Kashmir is in a state of churn. Will 2020 mark a new dawn?

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/politics/kashmir-is-in-a-state-of-churn-will-2020-mark-a-new-dawn-4759561.html

That India and Pakistan escaped coming to blows twice over during the year tells us much of the trend into the coming year. In the first instance, in the Balakot-Rajauri they did exchange aerial punches. In the second, to its credit, Pakistan refrained from hasty action in response to India’s early August constitutional initiatives on Kashmir.

That Kashmir continues in a partial state of lock down into its fourth month indicates it is not out of the woods as yet. Extension of detention of Farooq Abdullah by another three months betrays the government’s thinking that it needs working through winter to avoid the seeming stability unwinding in case of any premature letting up on its part.

Since by then spring would be at hand and the year’s cyclical campaign set to begin that would also unlikely be the time the government would seek to ease up. It has elections to prepare for through summer, the dates of which are not out yet since their proximity will likely get the Kashmiri gander up.

This would be cue for Pakistan to get its act together. It appeared outpointed by India’s deft footwork over the Kashmir initiative. It was not able to upset India’s apple cart not only because of careful Indian security preparedness but also since its economy was on the rocks and it was not able to secure its western flank timely through brokering a deal between the Americans and the Taliban for a dignified American withdrawal.

It almost seemed as if the Pakistani army was doing a repeat of its 1971 act. Then, it had promised to save East Pakistan by attacking in the west. In the event, Yahya Khan developed cold feet. This time round when its ‘jugular’ – Kashmir - was yanked out of reach, it left the rhetoric to civilians, in particular its selected prime minister, Imran Khan, while presumably holding its powder dry for a better day.

That day appears nigh. Pakistan’s economy was elevated in Moody’s ratings on from a negative status to a stable one, even as India’s went in the reverse direction. It received its thirteenth financial bailout from the International Monetary Fund. Geopolitically, the Americans are back to resume talking to the Taliban, even as Trump hits election year stride to deliver on his promise of draw down from America’s longest-ever war.

For its part, absent civilian deaths in Kashmir as ready evidence of repression, India got away relatively unscathed internationally. International opprobrium has expectedly been muted. Though India has been prickly towards their criticism, it has not been able to readily brush off the observations of the international media and watch dog human rights bodies.

However, India’s continuing down a right wing ideology-driven path, most recently by enacting the dubious Citizenship Amendment Act, it is losing its political capital. This is to be followed by a nation-wide citizen’s register, which can only lead to further dwindling of its secular-democratic image, opening up Kashmir, that it considers an ‘internal matter’, to nettlesome external interest. 

Its security measures in Kashmir while yielding short term dividend of buying India time have diminishing marginal utility. A central police force analysis reportedly has it that the tight grip down to mohalla level in Kashmir is unsustainable, particularly as it continues to be ad-hoc, with troopers roughing it out through the harsh winter. The paramilitary is already being pulled out for firefighting elsewhere, for now in the north east.

Its army has suffered 20 casualties from snow related accidents, purporting to extant alert levels whereby it is unable to withdraw troops from inner anti-infiltration tiers timely off ridgelines in depth areas where it does not maintain posts as along the Line of Control (LC). Along the LC itself, even if it is drawing more blood than the Pakistani military and mujahids, it has little to show as different from the time two decades back when similar ordnance exchanges and stand-off action as sniper fire were routine.

Thus, while Pakistan appears poised for a proactive turn, India appears jaded. Its newly appointed lieutenant governor – a bureaucrat - is busy with non-essential activity, such as house listing, at a time when major political and developmental initiatives should have been unleashed as part of a political strategy to defuse the pent up anger in Kashmir over its demotion.

The political decapitation of Kashmiris in the incarceration of every shade of their leadership from mainstream through separatist to local stone thrower ring leader has not resulted in lack of innovation on their part. There is utter stupefaction in the government on how to tackle the campaign of non-cooperation underway by common folk, resulting in a perception ambush in which it appears the lock down continues even in face of the administration’s denials.

Even if the government manages to get a new leadership supposedly under manufacture currently under a Bhartiya Janata Party government headed by a Jammuite Hindu in place, continued restiveness coupled with renewed Pakistani interference may yet set up the region for the proverbial perfect storm over the coming year.

  

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The options conundrum for Kashmiris

http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=97570

For now it is evident that Kashmiris are into a unique form of non-cooperation, opening up enough to survive, but not so much as to underwrite any claim by the government of a return to normalcy. This may be as much to do with their leadership of all hues being incarcerated as with Pakistani proxy war minders recovering from their post 5 August shell shock.

What is certain is that history is not an end, as the dynamic trio that heads the Indian state – Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Ajit Doval - might like Indians to believe. With the strains beginning to show on their primary instrument – the central reserve police that lost a senior officer in an avalanche as he cut corners to make it back to Kashmir from a short breather outside it – it is clear that even the Chanakyan duo – Shah and Doval – cannot believe this.  

What the state expects and is shaping is a substitution in the leadership of Kashmiris by well meaning and opportunist quislings of sorts, encouragement for forgetting the recent past through incentives in drips and drops like rekindled broadband etc, distraction in hectic activity like preparing the house verification as part of run up to the update of population register and census, and holding out hope for political reinstatement through sweetners as a residency requirement of 15 years for purchase of land etc. Alongside, it keeps its dragnet in place, with its security forces occupying, as a recent report on protests suggests, college premises.

It is only a matter of time that the fratricides and fraggings make an appearance, as is the spate with repressive deployments in central India when beset with election duty additionally. The calls on armed policing from elsewhere such as restive Assam have resulted in some troop deinduction from Kashmir. Evidently, the string is taut. The resulting tension may well be awaiting the proverbial spark. History suggests winter is no time for respite, given that the events of December and January at the turn of the nineties shook Kashmir as no other period has done till then or since. The clampdown then, that has since lent resonance to place names as Habba Kadal, Gau Kadal, Maisooma, Rainawari etc, only added to the energy that it was meant to dissipate. This time too it could be no different.

Then, the army had a few columns out on assistance to civil authority.  They are rumoured to have seen action, with mention of light machine gun usage at the time, though history for most part records the hapless central reserve police at the forefront. This means that the army may well be sucked in willy nilly into any impending explosion. Quite like its counter parts in Assam, called in from their deployment close at hand on a counter insurgency grid for aid to civil authority against the anti-citizenship bill agitations there, Its current utility in an anti terror role and on stand-by stands to be rudely interrupted.

Though the army commander was shown supervising a security meeting at the onset of the lock down, in order no doubt so that the civilians could get a buffer should things go wrong, it is not self-evident that the army is enamoured with its lead role. One news report let on that the army uncomfortable with being mistaken for the paramilitary wanted to change its camouflage pattern to a distinctive one. The resemblance has led to it being accused of violence even if perpetrated by the paramilitary, such as in the notorious case of broadcast of cries from torture so as to cow the citizenry. It is not known what the army inquiry promised when the accusation surfaced revealed.

Even so, given that that the army chief has on at least two occasions said that the security forces in Kashmir are hand in glove, the army cannot but gets its uniform dirty even if egregious violence is perpetrated by the paramilitary. The advisor home having been kicked upstairs to a sinecure in the ministry in Delhi, the burden is more starkly on its shoulders. Its links to the bureaucrat in saddle are no doubt challenged by protocol issues as much as lack of any known familiarity on his part with counter insurgency.

The army is no doubt aware of the challenges. An illustration is its losing some 20 soldiers to avalanches this year that indicate the pressures to keep people on posts and even untenable posts on snowed-in ridgelines for as long as possible. Apparently, avalanches have accounted for 74 deaths over the past three years, indicating the operational alertness. The soon-to-retire army chief, who may well be kicked-upstairs as chief of defence staff, warns of increased border action team assaults along the Line of Control that will add to the stretch. The relative quiet in the Valley, a respite from militancy, stone throwing and terrorist activity, may unravel at a higher tempo on breakdown.

Much depends on what the Kashmiris opt for. They appear to have four options. One is to be quiescent, throw in the towel and get along with the humiliation inflicted by the dynamic trio. Since even the state does not appear to be so deluded, this option can safely be discarded at the outset. The second is to maintain the status on non-cooperation and embarrass the Indian state. Their effort so far has drawn blood with India being uncharacteristically cast into the doghouse of international public opinion. However, this option is predicated on the assumption that the dynamic trio has ordinary sensibilities. Yashwant Sinha, formerly in the right wing corner, informs of being aghast to discover that the national security establishment is enamoured of a ‘doctrine of state’, presumably based on a misreading of Kautilya that only the ‘dand’ works. Simply put, this is arrogance of power. Believing in the trite saying that ‘pride comes before a fall’ is to wait indefinitely. This regime’s policies are predicated on an anti-Muslim foundation, rather than national interest mundanely defined and it is not going anywhere any time soon.

The third option is to resume the status quo ante of a mix of militancy, insurgency and terrorism. This is an old script that can only yield result if there is a political prong to Indian strategy at play. In the insurgency play book, military activity is to force a political settlement without compromising one’s position. Since India has chosen to cut off its nose to spite its face, there is no political prong of strategy in sight. So a status quo ante can at best witness another four years of self-inflicted hardship, since any change of gear can only await the democratic departure of this government. There is no guarantee of this since it can yet pull a Balakot on the electorate.

The fourth is to rely on Pakistan to up its act. This flies in face of history. Pakistan did not bestir to rescue East Pakistan in late 1971, even though Indian forces had ventured into East Pakistan early November onwards. While India once dated the war to Pakistan’s belated aerial attack on its airfields in early December, it is no longer reticent in owning up to creating the conditions for the Pakistani (counter) attack. Its veterans have a plethora of stories of their incursions starting with Indira Gandhi’s intervention legitimizing trip to foreign capitals in early November. Given this history of lassitude on a national interest of following through with its promise of defending East Pakistan by acting in the west, Pakistan is hardly likely to jeopardise its national interest of survival and its army its institutional interest beyond a rhetorical responses, led by the (s)elected prime minister. This option is a chimera, with Pakistan – that has not outwitted the financial action task force just yet nor managed to deliver on its promises to America on the Taliban – unlikely to be able to make good any time soon.

Kashmiris therefore face a conundrum. It is not something that would have escaped its incarcerated leadership. Reports of political bonhomie and cross-party discussions when confined together abound. Their next steps are perhaps solidified and await the nod of leaderships once their confinement ends. What might the contours?

Kashmir could perhaps pitch for the unfinished agenda of bifurcation - another bifurcation. Even if initially this may lead to foregoing the buffer to Jammu, the earlier trifurcation agenda could be explored. Kashmiris can be their own masters. The price is to dispense with their control over others that has arguably partially caused their present predicament. If this is not possible, then the regional autonomy features that were covered in the several reports, such as of the three interlocutors, the working groups and the mainstream parties, could be put in place to keep the two regions currently yoked together from each other’s throats – with a Delhi appointee playing umpire. This can in a way keep alive the Kashmiri quest for a distinctive self-hood, which is of a piece with India’s constitutional scheme. If and when this regime joins the debris of history, Kashmiris could reprise their course.

Needless to say this political course has no room for violence. As the security survey preceding the discussion of options suggests, the situation is keyed up to blow with a bigger bang. This is just the diversion the regime would welcome at a time it is being challenged for its misplaced ideological initiative, on citizenship, across India. The security establishment and its instruments would also not be averse since Kashmir has been beneficial institutionally and personally for ticket punching. Pakistan would be loathe to put its money where its mouth is. Therefore, with no one else being hurt, it would be irrational for Kashmiris to revert to militancy, but would be better advised to channel the youthful energy to back its political course, taking a leaf from the situation developing in rest of India.

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https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/the-agenda-for-the-new-chief

An agenda for the new chief

General Naravane takes over as army chief at the turn of the year. His agenda has already been set for him by his predecessor, whose tenure over the past three years witnessed a trend towards politicization of the army. Naravane needs to roll back the damage done by General Bipin Rawat, even if Bipin Rawat is lucky enough to be kicked upstairs as chief of defence staff by year end when he retires.

The likelihood of the latter is very much there since reports have it that all that remains to be done is for the prime minister to sign off on the CDS agenda. If this was not the case then it would not have taken the government so long to announce the name of the next chief, earlier done some two months in advance, though admittedly the Modi regime has been less than punctilious in observing this procedural nicety.

Since the CDS has been in the offing for long, delays have been attributed to the government making up its mind on the first incumbent and his mandate. In actuality, the government perhaps wants to heat up the race for the top job with senior three star brass lining up to signal their ideological propinquity.

The latest illustration of this trend is in the eastern army commander, General Anil Chauhan, under whose territorial jurisdiction the security fallout of the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) and the soon-to-follow National Register of Citizens bill will mostly to play out, stating that the controversial CAA was product of hard-nosed decision making of the government. It is well known that deep selection for the CDS post is being done with three star army command level officers in the run. The eastern army commander, having been the military operations head when the Pulwama-Balakot episode played out, assumes he stands a fair chance and is leaving no stone unturned to broadcast to the government his likemindedness with it and therefore his ‘ease of doing business with’ or pliability quotient.

Naravane would have to reverse this trend set by his predecessor in his repeated forays into political territory, most notably once in his likening of a political party in Assam to a front for illegal immigrants (short hand for Bengali Muslims). Others have followed, such as the northern army commander, General Ranbir Singh, who publicly disagreed with his predecessor that surgical strikes have been in the army’s armoury on the Line of Control for long. The northern army commander had independently in December taken up cudgels with his predecessor, now retired General Hooda. He later on the last day of elections this year unnecessarily supported the yet again unnecessary election time assertion of Anil Chauhan, then military operations head, that the there was no record of any surgical strikes prior to the ones under Narendra Modi. This intervention by the military was in the controversy over the Congress claim that it had conducted six such operations in its time at the helm. There was no need for Anil Chauhan to underwrite the governments’ side of the debate nor for the army commander to step up in its defence.

It is not a malady confined to the army. The last air chief was at pains to point to the well known virtues of the Rafale aircraft, particularly since an underequipped F-16 shot down one of his Mig 21 Bison aircraft, which we are now informed by an American expert speaking at the military literature festival in Chandigarh this December that the Indian plane was superior to the Pakistan-owned American one. The expert, Christine Fair, went out of her way to underline that she was no friend of Pakistan when she made her comments, a well known fact since her book on the Pakistani army is a well regarded critique of that army.

At the event, the former air chief, now retired, Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa, rode his favourite hobby horse once again. While earlier bureaucratic lethargy and political pusillanimity in the United Progressive Alliance era was the subtext, in contrast to the Modi-Doval innovative short cuts of procedure by way of which Rafale purchases were fast forwarded in Paris, this time round Dhanoa – recently retired – was explicit with his critique and implicit contrast.

Missing in the air chief marshal’s perspective are two elements that make for the distinction between the strategic and political planes. One is affordability, since security expenditures have an opportunity cost. The second is merging of the security and diplomatic prongs of grand strategy to influence a neighbour. By this yardstick, there was no compulsion for the UPA government to fast track Rafale purchases.

Also, there was no compulsion for the successor government to move to a proactive strategic stance without first putting in place the elements necessary. It is no wonder then India suffered a set-back in its strategic proactivism, with Pakistan not only shooting down an Indian plane but also having the last crack at India in its riposte to Balakot. Since the Indians missed their target at Balakot, the Pakistanis were wise enough to convey a message by missing their three targets in the Rajauri-Naushera sector. For Dhanoa to now claim that they were ready to climb up the escalation ladder – despite its well known dangers including nuclear ones - only shows up the deficit of strategic level commanders strutting at the political level.

This exposé of the direction India’s civil-military relations have been headed in the Modi regime is to forewarn the army yet again on politicization. Since all institutions of governance have already fallen by the wayside, including arguably the Supreme Court, the army cannot be an exception. The more its generals advertise its susceptibility, the more likely will be such a denouement. Naravane can yet spare the army such fate.

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https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/18021/CAA-NRC-Those-Who-Voted-for-this-Regime-Need-to-Wake-Up
UNEDITED version
CAA-NRC: Those Who Voted for this Regime Need to Wake Up

The entry into the library and mosque of a university campus in New Delhi by the police and its proceeding to beat students, including women students, is a plunge by this nation into the dark. The ostensible reason given is that resort to stone throwing and arson by anti Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) processionists led to the police attempting to round up anti social elements.

Contrary to the police version, videos on social media indicate that the police set fire to the buses as a precursor to their heavy handedness that followed on campus. At the time of writing the police were shown on national television vandalizing vehicles on the campus of Aligarh Muslim University where sympathetic demonstrations broke out in solidarity with their student colleagues in Jamia Millia Islamia. This makes it easier to suspect the police version of events in New Delhi. 

The credibility of the police has never been high. It took a deep dive recently with a commissioner of police claiming that the law had done its duty while explaining the ‘encounter’ in which the police killed four alleged rapists in Hyderabad. Even if the police version is true, for the police to enter into a university campus in the national capital and rough up students in their search for the anti social elements who resorted to violence is the regime going overboard.

Only a perception of impunity in the armed police could have led to such high handedness. This can only be a result of their action being taken under orders. This line of thought begs the question: Whose orders?

By now it is evident that the regime is incapable of following through with implementing its hard-nosed, ideology-driven decisions with any finesse. The economic fallout and consequences on livelihoods of demonetization and Goods and Services Tax decisions is now fairly evident. The surgical strikes failed to deter the Pulwama terror attack. The Balakot aerial attack failed to hit its intended target. It is equally clear that no F-16 fell out of the sky in the aerial duel that followed. Kashmir is waiting to explode with each passing day of lock down adding to the potentially calamitous consequences when it does. The outcome of the register of citizens’ exercise in Assam can be visualized from the condition of detention centers there.

And now we have its failure to anticipate the anti CAA sentiment in the north east and in the Muslim communities across the country. Needing to divert attention from over reach and to delegitimize the emerging blow-back, it has resorted to its time-tested Gulf of Tonkin tactics. (The reference is to the incident engineered by the United States to enable and legitimize its intervention in the Vietnamese civil war on the side of its lackeys in the mid sixties.) Using the arson and stone throwing as excuse it has tried to paint the counter to the CAA in dark colours. It has already conditioned the media to loyally depict any violence as Muslim initiated and perpetrated.

The intent is to reinforce its narrative on the CAA cum National Register of Citizens (NRC) – its twinned answer to fool-proof homeland security. The Muslims objecting to the CAA-NRC pose a threat because they have much to hide, including some 20 million illegal infiltrators, in their mohallahs and qasbas. Tough handling at the outset of the demonstrations would help deter and divide Muslims. Else they may heed calls for non-cooperation by the community against the CAA-NRC. Besides, the strong arm would need to be much in evidence in case the ‘termites’ are to be accorded a burial at sea in the Bay of Bengal; Bangladesh, having cancelled the visits by its home and foreign ministers last week, being in no mood to welcome them back.  

The necessity of firmness is easy to swallow for believers; they believe anything including that their prime minister is a graduate. The wider public has also been worked on for over a decade during which the notion of convergence between terrorism and Muslims was fostered by the media and fanned by the strategic community. Perpetrators of the black operations that depicted Muslims in poor light were set scot free and at least one now graces parliament. Therefore, the expectation in the security minders who passed on the orders for mayhem on campus was that the rationale would be swallowed.

As with other implementation failures of misconceived policies, this time the regime has come up short. It has been exposed by the swirling social media clips that have found their way into mainstream media coverage of the incidents. Accountability is not with the khakhi clad superiors of the communalised armed police. They have received their marching orders and - being supine - have in carrying these out, have botched it.

Despite its inauspicious rollout of the CAA-NRC, the question still needs answering: whose orders? The deep state, comprising national security minders, is merely a link in the chain of command. Who does the deep state answer to?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at a mega rally the same day on the campaign trail in Dumka, Jharkhand, is a dead give-away. Modi in his inimitable style said that it is possible to make out who those setting the nation on fire are by the clothes they wear. This is of a piece with his long standing dog whistle politics. In a piece of immaculate coincidence the demonstration in Okhla unfolding even as he delivered his address in early afternoon, culminated in arson a little while later, with the nearby campus being invaded by the police shortly thereafter.

Modi’s home minister during his performance in parliament warned that the NRC was coming. The CAA is but stage setting. The Muslim community is left with little recourse but peaceful demonstrations by its articulate members – its students – to register its reservations. The two – Modi and Shah - responsible for setting off the counter to the CAA-NRC are out to manage the pushback with the only methods they know: Kashmirisation of the rest of India, to borrow a phrase.

That the counter has acquired such dimensions owes to the urgency and significance of the juncture. The government for its part is not averse to the rigour of the counter since it helps it project the necessity – in its narrative – of the CAA-NRC double whammy and paper over the widening cracks in the economy.

The take away from witnessing the aftermath of the first act of its folly is that the largely Hindu support base of the ruling party needs to wake up timely. Only a shifting of the sands below the feet of the Chanakyan duo will enable institutions play their part in the system of checks and balances that constitutes democracy. The accountability for controlling Modi-Shah is with those who elected the two. The agent-principal relationship that underpins democracy implies that Hindu brethren who voted Modi into power need inclusion in the answer to the question: on whose orders. They can yet make amends

https://thebookreviewindia.org/art-of-new-age-war/

ARMY OF NONE: AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS AND THE FUTURE OF WAR
By Paul Scharre W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 448, R1549.00

The book’s cover has appreciative lines by Bill Gates, who–as the cliché goes—needs no introduction, and Lawrence Freedman, who may need an introduction only for those from fields other than strategic studies, being the doyen of the field. Since Gates knows technology and Freedman focuses on war, their recommendation places the book on the frontline of technology and war.

It is no wonder that at the time of writing of this review, the headlines have it that the army’s Jaipur-based South Western Command is organizing a seminar at Hisar to get to grips with Artificial Intelligence and military operations. The media reports the seminar organizers modestly acknowledging that though the military has taken note of the advances abroad, including China, it is never too late to catch up. Clearly, here is the book to help them tank up.

Even so, a headline alongside says that India is going in for another 1000 plus armoured personnel carriers. This underlines a well-known trait in most militaries—apparently more pronounced in the Indian one—that it is easier to get a new idea into its head than to get an older one out. So long as the three services are busy throwing governmental largesse—set at $130 billion over the coming ten years—on platforms such as fighters, ships and tanks, it is unlikely India will ‘catch up’ this decade. From what Scharre informs through his 446-page book, it would be too late.

Paul Scharre is a good guide into an esoteric subject since he makes intelligible a formidable array of technologies that go into the making of autonomous weapons—weapons he describes as not having a human in the loop for their firing. The science he covers would interest sci-fi aficionados. The book itself is meant for practitioners, though it is written in a style that would attract armchair strategists too. It is meant for those into defence technology, specifically defence scientists and the fledgling defence industry.It needs being read by those working on national security policy to challenge the military’s laundry list of twentieth-century hardware. The book must be made compulsory reading at the military academies and staff colleges, perhaps figuring on the next update to the ‘Golden 100’— an army headquarters compiled list of ‘must read’, ‘should read’ and ‘could read’ tomes. One way to focus young military minds on its contents is to make it part of promotion and competitive exam syllabi.

An additional target audience of the book is the think tank community. Though the military glossies have been a dime-a-dozen for over a decade now, there is little cutting edge content. Technology has ample coverage, since the arms industry is out for a piece of the defence budgetary cake. However, missing is deep-end thinking presented by Scharre such as on the ethics of such weaponization. One doubts there is an equivalent project at any of the plethora of Delhi’s think tanks to the one Scharre tenants at Washington’s independent and bipartisan Center for a New American Security: its Ethical Autonomy project.

This is a step further than merely the technology or the operational usage of the weapon. It is engagement with the ethics of and ethical use of such weapons when fielded. The current state of the art is semi-autonomous weapons, requiring human sign off on targeting. Apparently, only the Israeli Harpy drone has so far crossed the line into being autonomous. Armed drones have over a dozen states in pursuit of the technology. That there is much for ethicists here while the technologists are still at it is evident from the recent killings by a semi-autonomous drone strike of 30 Afghan civilians out nut picking on a Hindu Kush hillside. If and since things can go wrong even with a human in the loop, what more can go awry when the human is at best with a kill-switch? On this count some 3000 robotics experts have already called for a blanket ban on autonomous weapons.

This is the key area Scharre engages with. He takes his time building up to the climax, traversing the technology and its operational use, before getting to in Part VI on whether and how strategy and ethics informs policy choices. The take away is that a weapon ban is wishful and fielding of such weapons is inevitable. Consequently, engaging with how these would relate to international humanitarian law is necessary in the here and now. The international community is taking its usual leisurely course at the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons meetings, even as developments overtake speeches made. In early 2018, there was a drone attack by Syrian rebels on a Syrian air base that also housed Russians, with Russians shooting down the intruding drones. By late 2019, ten drones targeted Saudi Arabia’s premier oil facilities temporarily putting a proportion of its oil production out of action and setting the region closer to a war between regional rivals, the Saudis and Iran.

The book is therefore an important one, with its significance likely to be remarked on more in retrospect some twenty years on. Scharre has wrapped up some ten years of work into its covers, beginning with methodically and readably outlining the technology: robotics, artificial intelligence, neural networks, cyberspace, bots etc. In the later parts, ‘The Fight to Ban Autonomous Weapons’ and ‘Averting Armageddon’, he comes to the meat. Thus the first three quarters of the book would interest the tech savvy, while the last two parts can be expected to detain policy wonks and academics. This ‘something in it for every-one’ aspect of the book comes from his background: an infantryman having served in both of America’s wars this century: Iraq and Afghanistan; and later as the director of the technology and national security programmme at his think tank. This review cannot but in closing reiterate Scharre’s sobering words:

‘No piece of paper can prevent a state from building autonomous weapons if they desire it. At the same time, a pell-mell race forward in autonomy, with no clear sense of where it leads us, benefits no one. States must come together to develop an understanding of which uses of autonomy are appropriate and which go too far and surrender human judgment where it is needed in war. Weighing these human values is a debate that requires all members of society, not just academics, lawyers, and military professionals. Average citizens are needed too, because ultimately autonomous military robots will live—and fight—in our world.’

https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/47/strategic-affairs/approaching-kashmir-through-theoretical-lenses.html

Approaching Kashmir through Theoretical Lenses

By its early August actions that rendered Article 370 vacuous, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has thrown down the gauntlet in Kashmir to Pakistan. The adoption of this hard-line position by India flies in the face of the theory in both the contextual fields, security studies and peace studies. This article examines India’s newly adopted position on Kashmir in light of the two theoretical lenses to conclude that India’s action lacks a strategic rationale.

While the security studies framework informs of the dangers stemming from India’s action, the peace studies lens offers a lifeline to help India walk back. It is hardly likely that the government will turn any time soon to peacemaking, prescribed in both disciplines for conflict resolution. Disregard for the political prong of strategy implies that the antecedents of India’s Kashmir decision are located instead in the ideology of cultural nationalism. The corollary is that the problem in Kashmir—and with Pakistan—cannot be addressed without first politically and democratically addres­sing the problems arising due to majoritarianism.

Security Studies Lens

Over its post-Cold War evolution, security studies has gone on from a “statist, power-centric, masculinised, ethno-centric and militarized worldview of security” (Ken Booth qtd in Horrigan et al 2008: 1896) to a position that nation states cannot be secure if its citizens are insecure. It is apparent from the constitutional initiative in Kashmir that this shift in theory has not quite registered with India’s security managers.

More narrowly, the theory in security studies on countering insurgency has it that an insurgency needs containing and rolling back militarily even as one is working towards a political solution alongside, in light of the understanding that insurgency is a political problem (Anthony 2008: 903). This understanding informs India’s counter-insurgency doctrine, which sensibly acknowledges the limitations of military action while sotto voce calling for political solution:

Since conflict termination and their (conflict) political resolution are the ultimate end states sought, such conditions, besides enabling the initiatives by the economic and informational elements of national power to consolidate, also facilitate initiation of political dialogue for a negotiated settlement. (Army Training Command 2006: 20)

The second theory of relevance is deterrence, which in this case is directed at the proxy-war angle of insurgency in order to stay the hand of external sponsors and supporters. Deterrence theory is not only about punishment to affect the calculation of expected gains of the adversary, but also about incentivising restraint on its part with positive inducements to make the expected utility of limiting or ending proxy war acceptable to the aggressor (Huth 2008: 1259).

India has largely approached the 30 years long insurgency in Kashmir through the security framework. It has deployed a military predominant template—though with a political prong of strategy alongside—aimed mostly at conflict management rather than conflict resolution. Counter-insurgency operations have continued alongside India’s conduct of periodic elections for furthering mainstream politics and deploying a series of interlocutors for progressing political dialogue with separatists. Its policy towards Pakistan has oscillated between engaging it to aggressive pursuit of its international isolation diplomatically, and strategic proactivism on the Line of Control (LoC) and beyond. India’s doctrinal changes, military restructuring, acquisitions, military exercises and its demonstration of resolve in conducting the surgical strikes by land and air, indicate a heightening of deterrence assertion. This is necessary to keep Pakistan from escalating either through terror provocation or in the face of India’s reprisal strikes following such provocation.

Its political prong has been limited by the conflict management framework. While the reports of the working groups from the late 2000s were partially implemented, the report of the three interlocutors appointed in the face of the 2010 unrest in Kashmir was largely ignored, as have reports from civil society initiatives such as that of the Yashwant Sinha-led Concerned Citizens Group. Of the 2010 report, the then home minister lamented rather late in the day that he ought to have implemented it (Business Standard 2018). No wonder, one of the three authors of the report, Radha Kumar, has written, “Astonishingly, the Indian government has never failed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when it comes to Jammu and Kashmir” (Kumar 2018: 341). The secrecy surrounding the work of the last interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma gives rise to suspicion over the nature of his input into the questionable constitutional initiative in August.

Since its August manoeuvre, the clampdown in Kashmir, deterrence messaging to Pakistan, diplomatic offensive and military deterrence signalling through capability upgrades, such as acquisition of the Rafale aircraft, and restructuring of the apex military by moving towards a chief of defence staff system, are indi­cative of a hard-line set to be prevalent in the foreseeable future. The role of political initiatives in counter-insurgency repertoire stands attenuated.

Currently, civil society in Kashmir appears to have taken to the non-violent route of non-cooperation (Sundar and Ramakrishnan 2019). The fallout of egregious violence, such as the reported playing of cries from the torture of militants on public loudspeakers (Wire 2019), can only add to the alienation. It is apparent that Kashmir remains fertile for heightened insurgency in case Pakistan ups its proxy war. For now, Pakistan has been constrained by its economic troubles and privileging of the conflict termination efforts in Afghanistan.

Since Pakistan has always projected Kashmir as a key national interest, a resumed proxy war at a higher tempo is a plausible future. This means a return to the past but at a higher threshold of danger for the region. India’s defence minister’s recent reference to nuclear doctrine remaining unchanged (Singh 2019), a remark made apropos nothing in particular other than in the context of the crisis, renders the nuclear overlay over future crises unmistakable. The dangers are stark from a recent study that puts the figure of dead from a nuclear war at 125 million (Toon et al 2019).

Peace Theory Lens

The field of peace studies has the theoretical oeuvre that can be profitably applied in conflict situations such as in Kashmir. Conflict is taken as the contestation, often involving violence, arising over an incompatibility. Resolution is predicated less on absence of violence—“negative peace”—than on addressing root causes by delivering social justice, taken as “positive peace” (Stephenson 2008: 1537). This can be done by the stakeholders by non-violent means through peacemaking techniques that include negotiations. The peace studies framework—conflict prevention, peacekeeping, peacemaking, peacebuilding and reconciliation—is a useful alternative heuristic, since it emphasises peacemaking by addressing the interests and needs of stakeholders.

In Kashmir, the incidence of violence has been of an order that has overshadowed peace initiatives and their potential. As seen earlier, though there has been a peace prong to India’s Kashmir strategy, it has proven ineffectual. While elections have enabled mainstream political activity, its high point was in the mid 2000s in the meetings of separatists with the home minister and prime minister (Dulat 2015). Externally, there was considerable engagement with Pakistan forged by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and carried forward by its successor, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Neither the internal nor external efforts went the distance because the UPA government was ineffectual in the face of the domestic right-wing opposition and its refrain in the strategic community.

Buoyed by a majority in Parliament, the NDA government, early in its first term, attempted to gauge the potential for peace by its outreach to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Its subsequent actions do not lend confidence that its peace overtures were aimed at resolution as much as to perfunctorily tick the peace outreach box before moving on to legitimise power assertion as a twinned Kashmir–Pakistan strategy. The long-standing ideological plank against the special status of Kashmir led to a denial that Kashmiris have a historical claim to autonomy dating to promises made during its accession.

The peace studies framework offers an opening for a step back. Conflict prevention is an ongoing process even in the midst of conflict. For instance, if the current-day clampdown in Kashmir is seen as setting the stage for a renewed and heightened insurgency, then such conflict analysis can be taken as early warning for conflict prevention measures as called for in the civil society reports after visits to Kashmir (Drèze 2019). Some measures are release of detainees, investigation of juvenile detentions, withdrawal of restrictions, return of the communication network and restoration of state human rights supervisory commissions (Print 2019).

Cognisance of the peacekeeping peg of the framework helps to foreground the rule of law and that all security forces’ actions should be guided by professional conduct in good faith. That operations can be envisaged since peace enforcement—the use of force—is not absent in the peace framework. The reduced violence for now is the result of the overweening presence of the paramilitary with implications for surveillance, privacy and freedom of movement of women in parti­cular. Even if direct violence is absent—negative peace—indirect or structural violence precludes positive peace as the ill-trained and ill-led instruments of suppression remain on site with their propensity for direct violence corresponding to frustration levels from protracted deployment.

The major insight from the peacebuilding theory is that development is not appropriate as a top-down imposition nor can it be undertaken in the face of continuing instability. The enabling conditions need to be set first by peacemaking. Under the circumstance, peacemaking would imply getting the people to reconcile to their insecurities since the government’s move amounts to a shifting of the goalposts. A peacemaking agenda under the circumstances is at best a return to the earlier privileges under the defunct Article 35A and a return of statehood. These can be made possible by adding another clause to Article 371 as enjoyed by several other states.

However, the August action disembowelling the mainstream political groups has fused all shades of political opinion into a separatist front. Also, the right-wing government would be loath to consider concessions from its present-day position of strength. Having put in place a bureaucrat as lieutenant governor to further development, without creating the enabling conditions through a political outreach, the government’s intent is clear and the outcome easily predictable. The desirable end state of dignified return of Kashmiri Pandits to the valley as the ultimate indicator of reconciliation is unthinkable.

In relation to Pakistan, the Kartarpur Sahib initiative unfolded in the most testing of times for interstate relations. At the event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi likened it to the fall of the Berlin Wall (Modi 2019). Though Pakistan has heightened its anti-India rhetoric as part of its diplomatic offensive post India’s Article 370 move, there is a silver lining. Pakistan’s India policy, the eponymous “Bajwa doctrine” (Abi-Habib 2018), attributed to its army chief now on a three-year extension, is predicated on reaching out to India. While it may be intended to cool tensions in order that the Pakistan economy is stabilised, it provides an opening that India could exploit if it chooses to change tack to peacemaking.

India’s record on peacemaking is patchy. Even as its August initiative unfolded, the impact on the fragile peace process in Nagaland was palpable since the Nagas were reportedly holding out for a separate Constitution and flag, both of which were wrested from the Kashmiris (Scroll 2019). However, peace initiatives have also had a chequered outcome (Roy 2012). It is not clear if India is at all persuaded by the tenets of conflict resolution theory.

In Conclusion

The survey here through the two theoretical lenses of the constitutional knifing of Kashmir in early August suggests that the initiative was not anchored in either field. The strategic studies lens reveals a heightened insurgency and proxy war ahead. On the other hand, the peace studies lens—in particular its peacemaking insights—informs of pathways back from the brink. A power-oriented government can hardly be expected to be sensitive to theory when the impulse for its action lies outside the precincts of strategic rationality and within the ruling party’s cultural nationalist ideology.

References

Abi-Habib, Maria (2018): “Pakistan’s Military Has Quietly Reached Out to India for Talks,” New York Times, 4 September, viewed on 9 November, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/world/asia/pakistan-india-talks.html.

Anthony, James J (2008): “Guerrilla Warfare,” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, Lester Kurtz (ed), Oxford: Elsevier Inc, Vol 3, pp 901–14.

Army Training Command (ARTRAC) (2006): Doctrine for Sub Conventional Operations, Shimla: ARTRAC.

Business Standard (2018): “Regret Not Acting on J&K Interlocutors’ Report: Chidambaram,”
13 December, viewed on 3 November, https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/regret-not-acting-on-j-k-interlocutors-report-chidambaram-118121301147_1.html.

Drèze, Jean et al (2019): Kashmir Caged: A Fact-finding Report by Jean Drèze, Kavita Krishnan, Maimoona Mollah and Vimal Bhai, National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations, 14 August, viewed on 20 October, http://www.nchro.org/index.php/2019/08/14/kashmir-caged-a-fact-finding-report-by-jean-dreze-kavita-krishnan-maimoona-mollah-and-vimal-bhai/.

Dulat, A S (2015): Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years, New Delhi: HarperCollins.

Horrigan, Brenda L, Theodore Karasik and Rennison Lalgee (2008): “Security Studies,” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, Lester Kurtz (ed), Oxford: Elsevier Inc, Vol 3, pp 1892–1900.

Huth, Paul K (2008): “Military Deterrence and Statecraft,” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, Lester Kurtz (ed), Oxford: Elsevier Inc, Vol 3, pp 1256–65.

Kumar, Radha (2018): Paradise at War: A Political History of Kashmir, New Delhi: Aleph Books.

Modi, Narendra (2019): “P M Modi’s Address to Nation Following SC Verdict on Ayodhya,”
9 November, viewed on 15 November, https://www.narendramodi.in/pms-address-to-the-nation-547268.

Print (2019): “3 Rights Panels among 7 J&K State Commissions Wound Up Ahead of Bifurcation,” 23 October, viewed on 10 November, https://theprint.in/india/3-rights-panels-7-jk-state-commissions-wound-up-bifurcation/310234/.

Roy, Biswajit (2012): War and Peace in Junglemahal: People, State and Maoists, Kolkata: Setu Prakashani.

Scroll (2019): “Breakthrough in Naga Peace Talks as NSCN(IM) and Government Reach an Agreement,” 31 October, viewed on 4 November, https://scroll.in/latest/942268/breakthrough-in-naga-peace-talks-as-nscn-im-and-government-reach-an-agreement.

Singh, Rajnath (2019): Tweet, 16 August, viewed on 1 November, https://twitter.com/rajnathsingh/status/1162276901055893504?lang=en.

Stephenson, Carolyn (2008): “Peace Studies, Overview,” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, Lester Kurtz (ed), Oxford: Elsevier Inc, Vol 3, pp 1534–48.

Sundar, Nandini and Nitya Ramakrishnan (2019): “Go Back to India and Cover Every Statue of Gandhi So that He Doesn’t Have to Face This Shame: Kashmiris Mark the 150th Anniversary of Gandhi’s Birthday with Satyagraha,” viewed on 7 November, http://nandinisundar.blogspot.com/2019/10/go-back-to-india-and-cover-every-statue.html.

Toon, Owen B et al (2019): “Rapidly Expanding Nuclear Arsenals in Pakistan and India Portend Regional and Global Catastrophe,” Science Advances, viewed on 8 November, https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/10/eaay5478.

Wire (2019): “In Kashmir, Army Relays Tortures on Loudspeakers, Slaps UAPA on Stone-pelters,” 31 October, viewed on 5 November, https://thewire.in/rights/kashmir-fact-finding.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tpumdaiwivz8drp/South%20Asian%20Security%20A%20Vantage%20Point_book.pdf?dl=0

Preface and Acknowledgements

In this book compilation I have put together my book chapter contributions to various edited
publications in order to get the perspectives presented under one set of covers. Taken together,
they strengthen the liberal perspective in strategic studies. I have been in my writings that are
of shorter length, such as commentaries, opinion pieces and analysis, been a votary of the
liberal world view and have tried to make the liberal case when discussing issues in matters
of regional and national security. I have compiled the eight hundred and more such pieces in
eight other books. I have also put together my articles and essays published in peer reviewed
journals into a book. This book contains my chapter length works, tackling the same themes I
have engaged with consistently – nuclear and conventional doctrine; counter insurgency; India-
Pakistan equations; Kashmir etc.
I recommend these chapters be read alongside my other writings to gain a measure of why
and how the liberal position has advantages for a continental sized country like India and for
the South Asian region of which India is a major part. I trust the student community, academic
peers, fellow former practitioners, and interested readers in India and Pakistan, will find the
effort useful.
I thank the editors of various volumes in which these chapters were included for giving me an
opportunity to present my views. This shows they were already keen on the point of view finding
a place in their edited work, which is to their credit. It is befitting that the Asokan tradition stays
alive and well in India, that is otherwise inundated with writings drawing on and inspired by the
Chanakyan tradition.
I would like to thank the team at CinnamonTeal, lead by Queenie Fernandes, for her overseeing
the production into book for my many books with the publishing house.
I have dedicated this book to my son. I hope his generation benefits from any good coming out
of the book in terms of furthering peace and harmony in India and South Asia.
7

CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements 7
Indian Army’s Flagship Doctrines: Need for Strategic Guidance in Harsh Pant (ed.),
Doctrine Handbook, Routledge, 2015, ISBN-978-1-138-93960-8
9
Does India think Strategically? Searching Military Doctrines for Answers in
Happymon Jacob (ed.), Does India think strategically?, Australia-India Institute,
2014, ISBN 9350980398
26
Indian Strategic Culture the Pakistan Dimension in Indian Strategic Culture: The
Pakistan dimension in Krishnappa, Bajpai et al. (eds.), India’s Grand Strategy:
History, Theory, Cases, Taylor and Francis, 2014, ISBN-978-0-415-73965-8
50
India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Stasis or Dynamism? in Brig. Naeem Salik (ed.)
(forthcoming), India’s Habituation With the Bomb - 1998-2018
71
The Nuclear Domain: In Irreverance in Mohammed BadrulAlam, Perspectives On
Nuclear Strategy Of India, And Pakistan, Kalpaz Publications, Delhi, India, 2013,
ISBN-9788178359632
93
Nuclear Doctrine and Conflict in Krishnappa and Princy George (eds.), India’s
Grand Strategy 2020 and Beyond, IDSA, Pentagon Security International, 2012,
ISBN-78-81-8274-657-2
112
AFSPA in Light of Humanitarian Law in Vivek Chadha, Armed Forces Special
Powers Act: The Debate, IDSA Monograph Series No. 7, 2012, ISBN-978-81-7095-
129-1
120
Countering Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir: Debates in the Indian Army in
Maroof Raza (ed.), Confronting Terrorism, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, ISBN-
978-0-670-08369-5
131
Applicability of Sub-Conventional Operations Doctrine to Counterinsurgency in
Assam in Bhattacharya, R. and S. Pulipaka (eds.), Perilous Journey : Debates on
Security and Development in Assam, New Delhi: Manohar, 2011, ISBN-978-81-
7304-904-0
152
UN Peacekeeping Operations: Leveraging India’s Forte in IDSA Task Force, Net
Security Provider: India’s Out-of-Area Contingency Operations, 2012, ISBN-978-
93-82512-00-4
173
India 2030: With History as Guide in Lele, A. and N. Goswami (eds.), Asia 2030:The
Unfolding Future, New Delhi: Lancer 2011, ISBN-1-935501-22-4