force in both locations, should have been to influence policy away from such counter-productive initiatives. It is lost to history if General Rawat exercised his known social capital with the regime to put some strategic sense into its moves.

It would be tragic if later biographers were to alight on evidence that his input on such decisions was instead to acquiesce. It brings into question his elevation, raising the question was it because he would likely play along - either being docile or a believer himself - that led to his selection as first CDS? Recall the announcement of the position was delayed till after his contender, the then air chief, retired. Even the CDS position was not without a spoke-in-the-wheel in that with the creation of the DMA – a bureaucratic silo without precedent in any democracy - the first CDS was reduced to being just another secretary, from a protocol equivalence to cabinet secretary.

Here, General Rawat busied himself with structural transformation without the benefit of a political directive, resulting in separate public and embarrassing jousts with the air and naval chiefs. It is also unclear if the trajectory of jointness to culminate in front-specific integrated theatre commands has political imprimatur, given that the mandate does not explicitly figure in the remit of the CDS in the press release on the appointment. The process therefore appears to be somewhat of a wild goose chase that shall prove a bugbear if his successor does not take the opportunity of a change over to course correct.  

Finally, and most importantly, was General Rawat’s perhaps historic role of ushering the Indian army into the New India of the Second Republic. To be fair to the General, he was at the helm at the most difficult of times for the military. When all institutions succumbed to the hindutva juggernaut and bent to the will of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it would have been quite a feat had the military leadership cauterised the military from being influenced by political forces.

The military’s political masters decided to go in for ‘deep selection’ as the new policy for selection of higher appointments, Rawat being a prominent beneficiary. It remains to be known whether he swayed with the wind pragmatically and, as lead gatekeeper, assented to open up the military only partially and selectively. This might have been a plausible strategy, lest in taking a stand the military were to keel over altogether. However, from his utterances from time to time, it cannot unambiguously be said that Rawat was not a bhakt himself. That might with time turn out his unfortunate legacy.

 UN, international community and India's engagement in Afghanistan over the years

(not chronological)

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2021/08/blog-post.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/httpwww_8845.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/coming-escalation-in-obamas-war-by-ali.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2018/09/httpswww_25.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/06/tensions-between-security-and.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/idsa-comment-afghanistan-idea.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/afghanistan-lets-try-peacekeeping.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2019/09/httpwww_13.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/pinion-plan-for-bonn-domestic.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2021/07/httpepaper.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2021/05/httpwww.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2021/07/httpepaper.html?spref=tw

 https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/21095/Incipient-Shift-in-Civil-Military-Relations-

Incipient Shift in Civil-Military Relations ?

UNEDITED VERSION

A problem from hell in India’s civil-military relations

A recently-released monograph, collectively authored by a set of liberal intellectuals, India’s Path to Power: Strategy in a World Adrift, carries a section on ‘Politicisation of the military’. The paper has it that there is an incipient shift in the apolitical characteristic of the Indian military. The military brass needs to fight a rearguard action, lest the military too fall along with other institutional ninepins.

The paper apprehends that, “the traditional apolitical stance of the military is under pressure at two levels: the first, of the senior military leadership, and the second, comprising the junior leadership of officers and persons below officer rank.” Whereas the rank and file is susceptible to the change in wider society towards majoritarianism, the senior leadership is under pressure from the rightward thrust of polity.

With regard to the former, it observes a conflation in the mind’s eye of senior military leadership, between the government and the State. This disrupts the traditional distinction between loyalty to the Constitution and the ruling party. As for the latter, according to it, there is an “assault on the secular outlook of the armed forces by wider social and ideological currents.”

It prognosticates that the political masters are likely to continue to ride military horses to electoral victory, in light of precedence of partisan dividend. The government has also taken to ‘deep selection’ of senior military appointments. Even though it is a legitimate process, pliability or like-mindedness could overshadow competence.

Though spot-on in diagnosing a looming problem, the paper – perhaps for reasons of space – is light on the remedy: “This issue is a matter for the military leadership to introspect and rectify.” It believes that the onus for keeping at an apolitical distance from pernicious politics devolves on a military leadership seized of the motto, “Service Before Self”.

It is unlikely that the paper’s recommendation that the military brass stand up and be counted on this score will find traction. There is a pattern of intimidation followed by the government, such as of the liberal media and personages taking a skeptical stance.

This will likely to deter any such thoughts on part of the military brass. It does not have to go as far back as the instance of sacking of an admiral by a previous right wing government, but the nasty information campaign of petty corruption against the general who led the pack when this government made its first deep selection, picking the third in line for army chief.

Curiously, on the continuing necessity of an apolitical military, the paper says, “This responsibility on the military leadership is huge because India is a nuclear power.” It does not elaborate on how India’s nuclear weapon state (NWS) status attenuates the apolitical military characteristic that predates the NWS status.

Even so, it is worth reiterating the questions that animate the section and to try answering them: Is an apolitical military needed, and, if so, how can this be ensured?

India, though continuing as a procedural democracy, has been recently termed an ‘electoral autocracy’. A putatively authoritarian polity can do without an apolitical military. An apolitical military is required when there is alternation in government of different political parties. The political project of this government requires it ensconced in power till the majoritarian turn to polity it not complete.

In such an endeavour, the ruling formation, termed the ‘Parivar’, requires the military as a subordinate ally. Compliance is facilitated by the military being enthused by the ethno-democracy in-the-works or swayed by a populist political leadership. Both thrust-lines for a docile military are at play.

The former is a work-in-progress, with no dearth of trying. Soon, the military curriculum is to be injected with a dash of inspiration from ancient India. The concept of an apolitical military is a throwback to the fifties, when the military sociology theory in the West dwelt on how to subordinate the military in a democracy. Today, how Indian tradition has it on issues as the relationship of the chakravartin with the senapati and place of the military in state craft - perhaps elucidated in tracts as the Arthashastra - matters more.

As for the latter, the prime minister has long sought occasions to vibe directly with troops, with his Diwali visits to frontlines being a prominent vehicle for such insertion into their consciousness. In his latest interaction with troops on the Line of Control, while thanking them for the execution by the army of surgical strikes, he brought out his abiding concern with their safety when the strikes were being conducted. The brass has evidently taken cue. A general recently approved an obsequious tweet on his formation’s twitter handle greeting the prime minister on his birthday, only to later withdraw it.

Taken together, the two thrust-lines imply that nurturing an apolitical military is not necessary in New India. The problem that arises, as pointed out in the paper, is, “a danger of a pliable military leadership being used for narrow party-political purposes at the cost of national interests.”

Illustrations of such a principal-agent (government-military) relationship are in the cover-up, with the military complicit, over Balakot and the Ladakh intrusion. The military’s sub-par performance is overlooked by political masters in return for the military keeping the reality – embarrassing for political masters - under wraps. The price of such mutual back-scratching is in national security.

Another illustration is Kashmir, where, in not calling out the obvious aggravation of the problem in Kashmir that accrues from the political high-handedness - specifically evacuation of Article 370 of all meaning - and security force heavy handedness, the military furthers an inaccurate picture of success. While there is no call that this be done in the open domain, there are no reports of the military thumping the table in dissent even at the discussion stage.

The military’s lending of its credibility to preferred narratives of the government helps absolve the government of democratic accountability, thus compromising a vital national interest: democracy. The military ends up playing a political role to the partisan advantage of the ruling party, unwarily ending up party to the slow-motion dismantling of liberal, Constitutional democracy.   

This is easy for the military to miss when, as the paper points out, “(C)ontemporary political and popular discourse routinely conflates the government with the state.” The military is victim of such conflation too. This reveals a blind side to its professional military education.

If and since the lacuna advantages the ruling party, the political masters are unlikely to be concerned. The military is also unlikely to righting the tilt, since it might put it at odds with the political masters. Besides, who will bell the cat? The opposition cannot be too vocal on this score, lest it drag the military into the political bull-pit. Strategic commentators can at best caution the national security establishment to advise political masters on a course correct.

The danger is in the problem culminating in the next national security crisis if in the interim till next elections. That these have a nuclear overhang explains the otherwise curious underlining in the paper of the nuclear factor as compelling civil-military relations remain on even keel.

 

 

 

 https://www.newsclick.in/is-military-brass-transgressing-diplomatic-LAC

Is the military brass transgressing the diplomatic LAC?

On 27 October, at a function at the Budgam airfield re-enacting the landings on the same date in 1947 for saving Kashmir from the invasion of kabailis, the chief of the Air Force’s Western Command expressed the hope that Pakistan occupied part of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state of Maharaja Hari Singh would be part of India someday.

While delivering the first Ravi Kant Singh Memorial lecture series’ talk, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, in relation to Chinese inroads in India’s neighbourhood, said that, "(S)uch attempt and adventure in the neighbouring countries would go against India's national interest and these are potential threats to India's territorial integrity and strategic importance." Almost as if India is not already at it, he went on to note that, “we have to … assure neighbours that we are their permanent friends and we want to engage with them on equal term (sic),” and that, “(W)e need to be able to convince them that we will be your friends in the long term.” 

Late last month, the army vice chief, speaking at a seminar, opined, "(I)f Tibet had strong armed forces, they would have never been invaded." Apparently, he was underlining the necessity for a nation to have strong armed forces. Not naming a country referred to as ‘a big nation’, he claimed, "(T)oday everybody talks about India as the net security provider and it is a security umbrella against a big nation."

From the three illustrations above, it is clear that this plain-speak by the brass on the wider-than-narrowly-military aspects of national security is a trend, or, in officialese, not an ‘aberration’. Coming in quick succession, the statements point to a policy decision to have the brass give voice to matters beyond the narrowly-military pale.

It is not as if the foreign office has not gently pushed back. When the infamous ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis acquired a new subscriber in the CDS, just when the two foreign ministers of India and China were to meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation gathering of foreign ministers last month, no less than the foreign minister had to step in to contain the fallout by distancing India from the general’s words.    

However, there has been little public skirmishing on the continuing inroads the brass seems to be making into diplomatic turf. Can it be inferred that the brass has been selectively empowered to participate, if not take the lead, in national security relevant messaging?

Perhaps the coordination on this score rests with the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), so that the two branches of government and instruments of national security – military and diplomacy - do not step on each others’ toes and do not elbow each other in areas of inevitable overlap.

With theaterisation coming up and plurilateralism being the foreign policy mantra, for the military to get into higher gear visibly and bat at a higher than operational level is seemingly unexceptionable. Military exercises and exchange visits are now at a pace difficult to follow. The fledgling Department of Military Affairs (DMA) appears to have heightened the salience of the military within government and increased the scope of activity of the military outside the traditional domain of border guarding and counter insurgency.     

In regard to statements directed at China, the brass taking on an additional duty of strategic messaging gives the foreign office sufficient space to pursue a negotiated end to the continuing crisis. Besides, India perhaps wants to outgun the Peoples’ Liberation Army in its information war salvoes launched in media battles that have followed the fraying of relations between the two states.

As for Pakistan, even as the military presents an implacable front, the national security bureaucracy can continue its below-the-radar engagement, such as that brought about the Line of Control ceasefire and the recent invite to the Pakistani national security adviser to discussions on Afghanistan in Delhi. In any case, Pakistan is fair game since a hybrid war is ongoing, of which information war is a key domain.  

This is a positive interpretation of the new practice. However, the military has certainly gone beyond military diplomacy.

None of the eight bullet points on the ambit of the CDS and the DMA as given in the Second Schedule to Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules 1961 have anything to do with diplomacy. At best, it is the Department of Defence under the defence secretary that has a role beyond matters that are not strictly military, if the last bullet point in its charter (“Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, National Defence College and any other organisation within the Ministry of Defence whose remit is broader than military matters (italics added)”) is an indicator.

Therefore, the new-found practice begs the question of whence did it originate. There are three possible impulses.

The first is understandable, but only at a stretch. Given the recurrence of military forays into diplomatic terrain, it’s possible the military has been allowed greater leeway, with diplomats acquiescent. This strengthens India’s strategic profile and outreach, particularly since the Foreign Service has been long criticized for having too small a cadre to be able to punch at India’s weight.

The second – uncharitable - one is that these interventions stem from an autonomous, expanded interpretation of national security post creation of the DMA. The CDS has acquired a reputation for speaking his mind on national security. His alleged proximity with National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval perhaps emboldened him. Taking cue, his fellow generals are now more voluble, even in matters other than diplomacy.

The third - seemingly implausible but not impossible to visualize in an India that has seen its institutions been reduced to rump - is that an incipient turf war has been sparked off by national security minders. The resulting bureaucratic politics places them in the position of arbitrating. Could friction between NSA Ajit Doval and Foreign Minister Jaishankar have escalated to levels at which national security bureaucrats using the military to intrude onto diplomatic turf?

While the latter two impulses are obviously undesirable, even the first - a reasoned policy to use the military for sniping at neighbours - is not without its underside.

The underside can be seen through reasoning why China inexplicably intruded into Ladakh early last year. A possible reason could be that there was disconnect between what China was hearing at the informal summits at Wuhan and Meenakshipuram and what it was experiencing on the ground along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The then eastern army commander had said that the army’s transgressed across the LAC twice as many times as China, while General VK Singh put the figure at five times. With the military operating within its domain (patrolling the LAC) leading to a blowback, when it operates outsides its domain, blowback is virtually a certainty.

While military diplomacy does reinforce diplomatic firepower, the military brass shooting its mouth off is not quite military diplomacy. Even if a policy choice to allow the brass latitude, with diplomats onboard, the new found practice calls for review. If impelled by the latter two impulses – military expansionism or bureaucratic politics – then the need is even more so.  

 

 

 

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 https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/opinion/theres-a-political-opportunity-in-kashmir-will-the-centre-grab-it-7662811.html

There’s a political opportunity in Kashmir. Will the Centre grab it?

UNEDITED VERSION

Tweaking the ‘chronology’ opens up a political opportunity in Kashmir

During his recent visit to Kashmir, the home minister repeated his chronology on reversion to statehood of the union territory: delimitation and elections followed by statehood. However, reversing the order of the latter two can potentially renew the social contract, frayed since 1987, with Kashmiris.

The home minister’s visit set the stage for this best case scenario for the BJP. Apprehensions are that the ongoing delimitation exercise is to empower the Jammu belt, thereby enabling the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), stronger south of the Pir Panjals, take power for the first time in Srinagar. Statehood would be the incentive for ruling party-inclined voters, a promise easier met if the ruling party at the Center and the state are the same.

However, a political party view but one viewed through a parochial lens, in this case a right wing, ideological one. A national problem area as Kashmir should not be subject to a partisan approach. It needs leavening with input from governmental institutions involved to enhance the options, including other options.

To be sure, the delimitation does not by itself indicate that the chronology is a done deal. There has been no indication from the level of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) that alone can rule on a national issue as this. 

The last time the chronology was aired was at an all-party meeting this June chaired by the prime minister. Other political parties were against the chronology since they lacked confidence that statehood would be conferred in case a party or coalition other than the ruling party wins. The Center could renege. 

What this suggests is that elections on the heels of delimitation may not see active popular participation, particularly in Kashmir. Therefore, even if the BJP does come to power with a virtual walkover, it would not be a victory for democracy, but would be pyrrhic.

This needs pointing out by the national security establishment. It has long engaged with the Kashmir issue in light of its mandate to return stability in Kashmir. It has the institutional memory and analytical heft to discern the security implications by deploying its scenario building expertise to assess the options.

There are essentially three scenarios.

The first is status quo. As seen from the recent spike in violence, a seeming trajectory towards peace is subject to sudden reverses and geopolitical eddies, such as from the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul.

The second scenario is elevation of the union territory (UT) prior to the elections can be galvanizing. Elections to a state assembly rather than a UT one can potentially prove an inflexion point. It will be a vote of confidence in Kashmiris, interpreting their beloved term, ‘azadi’, to mean availing themselves of democratic freedoms.

Alternatively, and lastly, persisting with the chronology could lend ballast and longevity to the insurgency. Kashmiri disaffection could deepen with another opportunity for political ministration passed up. The recent controversy over Kashmiris cheering for the Pakistani cricket team is telling on levels of alienation.

The third scenario would imply continuing of the hard-line, though its limitations are obvious after six years of its implementation. It cannot serve indefinitely as substitute for political action. It can at best create conditions for adoption of a political approach predicated on political judgment and risk taking.

Of the three options, national security institutions must live up to their duty by being forthright with the political principal. While recommending an option may be out of their remit, they could emulate former President Abdul Kalam.

Raj Chengappa in his book, Weapons of Peace (p. 38), recounts that when Prime Minister Narasimha Rao at the fag end of his tenure was dallying over the nuclear test, scientific adviser, APJ Abdul Kalam, soto voce suggested that testing might have ‘political benefits’ for Rao. Congress was not quite on a particularly strong wicket in the elections that were soon to follow. In the event, Kalam was wrapped on the knuckles for his pains by Rao for stepping out of his domain of expertise and charter.

Taking cue, national security minders could perhaps step out of the straight and narrow and assay their national obligation. They must emphasise that on national security issues, political interests are not a determining criteria.

They must gently nudge decision makers towards the second scenario here – statehood preceding elections. They can soto voce point out that come 2024, quietude in Kashmir may bring unforeseen political dividend and perhaps a Nobel peace prize. Doing so is worth a wrap on the knuckles.

https://m.thewire.in/article/security/what-an-angry-generals-unwarranted-admonition-of-kashmiris-says-about-the-army-and-politics

http://epaper.kashmirtimes.in/index.aspx?page=5

What an Angry General's Unwarranted Admonition of Kashmiris Says About the Army and Politics

UNEDITED VERSION

Are generals speaking their minds or shooting their mouths off?

At an Army Management Studies Board (AMSB) seminar in Srinagar, the Director General, Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lieutenant General KJS Dhillon rhetorically inquired of the Kashmiri muslim community why the silent majority amongst Kashmiri muslims remained silent and did not protests recent killings of minority community members in Kashmir.

He cautioned that the not only will Kashmiris lose their right to freedom of expression for being selective on what they protest about but the term ‘Kashmiri’ might end up as a pejorative, quite like the term, ‘Paki’, used in a racist context.

To him Kashmiri muslims’ absence from the streets in protest against lethal attacks on their fellow Kashmiris of the minority faiths as ‘selective dementia’. Perhaps he meant ‘selective amnesia’, a more familiar phrase. Or - uncharitably – he may have meant ‘collective dementia’, wherein Kashmiri Muslims, maddened by prejudice, did not condole publically enough their wantonly killed fellow Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs in this month’s spike of violence.  

The general’s plain speak is a departure from the standard in civil-military relations and cannot be allowed to go unremarked. True, precedence has been set by his boss, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, who has done so repeatedly over the years since his elevation to army chief. Since that is his trademark by now, it is somewhat normalised, perhaps leading to his subordinates taking cue.

The situation has come to such a pass in public affairs that the first thing that comes to mind in such instances is the question whether the dignitary making the remarks is to retire soon. With Supreme Court judges leading the way, could the military be far behind? Cynicism has it that personages facing a pensioner’s anonymity may be tacitly auditioning for a post-retirement sinecure.  

It is true the general is due to retire soon, commissioned as he was in 1983. Also true is that an earlier incumbent of the appointment he holds now serves as military adviser in the national security council secretariat. Incidentally, a claim to fame of the military adviser was that his view that demonetization would wipe out terrorism in Kashmir by drying up the hawala channels that got stone throwers on to Kashmir’s streets.

However, to give ‘Tiny’ Dhillon (‘Tiny’ alludes to his 6 feet 4 inches height) the benefit of the doubt, he may have been acting in his official capacity. After all, at the apex of the intelligence set up of the military, he may well be playing his part since info war is part of the intelligence domain. That he is practitioner of info war is evident from his twitter account being made operational just about when he took over as corps commander in Badami Bagh, coincidentally right before the Pulwama episode.

The intent appears to be to shame the majority in the Valley, Kashmiri Muslims, to register their disapproval of the change in insurgent tactics to terrorism by targeting innocent members of the minority community. In strategic thinking, this would help with deterring the minders of terrorists sitting across the Line of Control from ordering more such murders since it would set the majority – the sea – against the insurgents – the fish.

Apparently the general has moral authority since his last tenure of five served in Jammu and Kashmir was as commanding general in Badami Bagh. His profile on his twitter handle claims he ‘worked for peace in Kashmir in Chinar Corps,’ going on to state, ‘(N)ation first always and every time.’ The two statements together explain his going voluble on Kashmir, in Kashmir.

However, it bears considering if a principal staff officer of the CDS can make egregious statements in regard to an Indian community. Firstly, must be dispelled any notion of emotional connect between officials and their work with communities empowering them to air their subjective observations. At a stretch, generals in command in counter insurgency theatres can arguably have such a privilege as their mandate includes grappling with insurgency in a multidimensional manner. Others had best hold their opinions till they retire.

Also, in this instance, the notion of seeming entitlement with which the general makes his remarks needs deflating, based as it seems to be on the notion of an affiliation with Kashmiris for having served there and provisioning of security for them.

When the general was commanding in Badami Bagh, Operation All Out was in full swing. The state, rattled by the protests in the aftermath of the killing of Kashmiri icon, Burhan Wani, had set its security forces to go about killing militants with renewed vigour. The figures for years 2018 and 2019 are of zero surrenders. This was when those signing up were at best impressionable youth, not quite hardened jihadis. According to the general, their lifespan as militants was less than a year. Sans training and weaponry they could not have made credible insurgents. So, does a ‘take no prisoners’ approach explain the figure of ‘0’ surrenders in years 2018 and 2019, followed by a meager 9 beginning only later in 2020, after the general had departed Srinagar for New Delhi? Though credited with having parents persuade sons to return to the mainstream, resulting in some 50 youth coming back ‘quietly’, this is unverifiable as the security of youth involved is at stake. 

As it turned out, Operation All Out was the preparation of the cake for icing that was to come. He lent his credentials of office and the dignity of uniform for the bit of drama that preceded the launch of the Modi-Shah assault on Article 370. Knowing that the voiding of Article 370 would set off protests, the security establishment needed to have Kashmir vacated off soft targets. The general went on primetime claiming that the army, finding an anti-tank mine with Pakistani marking on the yatra route, had uncovered a Pakistani plot to target the yatra, leading up to it being called off. White lies in way of national security being de rigueur, the general’s performance enabled India to blame Pakistan for the extensive crackdown that followed, even as India went about despoiling the Constitutional provision.

With no reasonable locus standi to make his remarks, the general’s AMSB lecture amounts to victim blaming - Kashmiris have borne the brunt of counter insurgency for some three decades now. Reminders of their ‘duty’ as a majority can willy-nilly be appropriated by interested forces as another stick – gaslighting - to beat them with.

Yet another stick is whatever Kashmiris may do, it would never be taken as enough. Kashmiri leaders have voiced their protest, even though the state has gone out of its way to marginalize mainstream politicians. In the ‘dirty war’, killings cannot all be attributed to terrorists. Of those killed this month, two allegedly innocent Kashmiris have been killed by security forces, who command immunity, and one jailed Pakistani was killed while scouting for - or being used as a human shield by - the army chasing terrorists south of the Pir Panjals.  

Equally, the state has failed Kashmiris by keeping the conflict alive indeterminately, allowing for right wing experimentation with solutions as the dissolution of the state. It bears asking when the measure was at the discussion stage, what was the army input from its operational level commander in Badami Bagh?

Also, now that statehood is to be restored, but only after elections, has the DIA – lead in formulating the threat perception for the military - indicated the security implications of the chronology of the elections: delimitations, elections and only then statehood? The ongoing legislative constituency delimitation exercise is to shift the balance of seats in favour of Jammu region, making it easier for the Jammu belt so advantaged to vote in the Bharatiya Janata Party. Since scenario building is in his Agency’s ambit, General Dhillon needs answering what will happen if this expectation does not materialise. But by then he might perhaps have retired.

Challenging the general’s remarks is important on a more significant count. These were directed at a particularly vulnerable Indian community that also happens to be Muslim, a double whammy in today’s New India. On two prior occasions, the army has had an exchange of words with Muslim politicians, specifically: Asaduddin Owaisi versus northern army commander Devraj Anbu over Muslim ‘martyrs’ and second, Badruddin Ajmal versus Bipin Rawat over the latter’s remarks on the former’s political party. Unless called out, the trend might become a norm, compounding the structural violence against Muslims with cultural violence of this kind. Perpetrators need to be brought down a peg or two, even at the risk of such counters being mischaracterized as ad hominem, lest Muslim bashing becomes a passing fancy for itinerant officials.

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