http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=81060

Noting the spokesperson-minister’s remarks

It may be a mistake to think that the defence minister is not minding her own business. Most have mistaken her remarks on another 1947 in the offing to be from her pulpit as the spokesperson for the ruling party. They are liable to be surprised some months down the road to find that the defence minister was prescient. As defence minister she would be holding down a critical role, that of leader of the fire-fighting party off to douse the outbreak of a communal conflagration to rival 1947. The defence minister, mindful of her role, is alerting the nation to an impending calamity. A defence minister so concerned is what the nation needs at such an hour of foreboding. This is the charitable interpretation of her remarks.

An army put to aid to civil authority under such a defence minister would surely save the day. Such an army would take the time between now and then to reprise links with the state authorities through its area and sub area headquarters, put in place communication hotlines with redundancies and practice troops to contingencies, foreseen and unforeseen. It would maintain a confidential line to the intelligence bureau at all levels of hierarchy. It would ensure the protocols are in place for preventive, preemptive and responsive action, to seize the initiative. Each column commander would know the parallel administrator, magistrate and the station house officer and have their mobile numbers; social media presence details; and how to get in touch with them when the network and internet is shut down in anticipation. Each commander will be pepped up to ensuring no innocent death or rapine occurs on his watch. His troops will be keyed up to play their role in preserving the nation yet again from a national calamity brought on by its wayward politics. They would do their defence minister proud. Saving the nation thus, she may – who knows - go on to be a grateful nation’s future prime minister.

Now for a less charitable version. Just suppose for a moment the critics of the defence minister’s remarks are right: that she is at it in her dual role as spokesperson for the ruling party, a role she has been unable to shed since she was elevated to cabinet rank, with a seat at the cabinet committee on security and the national security council.  

An army led by the spokesperson of the ruling party is unlikely to deploy timely. Quite like at the time of the Bombay carnage of 1993 and the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, it would be called in too late. It would be misled by a communalized police on the ground. It would be holding up placards, quite like it did when it went to clean up the mess in the heartland of Jatland, announcing - like the police in movies always arriving safely late –  that it has arrived to ring down the curtains. It would then dutifully conduct an internal inquiry, which would be duly filed away in some dusty cupboard – recall the internal report tendered after the Gujarat pogrom by General ‘Zoom’ Zamiruddin Shah (later Vice Chancellor Aligarh Muslim University) - under the watch of a bhakt-bureaucrat of the Gujarat cadre suitably deputed to the defence ministry for just this purpose.

Even so, what can be said without fear of contradiction is that - unfortunately for the split personality spokesperson-minister and try as the Sangh might - the Indian army will not end up doing what they expect or hope for: as a super-gunned police force. While that is all good, is it good enough? What are the dictates of the military dharma in a hypothetical situation painted by its political master?

It is not for this commentator to answer the poser. The military hierarchy had better take their boss seriously, at her word. What they make of it will be known as early as December, since plain-speaking Bharat Karnad, in an article, informs of a rumour of early elections: to have the BJP preempt the drubbing it is likely to get in the forthcoming provincial elections. That itself should set alarms off. A panicked spokesperson spilled the beans on the game plan.

Upfront, she has it that the Congress has a Partition repeat up its sleeve – with Rahul Gandhi teaming up with ‘Mussslims’ – said with a hiss or a ‘venomous, contemptuous emphasis’ according to one attendee at the meeting, Farah Naqvi. The Congress plan - we are informed - is to have the BJP blamed for it, keeping up the din as they have on BJP-induced polarization. Rahul Gandhi’s subversion by the ‘Mussslim intellectuals’ was conveniently scooped by an Urdu newspaper. It begs the question as to how - when the conspiracy is in the open – can 1947 repeat itself? With the game up, should not the Congress retire into oblivion; its leader go back to Italy; and ‘Mussslims’ go to Pakistan/bend down/roll over and play dead/walk themselves into gas chambers?

So, it cannot be a Congress-Muslim conspiracy, even if Rahul Gandhi did indeed say ‘the Congress is a Muslim party’. It’s a conspiracy quite like the one hatched in the house of Mani Shankar Aiyar on the eve of Gujarat elections with Pakistanis, at which at least one former army chief was present. Even though the prime minister – the defence minister’s boss – revealed this to the nation, no action followed. Treason allowed to go unpunished? Or, so much for conspiratorial allegations?

If so, where did Nirmala Sitharaman get her talking points for her press conference from? Four years into this government, everyone knows – and successive elections have demonstrated Indians are politically savvy – that a strategy of polarization is underway. The obvious culmination of such strategy is in one-sided violence of the order – as Sitharaman reminds – of 1947. Muslims will have to be forcibly frog-marched off to Pakistan, with the unregistered ones from the ongoing citizens’ register exercise in Assam presumably pushed (back?) into Bangladesh. A god man, Ravi Shankar, has ratted on the plan, referring to the likely reaction by an unnamed community to the impending Supreme Court judgment on the Ayodhya case. Current day lynchings are but a warming up; present day whats app rumours are mere limbering up for a mobilization for the mother-of-all genocides. Nirmala Sitharaman has done a service in having her spokesperson avatar over take her and broadcasting the invite.

Since she heads the defence ministry, the army needs reminding timely that it is the last line of defence. Under circumstances painted by their boss, it may require contemplating what apolitical means. It may require to unilaterally march off in aid of civil authority. It may have to bundle away violence prone Sanghis. It may have to by example and suggestion turn the police and administration back to the constitutional straight and narrow. It will have to disregard illegal orders. It may have to march to an internal tune – one instilled in it in the retelling through the centuries of the Bhagwad Geetha. It would have to hark back to when at mother’s breast it acquainted with the lore of Mahabharat and Ramayan. It would have to ask itself what its icons, Pratap, Ranjit, Shivaji and Chandragupt might have done in the circumstance. It would have to deliver as the last constitutional bastion. Make no mistake, if the madam defence minister succumbs to the spokesperson in her, this nation’s army cannot but let her down.   

    

   

http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/14342/The-Armys-Two-Impulses-in-Kashmir-

The army's two impulses in Kashmir

Human rights: Doctrine and departures

By Ali Ahmed

Below is advice for policy makers and Indian army strategists on the website of an armed forces think tank:

‘There is a need to implement few of hardline practices followed by Israel or USA in tackling terrorists. Policy of restraint needs a quick overhaul. SF personnel must have clearly defined rules of engagement in terms of stone throwing public. Collateral damage has to be acceptable in such cases, but a single SF casualty must not be tolerated.’

Superficially, it is merely explicating what the army chief once famously warned: that stone throwers would be taken as ‘over-ground workers of terrorists’ and disposed-off accordingly. The commentator wishes that they form part of ‘collateral damage’ here on, elaborating what the army chief included as the ‘harsh way’ to deal with stone pelting.

While, in light of killings of three stone pelters, including a sixteen year old girl, it is uncertain if the ‘harsh way’ was merely a threat held out or is being implemented, the army chief can be given the benefit of doubt on his assurance that security forces are mindful of ‘people friendly’ rules of engagement. Rawat had claimed, ‘that the SFs (security forces) haven’t been so brutal — look at Syria and Pakistan. They use tanks and air power in similar situations. Our troops have been trying their level best to avoid any civilian casualty despite huge provocation.’

The commentator thus appears to be arguing against his boss’ view that the Indian way is different. The commentator, a former senior fellow at the think tank, instead wishes for a ‘quick overhaul’ of such restraint, now that the elected government in Srinagar has been sent packing and Kashmir is under governor’s rule.

This despite his army chief putting a stop to such hankering with his admonishing that ‘there is nothing such as stepping up … the army continues to operate with formulated rules of engagement.’

Clearly, there are two impulses within Kashmir.

One is the only sensible recourse that makes the army chief proud of the army’s human rights record. Dismissing the recently released report of a UN human rights body, he said that the army’s record is ‘above board’, well known also to Kashmiris. To nevertheless deter stone throwing, he occasionally vents his exasperation in the media on stone throwers, hoping that by repetition to convince Kashmiri youth that being ‘carried away unnecessarily’ after azadi is futile.

The second impulse leads up to references to the ‘harsh way’ being taken rather too seriously, for instance, in the case in which an officer ended up with a first information report lodged against him.

These two impulses have always been incident in Kashmir, and indeed elsewhere in counter insurgency employment. Doctrine is expected to mediate between the two and the doctrinal tenets are to prevail. In this case, the chief appears to be referring to the longstanding doctrine, articulated in 2006 as ‘iron fist in velvet glove’. There is always present the second – perhaps subversive -counter narrative, referred to by the commentator in question as ‘open steel glove policy’. It is always possible for the second to overwhelm the first.

India’s Kashmir record provides instances when this has been so. While the official narrative has always been one of being human rights cognizant in operations, that these have not always been upheld is unfortunately also true.

A couple of extracts from missives dating to the early and mid-nineties from the Unified Headquarters, presided over by an adviser to the governor in J&K, to the security forces operating there is indicative: ‘Attitudinal change must take place. Indian citizens must not be degraded, ill treated or thrashed;’ ‘Merciless beating of one and all during cordon and search operations. At some times such beatings take place in full view of the public.’

The understanding behind such departures from tenet in practice is that perception management, including media management, can cover up. It is no wonder the commentator in question urges, ‘Media management is paramount…’

The counter narrative has a healthy following. Take the case where human rights has been taken seriously and its violation followed to its logical conclusion, that of the firing of about two score bullets into a car that sped past a check point at Budgam, killing its two youngsters. It was not particularly popular, requiring the army commander having to explain the action to his command in a demi-official letter.

Even so, later his prompt redressal action was harangued in a journal of the think tank in question by a former head of that think tank now with the Hindutva-linked India Foundation. The cultural nationalism-inspired criticism implied that the action of the army commander had ‘political considerations’ at heart.    

This reading of the approach to human rights in the army implies that for the army to walk the talk, its commanders need to first be persuaded and must be exert accordingly to sensitise their command. This is easier said than done.

The army has a command culture which is considerably personalized. The tyranny of the confidential report keeps tactical level subordinates responsive to the command climate that the commander puts in place. The operational level commander could well put in place a laissez faire approach, escaping censure by scoring high on the bean count such as on terrorists killed. Since families alienated are not quantified, the army has in such periods settled for tactical success in return for strategic failure.

The phenomenon appears to be recurring. The army chief in his pitch against azadi admitted as much, stating, “These numbers (of militants who are killed in gunbattles with the army) don’t matter to me because I know this cycle will continue. There are fresh recruitments happening.”

It did not occur to the chief that his ill-advised condoning a brazen violation in the ‘human shield’ episode has arguably contributed to militancy continuing into Operation All Out’s second year though the operation accounted for some 225 terrorists.  

It would not do to restrict the focus on the army alone. There are central police forces numbering in the six digits in Kashmir. There is no known doctrine that informs their conduct. It is well known that they have hands-off supervision. It is no secret that khaki-clad leaders such as late EN Rammohan are an exception. At the height of insurgency and its counter, he expressly forbade paramilitary combining in itself the roles of ‘judge, jury and executioner’. A leadership deficit lends itself to human rights short cuts; the most egregious of which is the slothful retention of pellet guns in a day and age of availability of substitutes in plenty and monies to access these.

While differences can be aired on pages of think tank wares, having divergences within the ranks over fundamentals requires greater vigilance in doctrine dissemination and implementation. Doctrinal dissonance cannot be allowed to take any more Kashmiri lives.

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=80581

http://epaper.kashmirtimes.in/index.aspx?page=6 

Human Rights: All so unfortunately ho-hum
It is entirely understandable that in the role playing that attends the Kashmir conflict the positions of those in authority and that of activists on the mid-June release of the report on the situation of human rights in Kashmir from the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights would be antipodal. It is interesting that even those bearing the mantle of liberals in mainland India have sought to belittle the report. So much so for its case, inter-alia, of over a hundred deaths resulting from excessive use of force against the agitations after the killing of Burhan Wani, quite as many as those in agitations after the Machhil killings episode in 2010. If and since the matter is so well known and for so long, putting it together between covers makes for little excitement here. 

Even as the situation calls for urgent remedial attention (such as trashing pellet guns) as recommended by the report, that this would not be forthcoming is equally clear. The ruling party, fearing its coalition partnership in Kashmir would cost it votes in the soon-to-be-held national elections, ditched its Kashmiri partner. While the army chief stopped at calling the report 'motivated', the ministry of external affairs, went further in shooting the messenger, calling it 'fallacious, tendentious'. To take cognizance of the report's findings would be to admit to wrong doing, which obviously India would not like to. As mentioned at a place in the report - on the lack of compensation for the victim of the human shield incident since compensating him would be to admit to violating his rights - the report will be forgotten soon enough. 

There is little human rights appetite in India, particularly when the national security narrative over-lays. This was true in the nineties and appears to hold true twenty years down the line. Many believe that India is doing the best it can under the circumstance of an externally sponsored proxy war. To most, things are not as bad as they might have been, with nothing of the sort as has been undertaken by other militaries being replicated in India, such as in Afghanistan, Iraq, and even in the areas along the Durand Line. It has a professional military. Though this cannot also be said of its paramilitary, the assumption is that these forces are under police officers who are thoroughly under the thumb of their civilian bureaucratic and political masters. Nothing more can be demanded from poorly equipped forces, especially as one whistle blower in a social media outreach to the public let on are also ill fed. 

Many also believe that security forces are severely challenged, by jihadists on the one hand and a complicit public intent on supporting jihadists escape security forces' dragnets. While for some there is ill intent behind instances such as drivers of security forces vehicles seemingly mowing down protestors (twice captured on amateur camera this year), for others the pressures at the scene of stone throwing lead to pardonable over-reaction not warranting punishment for such perpetrators. The wider Indian public appears willing to give the benefit of doubt to the security force trooper on ground, doing what it sees as inescapable dirty work, the dirtiness being attributed to its nefarious neighbour. 

Finally, the Leetul Gogois - men on ground - are not alone responsible for violations. Recall, Major Gogoi was facilitated by his army chief for his innovative move to use a human shield. As to whether he has since been disciplined by the army for sexual exploitation of a vulnerable women in a conflict zone is unknown. It can be inferred that the laxity of the chain of command that translates as permissiveness is also to blame. The chain of command does not stop at the military apex. It ends at the civilian - political - level, advised by the bureaucratic. Since this level has not been exercised by human rights issue, it is either sanguine of the 'above board' record (as per the army chief) or is willing to look the other way. Both are likely. Not only is the civilian leadership held accountable through democratic or judicial means but would prefer to see human rights as untroubling. To take a dim view of human rights would require it to act. This it would not be willing to do since it would be take responsibility. The current situation in which the security forces are blamed is preferable. 

For instance, one of the key recommendations of all human rights feedback reports - such as the one under discussion - is the need for either the impunity conferred by the armed forces special powers' act being rolled back or the prosecution of offenders be granted on a case by case basis by the authorities. The current report brings out that though requested fifty times, the central government has turned down the request of the state government forty-seven times, while three cases are under decision. This consistency owes to an unwillingness on part of the civilian side (politicians and their bureaucratic advisers) to bell the cat thereafter. There is a belief that this would demoralize security forces, leading to the military leadership passing the buck to the civilian side. It is no secret that the civilians are both ignorant and inefficient. They would be a disaster in hands on security management. They therefore need to have the security force leadership up front. A tacit bargain ensues in which civilians look the other way while security forces soldier on without political resolution in sight. 

As for judicial means of accountability, the judiciary is snowed under to begin with. The report brings out the fate of cause célèbre cases such as the Kunan Poshpora incident and the letting off on bail of custodial killers in the Machhil killings case by the armed forces tribunal. The latter case was one in which the military court to the credit of the enlightened military leadership then in place went the distance. Other questionable cases, such as the Pathribal one, had the judicial intent in its enabling a choice for the army to try the accused being waylaid by the army in a deliberately botched military judicial follow up. That the court has not had the case reopened indicates the sway of the national security imperative over the judiciary's levels of commitment to truth and justice. 

To end on an anecdotal note, the Kunan Poshpora case was among the backdrop to an exchange in the early nineties in the letters to the editor column of the military's counter insurgency journal between this author and the brigade commander of the outfit that was implicated in the Kunan Poshpora case. The brigadier in an article had written up his command philosophy in which as a factor aiding success he had it that formation commanders refrain from accompanying troops on operations. To him, lesser checks led to a force multiplier of greater initiative by junior leaders. He advocated healthy rivalry between units through publicity and quantification of weapons recovered etc. I had in a letter to the editor opined that the competition and quantification could lead to ends justifying the means since the name of the unit would be at stake. In his rejoinder the brigadier argued that the formation commander must not breathe down the neck of junior leaders in the conduct stage and concentrate instead on creating the ethos and discipline conducive to counter insurgency operations. The editor in his comment agreed with the brigadier. It is ironical that despite the brigadier's faith in small team operations over large operations, the eddies from a night search operation - against extant orders in the corps zone then - by a unit under his command continue a quarter century later.  (The brigadier later as a major general died in an unfortunate helicopter accident in the north east.)

The book is the first of a new series, The Global Middle East, with the author being one of the two general editors of the series. The series seeks to broaden the horizon of the ‘Middle East’ to range from the Atlantic to the subcontinent, and to include the diaspora originating from these lands living in the West, besides introducing authors and ideas from the region to the Anglophone academy. The author, currently Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, is also holding the Chair of Iranian studies at the London Middle East Institute. He sets the bar high for the series by focusing on psycho-nationalism in Iran; with psycho-nationalism loosely defined here as the psychological roots of national identity.

Adib-Moghaddam examines the manner in which the Iranian governments earlier under the Shah and latterly under the clerics have utilized psychological dynamics in the making (creating, sustaining and selling) of the Iranian ‘nation’.

[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”reg” ihc_mb_template=”1″ ]While the Shahs reached back into a pre-Islamic past, to the age of Iranian superpowerdom under Darius and Cyrus, to legitimize their rule, post-revolutionary Iran has emphasized its Shiite heritage, which interestingly does not go as far back into the Islamic age as a reader unfamiliar with the details of Iranian and Islamic history might have imagined.

The book is thus very timely, since its examination of the Iranian case is instructive for the times we live in, when across the world there has been a lurch to the Right. Arshin begins his book with a synoptic view of the trend towards populism, including in the United States exemplified by the campaign-winning slogan ‘making America great again’. He notes that the case of Iran has escaped closer scrutiny in the study of ‘the way the idea a nation-state is created and sustained’ (p. 3). Arshin sets about the task to ‘understand conceptually how the idea of Iran created, in order to understand the mechanisms and effects of psycho-nationalist discourse’ (p. 4).

An upshot of the exercise is that the phenomenon of the nation-state has not come into existence through a process that is distinctly ‘modern’, but, as Arshin demonstrates, there are ‘“nationalized” entities in antiquity’ (p. 9), such as the Sassanid Iran (pp. 224-651) that had its own sense of nationhood comprising, as modern nations do, a religious (Zoroastrian) narrative, symbolic capitol (Ctesiphon), language and a Persian-centric ethno-ideology. It was only the absence of mass communication techniques available in the modern age (the printing press, for instance) that led to difficulties in sustaining the nation.

A signal insight from the book is that ‘where there is bio-power, there is also resistance, and where there is psycho-nationalism, there is opposition’ (p. 11). He draws on Michel’s Foucault’s term for mature forms of mind control of people, ‘bio-political’. Through a look at the intrusive ideological education intended to increase penetrability of the population to psychological control, he lays out how the techniques have failed to extend the sovereignty of the state by turning ‘citizens into objects of power’ (p. 11). There continues to be in Iran, as elsewhere, resistance to state-engineered psycho-nationalism.

States routinely exploit the ‘grey zone’ between affinities of belonging and hegemonic emotions that underlie national aggression. The latter find an arena in global politics through narcissistic and hubristic self-assertion by the in-group. Internally, psycho-nationalism is ‘division-creating’, averse to complexity and dissent, and but a sophisticated form of ‘divide and rule’. This leads at best to creation of a ‘quasi nation’. Arshin singles out psycho-nationalism for ‘what it does not do: integrate, ameliorate, harmonise, assimilate’ (p. 19). In Iran, clerically-ordered nationalism, and that of the Shah before it, has not subdued the struggle for freedom based on a narrative infused with cosmopolitanism, tolerance, liberal, secular and inclusive values.

Arshin’s conclusion bears repeating for its resonance in our part of the world abutting Iran: ‘The real meaning of the country cannot be found in discourse, institutions or national anthems. It is the everyday life of Iranians (or Indians for that matter—added) that is real, it is the trials and tribulations of our daily affairs that give any nation its real meaning and purpose. Everything else is concocted for the nefarious purpose of political power’ (p. 19). The book can help readers in India better understand not only Iran as any Iran-centric book must, but also incidentally what is happening closer home in the invention of a new India, no longer secular or plural, and (increasingly) not democratic either.

Just as in Iran, there is dissent in democratic churnings, for instance, on campuses across the country, as the cultural nationalist narrative attempts to homogenize India into a peculiar image of a Semitic Hinduism. India’s democratic spaces seem better preserved since political power was not in their exclusive hands earlier. However, with the Modi wave and the likelihood of perpetuation of his tenure suggests that the political power that is needed to advance psycho-nationalism is finally with the pseudo-cultural formations over the long haul. This means the Iranian experience can be replicated here and on that count is potentially instructive. If Indians are not enamoured by the siren song of psycho-nationalism, they can be bludgeoned into submission. Iran’s external relations showcase how a nation-state is constructed in international politics in terms of aggression towards the ‘other’, which in the case of saffronized India is its twin, Pakistan.

By the yardstick of applicability of his thinking elsewhere, Arshin reveals that his designation as Professor of ‘global thought’ is with good reason. He reinforces the conception of a nation as a social construct, as an imagined entity, rather than having a primordial basis. His academic immersion in critical Iranian studies releases Iran from confessional and nationalistic narratives, placing ‘Iran as a global idea and Iran in the middle of the crossroads of identities, a central focal point in a common human experience’ (p. 155). This is almost a description of India, where the readership of this journal predominantly resides. That knowing more of one’s neighbour makes one know oneself better is good enough reason to read the book.

http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/14196/To-Fail-Kashmir-is-to-Fail-India 
To Fail Kashmir is to Fail India

(Unedited version)

Based on precedence, it was entirely predictable that the Ramzan suspension of operations would be yet another wasted opportunity in Kashmir. The earlier ebbs in operations and list of interlocutors are rather well recorded to bear recounting here. It was predictable also on account of the BJP’s showing in power as a party that places the interest of the Parivaar over the national interest. This is best signified by the BJP walking out of the coalition in J&K as it heads into national elections.

Even more so, it was predictable in light of the national security establishment being bereft of strategic sense over the term of its presiding deity, Ajit Doval. A Ramzan ‘ceasefire’ extended into a prospective Amarnath Yatra ‘ceasefire’, alongside an ongoing return to the ceasefire on the Line of Control (LC), could have capitalized on gains from Operation All Out. This could have been gainfully used by special interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma to position his peace cart.

That said, it must be admitted there is a strategy at play, albeit a perverse one.

As General Hasnain – a veteran of a previous suspension of operations - reminded all at the outset of this round of suspension of operations that the temporary halt is limited to offensive operations of the area domination variety, with defensive, protective, responsive and intelligence-based operations continuing.

Rationalising the ceasefire, experts let on that at the operational level it is a period of consolidation for integrating the intelligence picture; allowing troops a respite; and coordinating between security agencies that could then be used to reenergize operations when called off. Evidence is in the drawing up of a list of 21 most wanted and the dispatch of an Islamic State affiliated terrorist soon after the ending of the ‘ceasefire’.

The militants (and terrorists) - for their part - might be tempted to let down their guard, such as by visiting families, enabling an enhanced intelligence picture. A lower profile of military operations would also put a lid on stone throwing, useful at a time when passions could be expected to be higher in the holy month. So there was little to lose operationally.

At the strategic level, the moves to sedate Pakistan have been on since the end of winter. A ceasefire on the LC has the advantage of enabling greater rigour in counter infiltration. Firing, of the level of artillery duels, has the effect of keeping heads down, enabling disruption of the fence and the surveillance along it. Pakistan, having faced the brunt and believing that it gave back as good as it received, fell in line. The operational level fallout was in reduced infiltration keeping the lowered figures of insurgents resulting from Operation All Out steady; subject at best to injection by easily-neutralized, naïve and untrained locals joining the ranks in passion, hate and anger.  

Alongside, a suspension of operations would have kept Pakistan open-minded on the possibilities of a peace process; the sleight of hand – properly called deception - buying India time to tamp down on the renewal of insurgency since the – unnecessary in retrospect - elimination of insurgent icon Burhan Wani.

The main gains were at the political level. Narrowly, the ceasefire helps India – and the Modi government - project a benign image. No doubt, forewarned by the foreign ministry, it was bracing for release of the UN human rights report. In the event, the report released as the ceasefire wound up, came down heavily on security forces using excessive force, leading to an avoidable number – in three digits – of civilian deaths.

Internally, since the initiative was tagged to an all-party meeting in Kashmir which proposed a ceasefire for the duration of Ramzan and the Amarnath Yatra, it was useful to look responsive to a provincial government in which the ruling party was a coalition partner. It mellowed the anti-Muslim image of the ruling party.

On the other hand, the calling off of the ceasefire helps project the conjured threat to the Amarnath Yatra as real; with conjured used advisedly since an unmolested Yatra has been one of the symbols of the possibilities of peace in Kashmir. A Muslim threat to a Hindu pilgrimage can serve a purpose in election year. 

More importantly, the strategy is informed – as can be expected - by the grand vision of the regime. The regime is both unwilling and unable to countenance peace through peaceable means, in light of being a front for the right wing. The boarder Sanghi agenda is minority centric, to overawe the subcontinent’s Muslims. The reduction of India to lynchistan and the political clout of the largest minority anywhere in the world to a cipher is well known.

The Kashmiris – being Muslim and seen as backed by Muslim Pakistan – cannot in this schema but be bludgeoned into submission. Thus, even the seeming sense in its very own and domesticated army chief’s recent reminder that insurgency can only be politically terminated is ignored.

At the subcontinental level, Pakistan has been given a breather. In the election year, the regime would not like to its strategic finesse to be tested and found wanting. It sensibly diverted the defence budget this year into a new-fangled national health insurance scheme, since – despite the polarization ploy - the social sector could count.  Whereas the - unnecessarily aggravated - situation has been toned down with China too for the same reasons, unlike with China, it would be back to business with Pakistan once elections are wrested, since the Muslim fixation of the Sangh cannot go away.

What does this reading of the ceasefire episode spell?

It suggests the regime will not deliver on peace in Kashmir. Since Pakistan is both part of the problem and the solution in Kashmir, peace in the subcontinent will be pended till the regime is democratically replaced.

This is counter-intuitive. A government with a majority in parliament could have done much to stabilise Kashmir, and at one remove, relations with Pakistan. It had spent the previous ten years in opposition undercutting the most promising period of return to stability in the subcontinent, though knowing these to be a carry-over of the initiatives of its own earlier avatar in power. Its vaunted development agenda needed a quietist foreign and security policy. Its security head-honcho, Doval, chosen for a much-advertised security expertise and for being Pakistan savvy, allowed parochialism to overtake strategic acuity.

Today, to the ceasefire is being attributed the killings of leading journalist Shujaat Bukhari and off duty soldier Aurangzeb. Young Gurmehar Kaur was entirely right in attributing to conflict an inexorable logic. Conflict consumed them as its latest victims. A government is elected to ensure that citizens are protected from conflict. It is understandable that sometimes this necessitates going into an unavoidable conflict. By no yardstick does the continuing of conflict in Kashmir fit this bill.

Governments unable to bring it to a close need to be held accountable at the hustings, especially if doubly unmindful by alongside being unwilling, such as is the current regime. A regime responsible for India failing Kashmiris has failed India.  

KASHMIR PEACE INITIATIVE: DEPRIVING PAKISTAN ARMY OF A LIFELINE

Scholar Warrior, Journal of CLAWS, Spring 2018

http://www.claws.in/images/journals_doc/1049583028_AliAhmed.pdf

The appointment of the new interlocutor for Kashmir, former Intelligence Bureau chief, Dineshwar Sharma, has potential to deprive the Pakistani army of a raison d'être. The potential for this needs to be examined in order that the peace initiative get the requisite heft. There are currently two schools of thought. One is that the Pakistan army requires to keep stoking the fires in Kashmir in order to stay atop the power grid in Pakistan. By this reasoning, India has limited options in Kashmir, faced as it is with a proxy war. Thus, the peace initiative can at best be a conflict management tool. The other is that there are genuine grievances in Kashmir, which if tackled with wisdom by India can result in a dissipation of any Pakistani locus standi in Kashmir. The peace initiative can bring a closure to the troubles in Kashmir, cutting off the oxygen of alienation that enablesproxy war. This is a conflict resolution approach. The relative salience of the two approaches will determine the direction of the initiative, whether it reaches its full potential as a conflict resolution measure or whether the appointment is merely a conflict management tool.

The current peace initiative

The current peace initiative in Kashmir was launched in late October this year.[1] Given the coincidence in timing of the first visit then to New Delhi of the US secretary of state, the appointment of the new interlocutor was taken as having something to do with the visit. The critique was that the appointment was to undercut any US push for getting India to talk to Pakistan, as part of the new US policy in Afghanistan, unveiled by President Donald Trump at a speech in late August.[2] Since the new policy was rather severe on Pakistan for its nursing of terrorism and provision of sanctuary to terrorists on its soil, the US had decided to give Pakistan one more chance to come aboard the international quest against terrorism. Pakistan for its part has no doubt tried to milk its last chance to its advantage, requiring US pressure alongside on India in relation to India’s strategy in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Since Rex Tillerson, on his inaugural visit to India flew in from Pakistan, New Delhi wanted to preempt any messaging from Pakistan for talks through Tillerson. Thus, commentators observed a link between the visit and the appointment.[3] India could point to the appointment of a Union government’s representative for talks with Kashmiris in case the matter came up with the US. India could argue that as a responsible government it is fulfilling its obligation towards it people to return normalcy through all means, but it is not beholden to talk to neighbours under the threat of a gun.

Irrespective of any international impetus to the initiative, there is a case for the same in strategic lights. The army chief, appraising the initiative, has said that it is from a position of strength.[4] He was referring to the higher tempo of operations in Kashmir since the surgical strikes of the previous year. There is the ongoing Operation All Out under which over a 200 terrorists have been eliminated, mainly foreigners. This summer there was no resumption of the agitation of mid 2016. Along the Line of Control (LC), India has remained proactive, tamping down on dozens of infiltration attempts. There are cracks appearing in the terrorist ranks, with some, such as Zakir Musa, the former Hizbul Mujahedeen commander, being cast out of mainstream terrorist ranks for his advocacy of the Islamist strain.[5]The Center’s hardline in terms of talks with the umbrella separatist organization, the Hurriyet, has kept the separatists on leash. This has been further tightened by the National Investigation Agency’s raids on the terror financing money trail.[6] Internationally, India has been on the offensive, attempting to isolate Pakistan for its support for terrorism, both in bilateral settings and in multilateral fora. At the UN General Assembly session in September, in its right of reply to the speech by the Pakistani prime minister citing Kashmir, India characterized that state as ‘terroristan’.[7] Finally, there was the winter setting in when the operational dynamics usually subside, allowing greater space for political thrust lines. Thus, it would appear that New Delhi set the conditions for a peace initiative. It now bears taking to its logical conclusion.

This energy behind the initiative is crucially dependent on which of the two approaches predominate in the corridors of power. A new book on India’s engagement in Afghanistan since the departure of the Soviet Union suggests that there are lobbies at play in policy and decision making circles that seek to influence the direction and outcome of policy. The book describes the interplay between the relative power of the ‘conciliators’ and the ‘partisans’, with the former depicted in brief as soft-liners and the latter as hard-liners.[8] Drawing analogy, it can be said that a similar policy tussle may have preceded the peace initiative in Kashmir and is also is likely to attend its course. The two lobbies are loosely taken here as minimalist, conflict management oriented, and maximalist, conflict resolution aspirant.

The conflict management lobby can easily be taken as practical and aware of the uphill struggle. They are also cognizant of the Pakistani ability to keep stoking the fire, besides of the other ill winds from West Asia. They are possibly also political tuned in to the Indian political scenario in which major political concessions may neither be thought desirable nor possible. The conflict resolution lobby for its part is the more ambitious. They are more aware of the limitations of a security solution to a political problem. Equally aware of the arc of instability stretching westwards, they wish to put out the fires that can invite adverse attention towards India. They are more sensitive to the possibilities enabled by the liberal underpinnings of India’s constitution. A creative legal thrust line duly backed politically, in light of a strong center, can bring about an internal settlement. There are examples in the North East which can serve as precedent. Thus both approaches have some weight. It bears probing further which can deliver more and better. The criterion to judge this is against which approach will facilitate Pakistan’s falling out of the equation better.

The conflict management approach

The conflict management approach is realism inspired in that it posits conflict as a given condition, with states in an adversarial relationship engaged in a zero sum game. Since a proxy war is on in Kashmir, there is little that can be done than to manage the consequence. This requires a multipronged approach. However, despite the security aspect to fore, the economic, social and developmental angles are of consequence. This has been the Indian approach to Kashmir. As part of this, interlocutors have also periodically been dispatched across the PirPanjals, sometimes, such as most recently the Yashwant Sinha led Concerned Citizens’ Group,[9] in response to a spike in violence on the streets. The interlocutors’ engagement with the people and stakeholders not only a cathartic effect, but the reports are also useful in tweaking the governments’ response as necessary. The conflict management approach has space for peace initiatives, but stops short of going the full distance on the political track. It uses – to its critics instrumentally – the peace process for calming the situation and bringing it back under control. In a sense the peace prong of strategy is to supplement the security prong. This distinguishes it from the conflict resolution approach, wherein the ‘resolution’ is sought on the political track, with the other prongs of strategy being supportive of the effort.

The interlocutor has set himself a limited, if realistic, ambit, restricting himself to tamping terrorism. He wishes to target the youth so as to keep terrorist ranks from swelling.[10]This indicates the initiative does not have an ambitious mandate. The results are already apparent, with the police working on encouraging surrenders of locals. The upshot is in a manageable subconventional operations situation, which troops on the counter insurgency grid can handle with routine aplomb. The political fallout is in the Kashmir issue receding from headlines, making for little pressure on New Delhi to ‘resolve’ it either internally or through interfacing with Pakistan. This is in keeping with the policy of marginalizing the separatists within and ‘no talks’ with Pakistan without. The byproducts are, for example, externally, in keeping the US at arms’ length, and internally, with political dividend for the ruling party depicted as strong on defence. Thus, the initiative is within the wider framework of a tougher national strategy and posture.

The conflict management approach has an advantage of keeping a lid on the situation till the government wishes to take it up on its terms. The home minister for instance has indicated that the government has some ideas on conflict resolution.[11] The management of the conflict therefore needs to continue till such time this is rolled out. The military template is thus an intrinsic part of the resolution menu. The stability necessary for moving to the next stage of conflict resolution is provided by conflict management. Indeed, even while resolution is unfolding – in the next phase – management of violence would in any case require to continue apace. This indicates an overlap between the two approaches, making them less antagonistic than supplementary. Conceptual clarity on this can help the switch or gear shift as necessary.

Conflict resolution approach

Conflict management is what is usually settled for when conflict resolution is not seemingly possible or thought desirable. Conflict resolution through victory in war for example, especially against a nuclear power, may not be desirable. Alternatively, it may not be possible in light of an impossible compromise required, such as in case of Kashmir, granting independence. However, short of independence – or, worse, it’s joining Pakistan – conflict resolution can be envisaged, such as oft said, within the parameters of a liberal constitution.

The conflict resolution approach by no means abjures use of force. It is predicated instead on intent backed by a sound plan. This entails negotiations, with a willingness to compromise – within bounds - on part of stakeholders. The design of these in relation to participants, location, pace, agenda, perception management, spoiler handling, contingency planning, timelines, parallel processes, creating and sustaining political capital and managing of the external are of significance. It requires a battery of experts with multidimensional expertise and experience and a lead negotiator synergizing the initiative. The lead negotiator has to have political savvy, integrity, stamina and moral courage. The other lines of operation such as the use of force, governance and development, are subordinated to the requirements stemming from the meander of the negotiation.

By this yardstick the current peace initiative in Kashmir would have to evolve considerably to measure up to the demands of conflict resolution. From Sharma’s initial press statements and the two visits (at the time of writing) to the Valley suggest that this is a preliminary stage, with Sharma at best testing waters intending to come up with a conflict analysis for the government. This can be the first step for the major initiative to follow, either with the lead horse changed midstream or with Sharma continuing in position. This can be rolled out once the winter’s operational respite is taken to shore-up political intent, put in place a negotiation team, chalk out a plan, whistle-up the infrastructure, broadcast the agenda and manage perceptions. The following year can see a dedicated round of talks on the key political questions, including the taboo word, azadi. If interpreted as autonomy, conflict resolution comes within reach. The release of political detainees, pardon for stone throwing youth, leashing the NIA, modulating operations, progressively rolling back disturbed area notifications are some of the arrows in the negotiator’s quiver. Whereas the army chief has indicated that currently military operations will not be effected,[12]further down the road narrowing these to directing them solely at foreign terrorists could be called for. Precedence of managing an operations drawdown exists in the ceasefire of year 2000 in Kashmir, suspension of operations against various groups in Assam and the ceasefire in Nagaland.There is also the Muzaffarabad based jihad council to think of. This would require opening a line to Pakistan.

The key question to answer is whether Pakistan would bite. The conflict management votaries believe otherwise. They see a vested interest of the Pakistani army in stirring the pot. This critique needs being taken on board in a shaping of the regional security environment. Pakistan has over the past few years complained of India creating a ‘two front’ problem for it. India has attempted to isolate it diplomatically. It has objected to the Chinese life-support of the economic corridor. It has articulated a claim to the northern areas. It has suspended the comprehensive bilateral dialogue. The US is readying to weigh in against Pakistan finally. India and Pakistan have had their national security advisers talking all through this. These are leverages that India can now cash in on to hedge its Kashmir initiative. Pakistan for its part has the option to cry ‘victory’ and quit. It had attempted to disconnect from its Kashmir commitment even during the Musharraf years. If it can take credit – at least propagandistically – for a return of peace in Kashmir, it has a face saver. India could allow it a line to separatists,who having an increasing stake in the peace process can persuade Pakistan to back off. Alongside, Pakistan would require to initiate DDRRR (Disarmament, Demobilisation, Repatriation, Reintegration, Resettlement) best practices for its ‘good terrorists’, with India seeing how to coopt the Pakistan based Kashmiri terrorists. By no means can all this be done in quick time, but strategy demands identifying the steps towards such an end.

Conclusion

The debate as carried here is likely informing decision making on the future direction of the peace initiative. Currently, it is within the conflict management parameters. It has potential to move towards conflict resolution. This is predicated on the assessment decision makers arrive at on whether upping the peace ante would make Pakistan fall out of the equation. There is an element of risk taking in this. Political decision makers are usually not impressed by the argument that a decision requires political courage. Political survival requires discretion, even if possible political dividends from bold decisions are given a go-by. They cannot chance elusive political dividend at the risk of national interest. However, the tough line in Kashmir and against Pakistan over the past three years makes strategic sense only if it is taken to a logical conclusion. Having sensitized Pakistan and conditioned it thereby, extracting the necessary mileage from it would require the strategy to move from conflict management to conflict resolution. Allowing Pakistan off the hook with a face-saver might just see it take the chance on offer – to sidle off its Kashmir engagement to set its own house in order.

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[1]PIB (2017): “Centre appoints Shri Dineshwar Sharma as its Representative in J&K,”Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, 23 October, viewed on 1 November,http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=171866

[2]Ali Ahmed, “The Kashmir charade this winter”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 52, Issue No. 47, 25 Nov, 2017, pp. 10-12.

[3]Das, Sashwati (2017): “Who is Dineshwar Sharma?,” Livemint, 24 October, viewed on 7 November, http://www.livemint.com/Politics/jyzoZh0h4npwEB41ktcXGK/Who-is-Dineshwar-Sharma.html

[4]Peri, Dinakar (2017): “Govt. talking from point of strength in Kashmir, says Gen. Rawat,” The Hindu, 25 October, viewed on 9 November, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-talking-from-point-of-strength-in-kashmir-says-gen-rawat/article19917089.ece

[5]Rashid, Toufiq (2017): “Zakir Musa as al-Qaeda’s local chief is bad news for Kashmir,” Hindustan Times, 28 July, viewed on 2 November, http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/zakir-musa-as-al-qaeda-s-local-chief-is-bad-news-for-kashmir/story-HehHADwf5OzyCwhi4qZY3H.html

[6]Ahuja, R. and Abhishek Saha (2017): “After Kashmir raids, NIA set to grill separatist leaders on illegal funding,” The Hindustan Times, 4 June, viewed on 1 December, http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/nia-turns-the-heat-on-hurriyat-set-to-grill-top-leadership-on-illegal-funding/story-vakeUJoT7Vj5CtXtZQ0n6K.html

[7]TOI (2017): “India slams Pakistan at UN, calls it 'Terroristan',” The Times of India, 22 September 2017, viewed on 2 December, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-slams-pakistan-at-un-calls-it-terroristan/articleshow/60789448.cms

[8]Paliwal, Avinash (2017): My enemy’s enemy, New Delhi: Harper Collins, pp. 10-13.

[9]CCG (2017): “Full text: Report of third visit by Yashwant Sinha-led Concerned Citizens Group to Kashmir,” Indian Express, 4 September 2017, viewed on 3 November, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/full-text-report-of-third-visit-by-yashwant-sinha-led-concerned-citizens-group-to-kashmir/

[10]Yadav, Yatish (2017): “I want to target terror recruitment: Interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma,” Indian Express, 29 October, viewed on 8 November, http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2017/oct/29/i-want-to-target-terror-recruitment-interlocutor-dineshwar-sharma-1685938.html

[11]PTI (2017): “Permanent solution to Kashmir issue is based on five 'C's: Rajnath Singh,” Economic Times, 11 September, viewed on 20 November, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/permanent-solution-to-kashmir-issue-is-based-on-five-cs-rajnath-singh/articleshow/60460250.cms

[12]Express Web Desk (2017): “Kashmir: Appointment of interlocutor won’t affect our operations, says Army Chief Gen BipinRawat,” Indian Express, 25 October, viewed on 29 November, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/kashmir-appointment-of-interlocutor-dineshwar-sharma-wont-affect-our-operations-says-army-chief-bipin-rawat-4905567/

http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/14087/What-Normalising-the-Sangh-Means-for-National-Security

What normalising the Sangh means for national security
Taking cue from old soldiers once under his ceremonial authority, a former supreme commander would have done well to fade away. But just as some retired generals these days attempting to prolong their fifteen minutes of fame, the former supreme commander in question, Pranab Mukherjee, early this month chose to reenter the limelight by gracing a passing out function of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at Nagpur.

A skeptical interpretation has it that he was positioning himself for 2019, when, with the Modi wave expended, he might emerge as a consensus candidate in the prime ministerial musical chairs for the divided opposition. Unflattering biographies have it that he has nursed a repeatedly-thwarted prime ministerial ambition. The commentary detected an octogenarian lining up for his last chance. Be that as it may, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee’s foray has implications beyond his political future.

His is but the latest attempt at mainstreaming the RSS. So far, the Sangh has inveigled its way into India’s imagination, almost Chinese-like in biding its time. While Pranabda’s favour has been rather up-front and visible, quite like the evening ritual of talking heads at the idiot box constantly pitching its line, less intrusive, innocuous methods are constantly at play. Such as for instance the confabulations of the male lead with his shakha mates on over the innocent topic of a hefty wife-to-be in the national award-winning film, Dam Lage Ke Haisha.

Increasing comfort levels with the RSS and its ideology among people and its insinuation into our lives and consciousness as an unremarkable – if not positively enticing - entity is underway. The strategy is three-pronged: usher the RSS to respectability while out-shouting those calling this out, even as a smoke-screen is built in the form of Maoists and jihadists as primary threats to national security.

Alongside cooptation (as with Mr. Mukherjee), every effort is made to deter and threaten those who reveal the effort and the not-so-hidden agenda. Trolling and motivated law suits are perhaps the least dangerous manner of going about this. The killings of rationalists down south and the threats to life and intimidation of journalists, intellectuals and activists - the ever-growing list which includes Barkha Dutt, Rana Ayyub, Umar Khalid, Teesta Setalvad, Arundhati Roy – is a more direct method.

This also explains the social-media assault on Rahul Gandhi. He was spot-on in his wiki-leaked conversation with a US diplomat citing the threat from the far right as the more significant one, picked over Manmohan Singh’s famous reference to the Maoists as such. This prompted the undercutting of Mr. Gandhi’s credibility by the troll brigade, using by the now all-too-familiar memes and themes, such as ‘pappu’ (in contrast to the seemingly masterful communicator, Mr. Narendra Modi).

The RSS’s effort to move centerstage from the fringe is understandable. It is also explicable that affiliated organisations, such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that stand to profit electorally from the RSS ballast as footsoldiers at election time, would be party to the effort. Given that the RSS-BJP relationship is no secret, it is not unreasonable anymore to expect six central ministers going into a huddle with the RSS samooh (group of RSS wings) as happened last month. The message is that the RSS is not untouchable but is instead the fountainhead of wisdom on governance.

Normalising of the RSS thus is to be unmindful of its concept of nation and nationhood and the dissonance it brings into India’s sense of self. Importantly, it upends democracy, making it synonymous with majoritarianism. Inability of India to keep extremist ideologies from electorally taking over the state is evidence of a deficit in its national security.

The danger is not only from the close and present danger, but from the deliberate deletion of this threat from discussions in the strategic community. It is as though by design that there is no mention of the threat that saffron extremism poses in India’s mainstream strategic publications. Though the threat is registered in liberal and leftist circles, they are long marginalized. The strategic community not only does not sound the alert, but actively obfuscates.

The inability to distinguish between an unexceptionable conservative-realist perspective – as can be expected to dominate in strategic discourse in India as elsewhere - and ideology-contaminated strategic penetration compounds India’s national security predicament. This indicates, as with other institutions and discourse spaces, the right-wing reigns in seminar rooms and think tanks.

Evidence is in the more prominent best-funded think tanks are but platforms for propagation of cultural nationalism. The official - autonomous - think tanks, that are government money funded, have on their rolls ideological warriors who drive out and tamp down debate. Many of these ‘strategists’ – mostly veterans of the armed forces - hop between think tanks taking their vile wares with them. This writer has over the past three months had to write in to three such think tanks reminding them of their editorial duty as gate keepers of professional opinion and knowledge spaces, to keep the strategic discourse uncontaminated by extremist trope. A result is in a paradigm dominance of sorts and a monocular strategic discourse.

The threat is kept under wraps from citizens, fed on the inanities on the sometimes combined jihadist and Maoist threats. The mere 47-odd adherents from India of the Islamic State are projected as a national security calamity. The arrest last week of five Maoists of an urban cell is hyped, in this case, with the implausible finding of a letter on gun-running from one of them.

The resounding silence on the Hindutva threat in national security terms is music to the ears of the national security establishment. Currently, it is headed by a national security adviser with well-known affiliations and reputation of being the right-hand man of a prime minister who was once an RSS pracharak. The establishment can be trusted to be oblivious to the threat and can be expected to be unwilling to hear otherwise.

A simple illustration on the implication of selective listening by those charged with national security is the letting-off of saffron terrorists in terrorism cases, no doubt by a whisper from the investigation agency to willing listeners in the judiciary. These put paid to India’s long standing global advocacy against terrorism and its Pakistan-targeted distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ terrorists.

Graver implications may arise in 2019, when power will be up for grabs. The national security threat from the far right at the juncture, possibility mediated by elements within the state, bears watch. The strategic community needs reappraising its complicity so far, while minders within the national security system need standing up to power. An intention to stare down intimidation – even if emanating from within the system - can deter, prevent, and, at a pinch, retrieve the situation. It is precisely for this reason the Sangh is playing footsie and personages who should know better playing along.