Kashmir: Preparing for a contingency

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/07/21/kashmir-preparing-for-a-contingency/

by Ali Ahmed

July 21, 2012

The latest controversy coming out of the otherwise peaceable Kashmir is a civil-military spat. This has the army’s position, given out by the Srinagar corps commander, of situation in Kashmir as ‘alarming’ ranged on one side. On the other is the position of the head of the unified command in Srinagar, the chief minister, to whom the army general ostensibly reports as part of the unified command and who does not find the situation ‘alarming’. Perhaps both are right to a degree with capricious truth, as usual, being somewhat in-between.

The chief minister is right to the extent that describing the situation as alarming can raise an unwarranted alarm. The corps commander for his part perhaps meant that it is ‘potentially’ alarming, given his reference in his remarks to the continuing of the terror infrastructure across the Line of Control and its readying of 500 odd terrorists for launch.

That the army remains in place despite better security indicators that give the chief minister confidence, suggests a potential for backslide. It is perhaps for this reason that Pakistan too has not dismantled its leverages. This suggests that both states are in a ‘wait and watch’ mode, no doubt waiting to see which way the ‘cookie crumbles’ in ‘AfPak’, given the onrush of Obama’s deadline for departure, one that has been hastened lately to late 2013 from its earlier location in time in 2014.

All indicators are that the negative peace—absence of violence—currently obtaining in Kashmir cannot be mistaken for positive peace—absence of reason for violence. With the three interlocutors failing to enthuse a political initiative towards conflict resolution, alienation persists. A leading separatist has suggested that the youth, having witnessed only turmoil, may be less restrained than their predecessors who took to the gun. The next time round, violence could well have a different face. It could resemble images from Syria and Libya, with an admixture of those from Egypt.

The state response can be predicted along lines of 2010. Then, curfew was clamped in the gaps in the public curfew so as to exhaust public support for the stone pelters. Identified since, many have been taken out of circulation, falling to the PSA. Assuming that next time round, bullets substitute for stones, the army that was in 2010 only ‘on call’, will be back on the streets it last patrolled in the mid nineties. This explains why it favors the ‘draconian’ to some and ‘demonized’ to others, AFSPA (Armed Force Special Powers Act). The Act’s continuance enables the army to be helpfully readily on hand. This completes the circle in that it serves as a disincentive to the government to meaningfully bring about conflict resolution. In light of the threat of the next round being more violent and, catching the state surprised and under-prepared, possibly more bloody, this may not be such a bad thing.

However, it could be worse if some initial thinking on how to mitigate the situation in such a contingency is not done early. While prevention is better than cure, it is by now obvious from the interlocutors’ report being confined to the cyber-world that neither prevention nor cure is on the government’s mind. Here an idea is aired for how to mitigate the consequences of the ‘wait and watch’ folly passing for policy.

Currently, India has viewed the conflicts it has been beset with as domestic affairs, if above the ‘law and order’ level but certainly below that of a non-international armed conflict. This has occasioned its application of AFSPA without resorting to the emergency provisions that would then invite its accountability externally as per the international ‘bill of rights’ covenants.

If under the contingency posited here, of higher order civil turmoil, there is a case for India declaring the ensuing armed conflict as a non-international armed conflict. This will have some advantages for India. It will help in controlling its armed forces engaged in beating back the challenge. A tough military counter is not unlikely since the outbreak could amount to an internal rebellion. This will exact a strategic price in terms of a downward spiral. Civilian control of such operations can be reinforced in case there is an external accountability. This can be brought about by treating the conflict as a non-international armed conflict.

It will enable operation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention to which India has signed up. This finds incidence in Indian domestic law in the Geneva Conventions Act of 1960. Vide this article egregious acts of violence are prohibited, serving as an additional check on the military against disregarding humanitarian concerns for military necessity. This would be important when and if the challenge posed by internal conflict is of an order as to make the use of force in response strategically counter productive. There is no loss in doing so since the article explicitly states that sovereignty is not brought into question.

It has the added advantage of putting Pakistan and its proxies on check. The Article is applicable to both parties to the conflict. Therefore the proxy warriors would also be required to abide by the provisions. Their operatives in Kashmir and handlers across the LC will be held accountable to international humanitarian law, failing which they would be liable under international criminal law. The latter has made some advances since the mid nineties that can be productively used to offset the impunity terror handlers otherwise have from domestic jurisdiction.

Additional Protocol II that is applicable for non-international armed conflict would not be operational since, firstly, India is not a signatory, and, secondly, the higher threshold of violence it envisages is unlikely to be reached. Abiding by the Common Article 3 humanitarian provisions would have a salutary effect of reinforcing domestic human rights law that has otherwise proven tenuous in its sway over security forces in most episodes of armed challenge India has faced.

In bracing for the future, India would do well to ponder such contingencies. If the international scrutiny that results if found to be unthinkable, then this must serve as incentive to India to go meaningfully down the conflict resolution route it has avoided so far.

India-Pakistan: Moving beyond CBMs

http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/india-pakistan-moving-beyond-cbms-3680.html  Ali AhmedAssistant Professor, NMCPCR, Jamia Millia Islamia email: aliahd66@gmail.com Also at http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=242909 Daily Star, Bangladesh, 21 July 12

In wake of the Abu Jindal revelations, not much could be expected from the Joint Statement at the end of the recently held meeting between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan. For that reason perhaps the ‘one small step’ that has potential of being ‘a giant leap’ for the region has been missed. This article recommends a direction for taking the refreshing initiative forward. The nugget in question reads: “It was decided that separate meetings of the Expert Level Groups on Nuclear and Conventional CBMs will be held to discuss implementation and strengthening of the existing CBMs and suggest additional mutually acceptable steps that could build greater trust and confidence between the two countries, thereby contributing to peace and security.” This reflects an intention on part of the two security establishments to discuss CBMs in the two fields – nuclear and conventional – separately. While five rounds of talks had taken place between the Lahore Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), in which such meets were envisaged, and 26/11, the resumption of the joint working group meets was only in December 2011. This meeting was reviewed during the recent foreign secretary talks and the decision to separate the discussion on CBMs, which will enable a more detailed look at each domain, was the happy outcome. A separate expert level dialogue on nuclear CBMs is in order since vertical proliferation and a diversification in the arsenal and defensive measures, such as ballistic missile defences, are speedily underway in the subcontinent. The separation suggests that the two governments sensibly see the nuclear domain as a stand alone one. This is in keeping with India’s stand that nuclear weapons have no military value. Pakistan, on the other hand, believes in the military utility of nuclear weapons, hence its first use doctrine. The intention to form an independent expert group for discussing conventional CBMs is heartening. The significance of this forum derives from the devastation that terrorism has wrought in the region. India’s answer to sub conventional provocation, the Cold Start doctrine, has shortened the window for crisis resolution. The expert group can be put to good use to discuss threat perceptions and war game reactions in such instances so as to build in firewalls between terror attacks and conventional fisticuffs. Further, the notion of a conventional working group suggests a more visible military presence. The working group will be a useful forum for the two militaries to have representatives directly across the table, even if one is sprinkled with defence bureaucrats. For a start, it can take up the lone pending issue of the Lahore MOU - the absence of CBMs on the seas. It can help narrow down the differences over Siachen by preparing a demilitarization document for the two states to sign. It can explore the expansion of the ceasefire on the Line of Control to include joint patrolling. With time, habits of cooperation may form (as is the intent behind the concept of CBMs) to enable a more ambitious agenda, such as resurrecting the environment damaged by the million plus land mines there.  The levels of trust necessary for ensuring that the promises made in the Lahore MOU for discussing the doctrines are fulfilled can be built up in the more focused group. This can be envisioned only in case there is a meeting of minds in the conventional experts group. India can use the conventional experts group to persuade Pakistan that the conventional military balance is not skewed in India’s favour. Arriving at a shared understanding on the strategic balance can serve as a forerunner to doctrinal change towards No First Use in the nuclear sphere. Together it will make both states secure. Lastly, to withstand the test of the next terrorist-instigated crisis, the experts groups must either be standing forums in continuous session or capable of being called into session at the time of a crisis outbreak. They can then serve as crisis defusing mechanisms, helping to execute and monitor policies and decisions mutually arrived at through exchanges over the multiple hotlines in play. In effect, they can be ‘camouflaged’ Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers. The understanding that undergirds this recommendation is that the two states share a mutual interest in crisis management and de-escalation. Therefore, mechanisms to bring this about have to already be in place. The two forums can supplement the hotlines currently available. Such direct interface of experts, acquainted with each other, would be in addition to existing diplomatic channels actively addressing the crisis, thereby enabling early and easier resolution. The separation enables the requirement under Article 6 of the Lahore MOU, which caters to the setting up of ‘appropriate consultative mechanisms’. Whether these fulfill the promise of Article 1 – ‘bilateral consultations on security concepts, and nuclear doctrines…’ – will be their true test. If these two separate experts groups can in time be combined to become a forum for a strategic dialogue, going beyond CBMs to mutual and balanced forces reduction, including nuclear stockpiles, then peace would truly be at hand.

INTERNAL SECURITY CRISES IN
PUNJAB, KASHMIR AND JAFFNA:
THE POWER OF MODERATION
Ali Ahmed


South Asian Survey 17 : 2 (2010): 283–294
SAGE Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/097152311201700207


The article argues that the militarised nature of India’s initial reaction to an internal security
crisis contributes to deterioration in the situation. The resulting full-blown insurgency, usually
complicated by proxy war, takes several years to wind down due to the political prong of
strategy not keeping pace with the military prong. This is to the detriment of the legitimacy
of the state and exacts a high human price. Learning lessons from India’s initial reaction to
insurgency outbreak therefore helps to highlight the importance of prevention and possibilities
in non-militarised alternatives. The article considers the initial phases of three of India’s major
counter-insurgency engagements—Punjab, Kashmir and in Tamil areas of Sri Lanka—to
arrive at the conclusion that moderation in facing crisis prevents confl ict outbreak.
Keywords: India, counter-insurgency, internal security, Kashmir, Punjab, IPKF, Sri Lanka,
Jaffna, Indian Army, Khalistan, LTTE, national security

Tribal communities in the cross-hairs


By Ali Ahmed
Financial World, 9 July 2012

The outline of the ‘encounter’ at the end last month in the middle of Dantewada forests is by now amply clear. A firefight took place resulting in twenty civilian dead and six CRPF members injured. The furore in wake has witnessed peace activists and the provincial Congress leaders questioning the CRPF version and demanding an inquiry. Since blaming the tools is the sign of a poor workman, the Home Minister in rebound defended his force and left the decision on an inquiry to the state government.

The incident can end up serving as yet more ammunition for motivated use by all parties. However, the civilian lives lost and their numbers – sixteen - suggest that the incident must be invested with greater significance, lest it be yet another landmark merging into an unfolding story.

The establishment side would have it as evidence that the CRPF has finally got its act together after the Chintalnar massacre of 2010 and is able to penetrate jungles, even at night. The Home Minister in standing by the force has sustained its morale, enabling its bolder deployment and employment in future. The state police and CRPF for their part will hopefully go into the details in an in-house inquiry for learning the right lessons, even if for external purposes they stick by their version of the event of a return of fire in self-defence.

The contrary view has it that the firing was into a gathering of civilians being addressed by Maoists resulting in an unconscionable number dying, including women and at least one teenage girl. Even if provoked by Maoists, the principles of discrimination and proportionality seem to have been abandoned by the force. At least some of the six CRPF soldiers injured could be due to friendly fire, intrinsic to the nature of firefights in the dark and in jungles.

Even if the truth is taken as somewhere in-between, there are lessons that need pointing out. Firstly, it is unfair to have the CRPF operate in jungles. The nature of the job and their rotation policy does not suggest that troops when so employed can prove competent. This is an infantryman’s job. Even if the CRPF soldier is up to it, the levels of leadership from the grass root to the supervisory tactical levels are just not up to it. In effect, this is not a job the CRPF can at all rise up to, even if trained for.

Secondly, they operate in support of the state police. The levels of state police capability are well known. These have in this case been supplemented by relying on the erstwhile Salwa Judum or SPOs, now an auxiliary police militia. While their tribal instincts enable a capability for operating in jungles, they cannot be permitted the autonomy they seem to be enjoying. The Supreme Court has frowned on the practice in its judgment last year on using them as SPOs. Therefore, when firefights break out, discipline and fire discipline is liable to break down. Civilian casualties are a natural corollary. The result is a strategic hit-wicket.

Thirdly, the command and control arrangement is not neat. The officer cadre of the police being absent from the frontline, the leadership is missing from the spear-end. The IPS shoulder title cannot substitute either for moral authority or tactical acumen. The idea of expanding the IPS by a mid-career lateral induction exam has lately been jettisoned, suggesting that the ground level leadership deficit will remain indefinitely. Flying visits from the CRPF brass out of the CGO Complex in Delhi can at best serve as eyes and ears for the Home Minister.

The system then happily hides behind the federal structure of the Constitution to claim inability to influence the right wing state government to rethink strategy. Where the buck stops is indistinct. Treating it as a law and order problem implies it is with the state government. Since they don’t have the requisite tools, there is a lack of accountability.

What needs doing? There are liberated zones that need dismantling, a job for the army. Their fixation with Kashmir is not only limiting the potential political dividend there from a retraction of the AFSPA, but is enabling them to duck this national duty staring them in the face. The argument that to use the army is to use a hammer against a fly assumes that the army can only be used as a hammer. Instead, the infantry is capable of much more sensitivity in operations since its officers, right at the frontline, can exercise control and discretion. The lesson learnt from past counter insurgencies and strict adherence to the new subconventional doctrine can dispel fears of a military overkill. Their role can be restricted to vacating ‘liberated zones’, dispersing the Maoists and handing over to the CRPF. 

The tribal communities must be spared the attentions of a force, which, even if stout hearted and well-intentioned, stands misemployed. Call out the army, but ensure its ‘velvet glove’ is on. If that is unthinkable, it is better to go down the peace process route purposefully.

Kashmir: More of the same By Ali Ahmed Kashmir Times, 3 Jul 12 http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=1071 The status of the last initiative towards conflict resolution in J&K – the report of the three interlocutors uploaded onto the Home Ministry’s website for public discussion – suggests that conflict management will instead remain to the fore over the foreseeable future. In other words: ‘more of the same’. Admittedly, conflict management is indispensable so long as conflict potential exists. Equally, conflict management efforts along the development and security axes have mitigated the conflict to a great extent, if violence indices are to be given credence. However, closure to conflict can only be through conflict resolution initiatives; essentially peace process in the political domain. While there has been no absence of initiatives in this direction over the past decade, these have never reached culmination point, leave alone carried the day. Why is India reluctant to go down this route whole heartedly? India believes it is well placed strategically. Internally, it has a proven suppressive machinery in place. Its reluctance to review the AFSPA suggests as much. A couple of seasons of ‘negative peace’ or absence of violence would see India through. Externally, the sponsor of the problem, Pakistan, is likely to be introspective till at least the middle of the decade. The remarks of the US defence secretary, Panetta, during his recent visit indicate an emerging convergence on isolation of this regional rival. This will give India adequate breather to work round the issue through conflict management techniques, such as infrastructure development, employment generation, justice in cases as Pathribal etc, rather then address it politically in the hope of conflict resolution. Kashmir, perhaps because of the absence of violence indicators, is now marginal to the national consciousness. This makes for little incentive for the civilian decision maker to ‘do something’. While different prime ministers have consistently indicated their interest in a resolution that their directions have not been taken to their logical conclusion indicates something more than just inattention. It reveals a structural imbalance in India’s security related decision making. Security institutions, having done a ‘good job’ of bringing a semblance of normality to Kashmir are now having their pound of flesh. Political India, comprising the political class at the state and central levels, does not have the political capital to arrive at an independent and contrary judgment. The political head at state level is handicapped by lack of authority over the security establishment. The political decision makers at the center have for some time now been, to put it indelicately, beleaguered. In effect, even if the spirit was willing, the flesh is not. Conflict resolution is therefore ruled out not only because there is no incentive but because there is an inability to bring this about. At the organizational level, political possibilities are limited by the political strength at the center. While the center has a liberal core, it is constrained by the need for survival. It cannot offer the conservative opposition, itself coincidentally on life-support, a lifeline. Creating a consensus on Kashmir is not an issue political strength can be expended on. The Nagaland case provides analogy. The ceasefire in place amounts to, in sports terms, a penalty corner forced. But the incessant talks thereafter bespeak of an inability to convert the penalty corner. Political considerations, narrowly defined as regime perpetuation into the next term, dictate that tackling the less fraught Telangana issue may be better. The political angle resulting from the criticality of Andhra Pradesh to the ruling party’s political future places this issue as the issue after next, to be followed up after the presidential elections. Kashmir can wait. Lastly, the individual level needs factoring in. The home minister kept on the defensive by the opposition, can hardly be expected to innovate. His can at best be a holding job competently discharged. Some would have it that there is no political ‘solution’ required. The Kashmiris are already at the outer limit of the autonomy a federal state can possibly award. It is for this reason that the interlocutor’s report too does not suggest anything more than a constitutional review of the post 1952 extensions to the state. Regional delegation of powers and empowerment of local bodies are generic. In effect, the Kashmiris need to settle for at best a slightly modified status quo. Till as long as they reconcile to this, conflict management needs precedence over conflict resolution. The latter can at best be when the ‘movement’ ‘gives in’. There are problems with a ‘do nothing’, ‘do no harm’ or ‘more of the same’ approach. In Kashmir, because positive peace or peace based on strong foundations of public acceptance of the terms of settlement has proved elusive, it bears reminding that negative peace can prove illusive. The latest from the arms race on the subcontinent is the claim of the technologists that they can provide a ballistic shield to New Delhi and Mumbai. This bravado or attempt to boost public confidence obfuscates the possibility that a potential for spiral exists. Nuclear states have a duty to resolve problems with such potential. Secondly, the imbalance averred to between the political component of government and the security officialdom detracts from the notion that democratic civil control holds in India. While in a way the government’s inability can be taken as being democratically responsive to the wider majority that is unwilling to see budging of the status quo, this is a majoritarian notion of democracy. Democracy is not about brute majorities. Unaffected by perennial problems, such as interminable ‘disturbed areas’ status, electorates elsewhere in India can afford to be indifferent. Democratic governance does not mean being responsive to their lack of concern, but accommodating to those who feel the pinch. India’s democratic credentials are thus suspect twice over – one over a shortfall in civil control over the security apparatus and secondly misreading democracy as will of a pan-Indian majority. Even if latter be the case, a liberal government owes a duty to create the consensus by expending political capital, sometimes, as the precedence of the Indo-US nuclear deal indicates, even at risk of its own survival. Placing the report of the interlocutors’ report in the open domain has in effect killed the government’s last initiative. Placing it on the internet is hardly suggestive of the government or the ruling party taking on the onus for initiating and sustaining the debate. In case the report had actually required the government to do something such as remove AFSPA or, more expansively, trifurcate the province, it would not have seen the light of day. There is little time, attention span and energy left in the tenure for the UPA to apply itself. The epitaph to the report could well read: Mistaking crossed fingers for policy, a continuing security template as an exercise in civil control and the seeming quietude in Kashmir, for democracy, the report stands buried in files. (The author is Assistant Professor, Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia)

The Army: Missing Muslim India

MAINSTREAM, VOL L NO 27, JUNE 23, 2012

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article3529.html

by ALI AHMED

This article begins with a set of statistics and thereafter proceeds to discuss these. The Platinum Jubilee issue of the magazine of the Indian Military Academy, published in 2007, has some revealing tidbits of information. From the lists of various officer alumni who have done the Academy proud, it is obvious that Muslims are few and far between. Only six Muslim officers, who have passed out of the IMA, have made the supreme sacrifice for the country since the 1971 War. Only one, late Captain Haneefuddin of Kargil fame, has been awarded a higher gallan-try medal, a Vir Chakra, ever since then. Only one Muslim Gentleman Cadet has won the Academy’s Sword of Honour post-independence, with the award being won way back in 1973.

These achievements appear somewhat meagre in the light of the Indian Muslims forming the country’s largest minority numbering over 175 million. It naturally raises the question: Why?

An answer can seen in a further set of statistics gleaned from the biannual magazines of the Indian Military Academy, published at the end of the Spring and the Autumn terms respectively. In the magazines a one-line pen-portrait is given of each Gentleman Cadet (GC) passing out, below the course photo of each company (equivalent of a House in schools). From the two magazine issues in 2005, it is evident that only eight Muslims passed out of the portals of the institution to become commissioned officers. In the Spring Term 2006, there were eight Muslims commissioned. In the Spring Term 2007, nine Muslims took the ‘Antim Pag’ or ‘Last Step’ as GCs but their first step as commissioned officers out of the 555 taking commission that term. The following Spring Term, 11 Muslim GCs passed out of 611. In the Autumn Term 2011, the latest one for which the magazine is available, 14 Muslims passed out. However, this last figure includes those from friendly foreign countries such as Afghanistan, the numbers for which have gone up since the strategic agreement with that country.

In other words, of the six magazines perused for ascertaining the numbers of Muslims gaining the officer commission from the IMA, 45 have made the grade. Assuming some were from foreign countries, less than 40 Indian Muslims have made it over two-and-a-half years into the Army from the IMA, that commissions more than 1200 officers a year. This compares somewhat poorly with the civil services yearly list on which 30 Muslims figured this year amongst about 900 who ‘made it’. Admittedly, there are other routes for officer commission these days into the Army, such as through the Officers Training Academy and through the Technical Officer 12th class entry stream. This means that the numbers making it into the Army are marginally higher and must be viewed against the total getting commissioned in a year, which a back-of-the-envelope calculation puts at 1800 plus a year.

Clearly, the overall number can only be as abysmal as the statistics accessed here reveal. While reckonings elsewhere place the percentage of Muslims at three per cent of the overall total of Muslims in the Army, the statistics in regard to officer numbers have been uninformed guesses at best. It is perhaps for the first time here that a figure of about 1.1 per cent of officer commissions being of Indian Muslims has been arrived at. The numbers of Muslim women officers can easily be imagined, with the OTA magazine being the right place to look for exact numbers in the absence of the government owing up to a problem.

The absence of information suggests that the statistics that are no doubt known to the government are somewhat embarrassing to reveal from the point of view of India’s and its Army’s secular credentials. It is no wonder then that a former Chief, General J.J. Singh, had put his foot down in revealing the details of Muslim representation in the Army when approached by the Sachar Committee for its report. The laconic answer given then was that the Army, being a secular institution, does not maintain such records. This explanation begged the question of how the mortal remains of dead soldiers were to be disposed-off in a war if the community to which a dead soldier belonged was not known?!

The intake being so limited into the commi-ssioned ranks, it is no wonder then that the martial achievements of Muslim officers can be covered in less than a paragraph as in the first paragraph here. The Autumn Term 2011 issue can be mined for more telling statistics. For instance, not a single Muslim name occurs in the list of names below the group photos of the Academy faculty, the administrative staff, the training team and, worse, even the academic department. This is the same case in the Spring Term 2008. Among the non-officer instructor staff in the drill, physical training, weapons training and equitation sections, there are nine Muslim instructors. Incidentally, even at this non-officer level there are no Muslims in the consequential Training section. The relative absence of Muslims is of a piece with the fact given in the Platinum Number that the IMA has had only one Muslim Commandant and one Muslim Subedar Major post-independence. (For the record the National Defence Academy, a feeder institution to the IMA, has had two Muslim Commandants.)

•

WHILE the numbers are few, the performance of Muslims at the Academy is also revealing. All six magazines carry photos and write-ups of the 34 top GC appointments, no doubt as incentive. Of the 136 appointments scanned only one was Muslim. Beginning with this leadership deficit, it is easy to reckon as to why there were no officer instructors in the two terms examined, 2008 and 2011. Not tenanting such prestigious appointments early on, the problem persists with very few making it to the higher ranks. This is accentuated by the steep pyramidal structure that the Army has. In other words, there is a cascading effect of the deficit of Muslim youth making it to the Indian Military Academy and beyond. The Army’s stock answer to this can be anticipated. The Army merely selects from those self-selecting to it as a profession. The onus is on India’s various communities to offer up their best youth for the noble profession of arms. This could easily have been accepted but for two facts. One is that General V.K. Singh’s exertions over the past year suggest that ‘community’ is a consequential factor, at least in the higher ranks. The second is that, given this under-representation, it is clear that this is compensated by over-representation of some other communities. What are the effects of such under/over-representation?

In case the answer to this question is found to be negative and consequential, then there is a case for correction. This is a controversial point to make since it is suggestive of affirmative action. This is not how this article recommends corrective action. But, first, it is necessary to ascertain whether a diverse country such as India is better off with its Army reflecting its diversity. The reflexive answer of a traditionalist would be, ‘Why fix what ain’t broke?’ In other words, if the Army is working as an apolitical and secular organisation, there is no need to tinker with it. The answer offered here is an impressionistic one to the contrary. It is that the internal health of the Army does not give ground for comp-lacence. The Army officer corps is from the lower middle class and confined geographically to North India and more narrowly to a certain set of communities traditionally advantaged by the recruitment patterns over at least a century-and-a-half. The officer corps will therefore reflect the opinions and attitudes of the social class to which it belongs. It is no secret that there has been a churning in Indian society over the past two decades, brought about by liberalisation and the ascendance of cultural nationalism. This influence has been in the face of the Army’s involvement in counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism in J&K. While, as is the wont of armies universally, the Indian Army can be expected to exhibit a conservative-realist bias, this is accentuated by the social origin of the officer class. The discourse in this social space has the Muslim ‘Other’ taking on greater dimensions, the proportions of which have been enhanced by the global security discourse centred on Muslim extremism. A terror-based ‘inside-outside’ linkage between the Muslim Indian and Pakistani intelligence, sought to be established by the media and some political formations, has greater play than otherwise would be the case. A content analysis of in-service publications can prove this to an extent. (That is not gone in here for want of space.) The absence of Muslims from an officer’s social space as colleagues and peers does little to dispel misinterpretations. The problem that occurs is in the perception of the social class in which the officer corps is anchored being elevated to the institutional threat perception and at one remove that of the state.

The disadvantage for under-represented communities is that they are unable to take advantage of the expansion in the security sector, incidentally the only sector growing in neoliberal climes. The Sixth Ppay Commission bonanza thus gets channelled narrowly to those advantaged, reinforcing the inequity. Given that Muslims have been shown up as under-represented here and knowing that most are from the equivalent of backward classes, it can be surmised that the problem afflicts the backward classes in general as well as SC/STs, given that the military does not have reservations (and rightly so). This means that the only government sector that is expanding caters for a certain section of society. (The Army has expanded by two divisions over the past three years and is set to add 86,000 men as part of a mountain strike corps over the next five year plan.) Continuing with the present intake pattern can deepen divides.

It is therefore with a view to correcting this perceptual and attitudinal bias that it is recommended here that the telling statistic of a mere one-to-two per cent of officers being Muslim be taken seriously by both the state and Muslim community. As a first step, the pattern of intake must be ascertained in-house to find out if what is surmised here carries water. Its implications, as discussed, can also be thought through. The Army, if the reasoning given in the previous paragraph is persuasive, must for its own reasons carry out a campaign to make itself attractive to a whole host of communities that are under-represented. These include those from the North-East and South India, leave alone Muslims. Civil-military liaison conferences in these States must be geared to energising the State administration to take corrective measures. This could include establishing Sainik Schools, increasing the representativeness of Sainik and Military school intake etc.

Additionally, commu-nities, such as India’s various Muslim commu-nities across the country, can rig up swotting classes to help its youth qualify and clear the induction hurdles. This is how States over-represented in the officer cadre prepare the youth. The Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia and the Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim Universities, coincidentally being military men, can guide the community’s reaction. Affirmative action is not being suggested here, only targeted advertisement campaigns being followed up suitably by state and civil society action.

Ali Ahmad, Ph.D, is an Assistant Professor, Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

The Exit from ‘AfPak’: Don’t Blame Pakistan

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/06/27/the-exit-from-afpak-dont-blame-pakistan/

by Ali Ahmed

June 27, 2012

New Delhi — At its Chicago summit, NATO read out what has been the writing on the wall all through Obama’s first term. It is that its departure from Afghanistan is inevitable, with the addition being that it is now imminent. That this has not unfolded according to script is cause for some hand wringing among commentators. Ashley Tellis, Christine Fair and Robert Kaplan have in quick succession sought to point to Pakistan as spoilsport, with the former dwelling on Pakistan’s impending strategic defeat. Will his hope materialize?

All through the war in its vicinity, Pakistan has been scalded, but has avoided being burnt. The much reviled Musharraf took a wise decision by siding with the west. In retrospect, it seems as though it was the only choice he had. The blame for the west’s inability to push through its agenda of peace-building has been laid at Pakistan’s door. Its provision of sanctuary to the Taliban is taken as a willful challenge. Yet again Pakistan may have had little choice in this since it would have been unable in any case to wrap up the Taliban and their Pakistani affiliates. If the west could not succeed despite the ‘surge’, it is too much to expect of the Pakistan army to have had a better showing. From these two strategic choices made by the Pakistan army, based on a clear understanding of its limitations, it is clear that Pakistan can be credited with doing at least some things right.

So where does the responsibility lie? It is with Obama’s inability to convert the military surge into political gain. The surge was meant to represent the stick as part of a carrot and stick policy. It was to be supplemented by Pakistani army actions on its side of the Durand line, thereby choking the Taliban. In the event, the Taliban by forging a joint front with its ethnic fellows in Pakistan and Punjabi extremists, has been able to confront Pakistan with a dilemma: the more close it got to finishing the Taliban off in keeping with the desires of the west, the less stable it would get. The terror bombings in the later part of the last decade suggest as much. Pakistan, valuing its own survival above any doles the west could spare for its efforts, chose strategic prudence. Its holding out for an apology over the killings of 24 of its soldiers by U.S. forces at best provides a cover.

The gratuitous advice it has been at the receiving end of assumes that it could have gone the distance in taking on the Taliban. The west had got India on board to wind down tensions over time, after the spike in wake of the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. This was to enable Pakistan to transfer its attention to the western front. Could the Pakistan army have succeeded as per western expectations?

Firstly, the terrain is forbidding. It has been seen in Kashmir where the going is easier and the foe is less formidable, that it takes considerable troop strength. Pakistan does not have those levels of troops, even if it could spare them entirely from the eastern border. Secondly, the tentacles that the Taliban has acquired due to anti-Americanism in Pakistan and religious extremism enable it to expand the arc of instability at will to include Lahore and Karachi. This would have stretched Pakistan’s suppressive capabilities to the extent of challenging their institutional integrity by internal ethnic and ideological fissures. If the Pakistan army cracked, then Pakistan could have gone under, there being no forces of equivalent strength in polity. This would have been to the advantage of extremists. That the Pakistan army judged the possible outcome and refrained from provoking it, is to its credit.

The expectation that Pakistan not playing ball has led to dissipation of the promise of the surge is therefore not a fair one. If Pakistan could arrive at a conclusion that it could at best be supportive and not hyperactive, the possibility should not have escaped Pentagon planners. To compensate they really should have weighed the carrot part of the strategy appropriately. This means that the peace process needed to have been an equally significant prong of strategy. It was instead geared to create fissures in the Taliban between the ‘good’ and irreconcilable Taliban. It was outsourced to the Karzai regime, with its notable legitimacy deficit as far as the intended interlocutors, the Taliban, were concerned. Their attitude was evident from the efforts of Karzai’s pointsman, Burhanuddin Rabbani, being rewarded with assassination. Only later, did U.S. special envoy Marc Grossman, the successor to Richard Holbrooke, get into the act; a case of too little too late. While it cannot be said for certain that the Taliban would have proved responsive, persistence with the military option, in the tradition of the actions post 9/11, foreclosed any possibility of finding out.

The US was either a victim of its own hubris or strategically ineffective due to its internal politics and institutional fights. Obama, having wound down the Iraq war, perhaps needed an arena to prove he was tough. The bureaucratic tussle, set off by the reaction to 9/11, between Foggy Bottom, Langley and Pentagon, played out in dysfunctional policies towards ‘AfPak’. The responsibility for a suboptimal outcome can hardly be laid at Pakistan’s door, even if, in election year, Obama needs a fall guy.

Highlighting this is important, since the refrain in the commentaries cited and extant largely is that Pakistan has stabbed the west in the back, despite receiving $ 20 billion as incentive. A consensus over the consequence for such double dealing is being built up in terms of pushing Pakistan over the brink, the euphemisms used being ‘containing’, ‘isolating’ etc. Pakistan needs being wary of an embarrassed superpower.  It can safely be predicted that the ability of the army to hold steady despite internal political disarray, demonstrated in weathering a decade long storm along both its external and internal axes, will now be sorely tested.