https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/politics-un-likely-to-continue-its-focus-on-indias-kashmir-policy-4188511.html

UN likely to continue its focus on India’s Kashmir policy

Using almost the same languageas last time, external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar in yet another opportunity refuted the allegations of excessive use of force by Indian security forces in Kashmir. This time he was responding to an update report covering the period since May 2018 put out on July 8 by the Geneva-based UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The earlier report released in June 2018 was of the period since about the time of the killing of Burhan Wani in July 2016. While last time India had personally arraigned the then high commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein for being biased, his replacement Michelle Bachelet has been equally scathing in her report.

This was not unexpected. Last September India objected to Bechelet’s raising the issue of the situation in Kashmir in her opening statement to the UN’s Human Rights Council, when she had observed no improvement in the situation after the UN’s calling out of India’s record in its report.

In March, the special rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions, torture, and right to health — Agnes Callamard, Dainius Puras and Nils Melzer respectively —requested for an action-taken update. Replying on April 23, India said, “India... does not intend to engage further with these mandate-holders or any other mandate-holders on the issue.”

In its refutation of the allegations in the latest report, India makes two points.

The first is that the report is unmindful of the terrorism India is facing in Jammu and Kashmir, leading to the report willy-nilly legitimising externally-sponsored terrorism, while neglecting to record India’s multi-faceted counter-terrorism actions that include ‘comprehensive socio-economic developmental efforts’ etc. India has undertaken there.

Second, India questions the OHCHR’s ‘alignment with the larger approach of the United Nations’, set by the Security Council (UNSC) that took an adverse view of the terrorism besetting Kashmir in its condemnation of the Pulwama terror attack and subsequent proscribing of Masood Azhar, the terror mastermind.

On both scores, India is batting on a weak wicket. This owes to India’s questionable choice of operationalising the hardline in Kashmir over the past four years. From the recent visit of home minister Amit Shah to Kashmir, it appears that the policy line is likely to persist with till the assembly elections are held.

As regards the first, that India is facing terrorism, the body count from Kashmir has it that some two-thirds of militants killed are Kashmiri. This indicates localisation, rather than external sponsorship.

Also, though terror incidents occur — such as killings of civilians considered ‘informers’ by terrorists — these are subsumed within and are a smaller proportion of incidents that can, not unreasonably, be attributed to an ongoing insurgency.

Irrespective of the label put on the situation, there are international humanitarian law and human rights strictures that continue to be applicable, not least those reflected in national law. For instance, even though India has not ratified the international anti-torture convention, there is a blanket stipulation against torture — jus cogens rule — in international law. To the extent torture is incident in Kashmir and figures in the report undermines India’s case.

India turned a blind-eye to the report released in May on torture compiled by two non-governmental organisations. Their earlier salvo prior to the Burhan Wani’s killing was similarly ignored. That torture continues is evident from an indiscreet boast of a retired general speaking at a Panoon Kashmir event that stone-pelting youth are given a hiding that makes them scream for their mothers.

The second is India’s sense of UN’s priorities, implying human rights is superseded by the priority to the fight against terror. India cites the UNSC‘s engagement with the Pulwama terror attack. It bears recall that the UNSC’s observation on the Pulwama suicide bombing was in a press statement, not a resolution. Also, its listing of Masood Azhar in the gallery of sanctioned rogues carried no mention of the Pulwama incident.

More significantly, the ongoing UN reform initiative —Action for Peace (A4P) —has human rights as one of the three central pillars of the UN system; the others being peace and security, and development. Therefore, India can expect to see continuing UN engagement with the consequences of its hardline policy in Kashmir.

Since this policy is to continue, the OHCHR can be expected to accumulate another set of similar data to ambush India down the line.  In the spat last year, not only had Zeid defended his methodology but Secretary General Antonio Guterres had backed him.

Unable to duck the UN’s calls for accountability and apart for the ammunition such calls provide Pakistan with, New Delhi needs factoring the implications of the hardline for India’s image and aspirations, particularly now that the ambition of becoming a world leader has been added to its quest to be a UNSC permanent member.

http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=92436

KASHMIR TIMES Op-ed 6 July 2019

Kashmir: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory[1]

While complimenting the governor and the representative of the Union for sticking their necks out prior to the visit of the home minister to the Valley, it must be recorded how irrelevant their positioning on talks turned out to be. In the event, the home minister, having the next national elections in his sights when he gets elevated to prime ministership, has left behind a potentially worse mess. That neither the governor nor the interlocutor resigned thereafter brings them back to square one in esteem, especially since they are busy implementing anti-democratic orders as privileging the Yatra over state assembly elections and concomitant guidelines as traffic stoppages on arteries favouring yatris over citizens.

To be fair to the home minister, he has cannot be credited with any clue on next steps, if indeed he is the one calling the shots. In his earlier avatar in the home ministry in his province, he is infamous for his calls to gunmen in khakhi out killing hitman Sohrabuddin, even while they did despicable things to the brave wife of the hitman. It is quite clear that the khakis were not out on an autonomous errand. Instead, it is possible – whatever the cabinet system that India conferred on itself seventy some years back might have it - that the Kashmir policy is in the hands of Ajit Doval in his capacity as super defence- foreign-internal-security minister as his step up to cabinet rank implies.

Strategic sense has been kept a state secret all through Modi’s first term. It is no wonder then that by the end of it India was facing the threat of nuclear war as it contemplated retaliating to the Pakistani counter to Balakot launched in broad daylight at Naushera-Rajauri. Not all of the gallant air chief’s sweeping-under-the-carpet act in denying any such attacks took place on behalf of his political bosses can rewrite history on this score. In the event, the Modi-Doval duo chickened out of missile strikes – using the peacemaking intervention of the United States timely released from its obsession with Kim Jong Un - as cover.

Politicians – notable for being in election mode over the past five years - cannot be expected to look past the next upcoming election, set for autumn in Kashmir. This accounts for a Hindu pilgrimage taking front seat as against the priority to revert the state to democratic rule. The disingenuous reason is that the nomads out in high altitude pastures would be disadvantaged by elections any time sooner. It gives the ruling party more time to attain Mission 44, that it missed out on last time. The last time they put the international border sector on fire using Khakis (once again) of the border guarding force to extend the Line of Control’s active scenario on to that sector. This time round an outcome of the Shah visit was to appease the communities inconvenienced by the brunt of the Pakistani Rangers’ backlash with reservations through a parliamentary intervention on his return to Delhi.

The statistic put out of 733 killed over the past four years was to condition the home minister that India is in a position of strength from which it can launch a peace initiative. Sources had it that recruitment had come down, as had stone throwing. The governor, for his part, went out of his way to put the spot-light on peace possibilities, highlighting the softening of separatists. Notably, this followed a visit by Dineshwar Sharma to him, implying that the credit for creating the possibility is a shared one. The intent was to depict this as the ‘ripe moment’, which was certainly a ‘hurting’ strait for the insurgent side, even if not a ‘hurting stalemate’ for India since the problem is seen as confined to three and half districts out of India’s 700 plus districts.

The onus needs to be borne by Delhi. Doval has a military adviser, but his input can be anticipated in light of his view (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loDM_ub6ELE) that the demonetization dealt a body blow to terrorism, with terrorists reduced to robbing teller machines to get by. Clearly, the establishment in Delhi and Srinagar is not on the same page. While Srinagar having followed the script over the past four years thought it was time for a politically predominant exit strategy, Delhi did not think so.

Delhi is perhaps cognizant that Shah, as an aspiring prime minister – now that the bench mark for toughness has been set by the current prime minister – cannot be expected to on his very first visit go namby-pamby. So even if there was strategic level sense for a shift of gears in Kashmir, the political level has different verities informing its consideration. Delhi’s national security establishment errs in putting on political blinkers, borrowed from Nagpur (incidentally, the military advisor is from close by Indore), to its supervisory and advisory role on Kashmir. 

This author in an opinion piece ‘War in 2018?’ (18 Jan 2018, http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=75607) in this publication had dwelt on the portents of war that year, keeping in mind the national elections slated for the following year. The lesson is that Kashmir has potential to take the two sides to war in short order. Considering that the Pakistani side got the better of India over the last crisis – the information war notwithstanding – there would be a push to get even at the next opportunity. So, if this side the India’s backed off from shooting off their missiles, the next time that may well be their start point. Both surgical strikes and the aerial strike were brushed off by the Pakistanis. Indian bravado requires more proof than what mere information war can furnish. All of the air force’s bluster cannot show up an F-16 carcass. Pakistanis, warned off by the air chief that Rafales would be in place by early next year, would also prefer the missile exchange option. It would draw in the international community fairly quickly.

Pakistanis could get uppity. Projecting an indigenous face to the insurgency over the proxy war Indians prefer (the proportion of Kashmiris dead went up from 40 per cent to two thirds), they have been quiescent over the past four years. India’s diplomatic offensive is set to peak in October with the financial action task force taking a review then. This explains Pakistan’s arraigning of Hafeez Sayeed for canvassing money for the jihad. There is enough of an overlap between the Islamic block – that took a dim view of Indian (in)action in Kashmir only early this year - and the task force to bail out Pakistan. No amount of deliberation by Indian diplomats in the shadow of the Sardar Patel’s statue may help out, particularly since India itself does not walk the talk on terrorism – having let off its ‘good terrorists’ in cases such as the Samjhauta express and ensconced the Malegaon accused into parliament.

Pakistanis are also well placed in Afghanistan, having weathered Trump’s worst. Though it put them in an economic bind, leading to the army settling for less in this budget, it has delivered Taliban to the all-Afghan jirga this month. Therefore, it can afford to reengage with mischief in Kashmir, perhaps as early as next year. The 300 or so militants are enough to see off the summer campaign. India’s rebuff of its outstretched hand over the past year could come at a price.

As the ruling party makes gains in Rajya Sabha, it would draw closer to Shah’s promise of rescinding Articles 370 and 35A as part of New India by 2022. This is when Pakistan would likely pitch in, if the 1965 War is any guide. Then, India had rid Kashmir of the titles its governor and chief minister, seemingly drawing Kashmir in closer embrace. A renewed push along such lines would unlikely see Pakistan stand idly by. Also, as in 1965 when India was recovering from its drubbing in 1962, it would be preempting Indian power getting too big to deflate later.

India has good reasons to believe it can withstand anything Pakistan throws at it. However, it must reckon with poor defence budgets over the past four years. It must factor in that its self-image as a power far outstrips reality, if the recent crisis outcome is any guide. It bears warning that a draw with Pakistan – a limited war can only end in a draw - would leave Modi as much out of hot air as was Nehru after 1962.

If the political level is unmindful, the strategic and operational level must push back. Shah has to be reminded that in his new capacity he does not have the likes of DG Vanzara at the other end, lest he carry over habits so formed into his upcoming prime ministership at the cost of India and national security.  

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[1] The title adapts Radha Kumar’s phrase.

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=92061

AT THE DOORSTEP OF INDIAN MILITARY POLITICIZATION

It would appear that the air chief, who is to retire this September, is auditioning for a job. While angling for a post retirement job is not unusual for those in uniform, khakis or safari suits, the air chief is likely lining up for a kick upstairs, as no less than India's first Chief of Defence Staff equivalent. This can be made out from his claim that the Pakistani air force did not cross the Line of Control (LC) at Rajauri-Naushera on 27 February, the day after India delivered its reprisal at Balakot for the Pulwama terror attack. 
Media reports on his statement at a function at Gwalior air base commemorating the Kargil War's twentieth anniversary draw attention alongside to the Indian statement on Pakistani aggression and air intrusion into Indian air space that day. Explaining this away later, sources in the air force reportedly suggested that intrusion was not by Pakistani air planes but by ordnance used by the Pakistani air force in its stand-off attack on Indian military installations along the LC, which, in the event, missed their intended targets. 
Perhaps the air chief - being himself a hero of the Kargil War - got carried away at his motivational talk to airmen at Gwalior air base. He was pointing out that while Indian pilots hit their target a Balakot - a controversial claim - the Pakistanis did not. For their part, the Pakistanis claim to have deliberately missed their Indian military targets, quite like the Indians - according to the Pakistani military spokesperson - missed theirs. 
Only a couple of weeks back, the army let on that its two senior commanders in the sector, the army and corps commander, had escaped targeting at the tactical level headquarters that was targeted in an air raid by the Pakistanis. Media reports that the army is in the midst of shifting air defence units to the LC. For its part, the air force, staking a claim to shooting down an F-16 had provided evidence in the form of missile parts that had been recovered from the Indian side of the LC. It is apparent that till the air chief rewrote history, the version on which both sides agreed was that the Pakistanis did come across, even if they exited equally speedily chased away by intrepid airmen led by redoubtable, bewhiskered, Abhinandan Varthaman. 
Admittedly, contemporary versions of events are an information war battleground and military history is collateral damage in conflict. However, for the air chief to go overboard in the manner he has must have something more to it. Of the two possible explanations above - the air chief wanting an extension and playing to the gallery at an air base - the former unfortunately may hold more water, and there lies the trouble.
Rumours are rife of an impending defence structural reform. Many commentators are making a pitch for these, arguing that the renewed mandate with an enhanced majority allows the government to do more for defence, in particular implement the reforms left over from the post Kargil era when these were first put down in the recommendations of successive review panels. The chief of defence staff equivalent appointment is a holdover from the period. The intervening governments did not have the political heft. 
The current government set up a defence planning committee (DPC) under its national security adviser (NSA) early last year. It is amply clear that two of its four sub-committees, namely, on policy and strategy and plans and capability development, cannot but have a chair higher than the three chiefs. Neither can the chairman chiefs of staff rule against the other two, nor, without a conflict of interest, rule favourably on his service position sent up by him as its chief. No civilian can substitute since the defence secretary is of an inferior rank to the three chiefs. The NSA, though a man-for-all-seasons, being head of the DPC, cannot also head the two subcommittees, howsoever much he may like to play the role of the chief of defence staff. While he displaced the cabinet secretary from the strategic policy group headship, he cannot also displace a military man from heading the two sub-committees. So the government is likely to be considering elevating a military man at long last to the post of chief of defence staff equivalent.
Since the government has the option of deep selection, having set a precedent in doing so with the selection of the army chief last time, who it will appoint - if it does - is a matter of speculation. The Americans once reached down some thirty slots to elevate Colin Powell to head the joint chiefs panel there. Even so, there are two lead contenders: the air chief who hangs up his wings in September and the army chief who hangs up his boots in December. 
It is no secret for readers of this publication and in this part of India, that the army chief has endeared himself to the government in his leading the army. The army chief has constantly piped up on the government's Kashmir policy. The personal interest is in his justifying to himself - as much as to others - his controversial elevation to the job based on his counter insurgency expertise, and also the government's line through its first term resulting in over 600 youth dead. The army latest play of music for the ears of its political master has been the rejection of any notion that surgical strikes were also carried out by the opposition when in government. These - to the northern army commander and its operations branch - were patented by the Modi-Doval combine. This appears to be a bit of dual positioning - the northern army commander for the army chief's baton while the army chief has the chief of defence staff chair in his sights. 
The maneuverings have acquired competition. The air force has gone out of its way to bolster the ruling party head's questionable claim that some 300 terrorists perished in its aerial surgical strike. The claim turned the tables on the opposition that had till then seemingly clawed its way back based on the traditional issues as unemployment, farmers' suicides, rural distress, economic mismanagement etc. With Pulwama and its riposte at Balakot, the narrative changed. 
If only the fight had stayed at the political level. Engineering a false flag operation - such as at Pulwama - cannot be put beyond the intelligence agencies. It is already clear that they were the first converts to the cultural nationalist ideology of their political minders. However, for a service to pitch-in unmindful of the traditional stipulation on being apolitical is concerning. True, the tradition has taken a beating of late. The last air chief while demitting the appointment trashed the narrative of 'strategic restraint' - the strategic doctrine of the predecessor government he had once served - in line with the then newly minted Modi government's redefining of India. Such revisionism is of a piece with the writing of a military history of South Asia's wars by a former air marshal, which at the very outset reveal cultural nationalist inspiration in his take - shared with Hindutva ideologues - that Moghuls who once ruled and lived in India were foreigners. 
In the instant case, the air force - presumably miffed by the opposition's calling out the government's grandstanding - jumped into the fray. Not only did the air force serve up ammunition in support for the government's position on the curious Rafale deal, but also pushed inordinately for taking the government's word on Balakot. It lent its professionally authoritative status and credibility for political use of its political masters. 
If the air chief does not have an axe to grind - and he is by all accounts an honourable man - then can it be inferred instead that the air force was put to it? This possibility is the worse one, with implications for civil-military relations in terms of politicization of the military. It bespeaks of a military brass that is politically deaf, lacking spine, ideologically persuaded or all three combined. 
This is the outcome of the precedent set by this government in the army chief's appointment. The brass was served notice to speak what the government wishes to hear. This has set up the scramble. Whispers have it that a current frontrunner for next army chief has links with the new ruling party working head, dating to their juvenile friendship. The selection of a chief is a visible manifestation of potential politicization, politicization itself is what could follow: swallowing of the cultural nationalist bait by the military.
Over the coming term, the government may interpret its mandate expansively, believing that enhanced voting in its favour allows it to finally get down to the Hindutva project. This may entail constitutional changes 2022 onwards when it has control of the Rajya Sabha. If de jure changes are arrived at in a legally valid procedure - and do not fall afoul of the Supreme Court's jealous guarding of the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution - the army has absolutely no role or say. Therefore, the government would be well-advised to sensibly keep the military at professional distance. It can do without overkill in trying - in the interim - to shape the military's political understanding in line with its thinking by an unnecessary bear-hug in its civil-military relations. 

https://countercurrents.org/2019/06/the-india-we-want-what-would-a-military-of-hindu-india-look-like

What would a military of Hindu India look like?

In Modi 2.0 India is liable to be transformed from a secular republic to Hindu India. The opportunity of an enhanced mandate is likely to be put to good use in furthering the Hindutva project. The ruling party will prefer to view its renewed lease on power with a larger vote share as voter endorsement for the project.

A strategically assertive India is a facet of the cultural nationalist project. Voters were swayed by the image of a tough New India, demonstrated by the Balakot episode in the last India-Pakistan crisis. The government will therefore use their verdict as excuse to continue being strong–on-defence. This will determine the place of the military in the larger scheme of the creation of a majoritarian state.

Currently, the military is professional, apolitical and secular. The facet of professionalism is one that the government would certainly like to retain in the military since India is in a tough neighbourhood and India’s military is critical to the government’s national security showing, particularly since it wishes to be bold in the tradition of Balakot and Doklam against adversaries, Pakistan and China, respectively.

Of the two other facets, secular is an irritant that the government may like to have the military jettison. In the interim till secular figures in the preamble of the Constitution, the government may redefine the term. Since in its view India is secular because it is predominantly Hindu, the term can be taken as reflecting secularism inherent in Hindu ethos and away from any pseudo-secular and western constructs that it may have been hitherto associated with.

As for apolitical, the government can do with the military being held at arm’s length from politics. Since this is a proud tradition of the Indian military, this is the easy part. The military would continue its engagement in Kashmir and vigilance against Chinese intrusions.

The army is in the midst of reform, in which it is to implement the organisational changes that were validated in the recently concluded exercises of its western command. The air force is upgrading its inventory and firepower, receiving the Rafales by year end and having invested in new purchases of stand-off weapons. These professional preoccupations of the military will keep it introspective and away from any eddies from the making of New India.

Even so, if precedent is any guide, the government is likely to continue deep selection of service chiefs. The last army chief selection served it rather well in implementing its Kashmir strategy, that currently accounts for over 600 youth killed there, over 100 of which only this year.

The army and air force chiefs are up for retirement. Even if one of the two is kicked upstairs into tenanting the chief of defence staff equivalent position – in case the rumours of defence sector reforms implementation sometime soon are true – in choosing their successors the government would reasonably wish to have either pliable or likeminded chiefs. This measure would render the military inert and liable to look away if the creation of New India turns out turbulent politically.

The effect on professionalism of appointing a service chief as per a subjective consideration – dubbed in the case of the selection of the army chief last time as the criterion of ‘ease of working with’ – can be expected.

However, the dilution of professionalism, if any, would not be overly dangerous. On the China border the Wuhan spirit can be expected to continue under tutelage of a China expert as the new foreign minister. Against Pakistan, not only has India a preponderance but Pakistan is also in doldrums economically.

In a way, the manner of civil military relations in India can be expected to shift partially from objective civilian control to subjective civilian control. Objective civilian control is in keeping the army to the professional till and away from politics, while subjective civilian control is to ensure like mindedness at the military apex in order that the military keeps out of politics. The nature of impending selection of the two chiefs would indicate the direction the government wishes to proceed on this score.

The creation of New India will proceed apace. The military has no role in this nor is there any call for it to have a view on the new destination for India as a majoritarian democracy. The shift from civic to ethnic nationalism is not within the military’s purview, even if military members may have a personal opinion the direction of change.

That said, the military believes it has a constitutional obligation to defend the Constitution. So long as the government proceeds with its changes in the national identity down a procedurally valid parliamentary route – one that does not run afoul of the judiciary that sees itself as the last bastion of the Constitution’s basic principles – the military has no say in the matter. It would be at ease with defending Constitution revised by fair means.

This anticipatory analysis suggests that it is in the best interests of all – the ruling party, the military, the opposition – to keep the military out of the politics that are likely to loom over the question of turning India into a Hindu India. The government would be wise to stick with objective civilian control to the extent it is comfortable, even if it wishes to appoint a chief by avoiding once again the traditional seniority principle.

As for the military leadership, it is sufficiently politically savvy to know that turbulence can attend the political project of foisting of New India as defined by cultural nationalism. It must keep the military low profile and away from politics, if need be by being prickly to even its political masters. It must regularly water the three facets it is reputed for – professionalism, apolitical and secular – as they come under pressure in the second term of Narendra Modi.

http://www.milligazette.com/news/16701-questioning-afresh-indian-militarys-social-representativeness

Questioning afresh Indian military’s social representativeness

 The Milli Gazette Online

Published Online: Jun 12, 2019

The latest evidence of the political marginalistion of Muslims in India is that a mere 25 Muslims figure in the lower house parliamentarians, up by 3 from the last one, from among some 172 million Indian Muslims.

An equally concerning figure, but less remarked upon, is that of the 291 cadets of the passing out course from the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadakvasla, in the Spring Term 2019, only five were Indian Muslims; all of 1.7 per cent. The figure is from the NDA’s magazine, Trishakti, covering the events of the just-elapsed Spring Term. In contrast, seven cadets are from foreign countries, including friendly Muslim, mainly central Asian states. 

This is not a statistic easily found in the open domain, since the military – the army in this case – once famously said that it does not record the religious affiliation of its members. Its reticence is easy to understand since such a figure would be embarrassing.

The figure has been worked out by counting the Muslim names amongst those of the passing out course, leaving out those from friendly foreign countries. Among the 132 names below photos of the faculty, only one was Muslim. Two junior commissioned officer-instructors were Muslim, both unsurprisingly in the equitation section since the only horsed cavalry regiment, 61 Cavalry, from which the instructors are deputed, traditionally has had some Rajasthani Muslims.

Browsing similarly earlier through some three mid-decade years of commemorative magazines put out by the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehra Dun, the figure worked out to two per cent of those commissioned from that academy being Muslim.

Since the IMA commissioned some 70 odd foreign officers, including 50 per term from Afghanistan under a training assistance programme, foreign officer commissions are over six times the number for Indian Muslims, though the Indian Muslim population is six times that of Afghanistan and its neighbouring states.

The figure for Other Ranks is different, but inflated. A figure dating to the controversy over the number of Muslims in the army that attended the Sachar Committee seeking out the same was 29000 Muslims, about 3 per cent. The numbers are higher as Kashmiris are enrolled into the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry regiment. These days some are in the territorial army’s home and hearth units, who unfortunately periodically figure among Kashmiri dead owing to being targeted by militants since theirs is an intelligence function. For their pains, this year one of their number got the nation’s highest honour, the Ashok Chakra. This should not detract from the wide absence of Muslims in the organization. 

Should the missing Muslims be concerning? This is a question Defence Minister Rajnath Singh needs answering as he beings his new innings.

To be sure, the meager number of Muslims in the security forces is not limited to the period of ascent of cultural nationalism. Little was done to remedy matters in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) period.

While the UPA took steps to increase numbers of Muslims in the central police forces and the police, the figures declined over the succeeding years. Of late the government has discontinued publishing the figures having disbanded the records bureau that put out such statistics. This is of a piece with the government’s allergy to unflattering - if revealing – statistics. While numbers of toilets constructed and gas cylinders distributed are kosher, numbers such as that of unemployed and the gross domestic product are a state secret (at least up until elections are over and done with).

Given the bleak numbers for Muslims, it can be confidently asserted that the numbers for members of the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes in India’s officer corps is equally if not more abysmal. Under-representation in the professionally consequential officer corps cannot be compensated by higher numbers in the soldiery. In their case, the scheduled castes are represented in the Mahar regiment, with Ambedkar’s father being a prominent member; while the scheduled tribes are in the Bihar regiment. Even the numbers in the soldiery cannot push their representation to a decent contrast with their proportion of the population.

In effect, by extrapolation it can be seen that some 40 per cent of India’s population – roughly 14 per cent Muslims, 16 per cent scheduled caste and 9 per cent scheduled tribe – have a presence of about 4 per cent in the officer corps – short by 10 times in proportion to their numbers. With New India appraising the 75 years mark in independent existence, the competitive capability of disadvantaged communities is stark.

It can be argued that in an all-volunteer military only merit prevails. However, that the regimental system is an unacknowledged bit of affirmative action for the ‘martial races’ needs airing to, first, bust this myth, and, more importantly, to act as precedence for increasing numbers of unrepresented communities in the military.

During election run-up, commentary surfaced on certain political parties wishing for new regiments to increase the numbers of their constituents in the military. Given the military largesse in terms of a bloated revenue budget, cornering a piece of the pie for respective communities is unexceptionable. Conversely, this also accounts for the defence of the status quo by votaries of the regimental system.

The defenders have it that India should ‘not fix what ain’t broke’. Cohesion is taken as a force multiplier and not to be compromised by politically motivated meddling in the recruiting system. This is an operational level argument that could do with superseding by a political level consideration.

Firstly, the cohesion argument is dated. The seventy-plus years of a shared national life has leveled out differences considerably. There is sufficient mutual comprehension and empathy between Indians from different ethnic groups to generate the cohesion necessary for operational effectiveness. Incidentally, cohesion is liable to being cemented by the rigour of military training and the dangers of combat, as routinely obtains in the all class units across the armed forces and paramilitary. Is it the military’s case that there is a deficit in such units? 

Significantly, a military that does not reflect India’s diversity belies the principle of unity-in-diversity underwriting India’s democracy. The defence minister is of a party that takes pride in flattening out differences. The prime minister believes that the minorities have been taken for a ride by the Congress over the past seventy years. The employment and developmental indices, such as lack of representation in the meritocratic officer corps even seventy years after independence, show this up starkly. While the ‘sabka vikas’ slogan if fine, it would yet take two generations before these communities measure up to the competition.

More needs doing, not in terms of affirmative action, but in terms of targeting their best to sign up for a life in uniform. This could include targeted advertising, more National Cadet Corps (NCC) units in their areas and funding coaching academies through universities in areas inhabited by them. Only then will ‘sabka vishwas’ come on the horizon. Since such a measure would be targeting the 40 per cent disadvantaged population and not 14 per cent Muslims alone, it would amount to yet one more measure to pull up by the boot straps the lower of the two castes – the poor – mentioned by the prime minister in his reworking of the caste system into two castes – one of the poor and the second who help them out of poverty. It would thus not suffer the ‘appeasement’ tag.

The ball is now in Rajnath Singh’s court. Armed here with the arguments necessary he can reclaim his ministerial space, denied earlier in the first round of distribution of cabinet committees. He can undo at long last what Ambedkar described in his inimitable exposition on caste: ‘Some closed the door: Others found it closed against them.’ 

http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=91653

KASHMIR: AS THE ARMY SURVEYS THE NEXT FIVE YEARS

A trial balloon at the very outset of the new innings of the Modi sarkar had it that his newly ensconced home minister and right-hand man, Amit Shah, was contemplating delimiting constituencies afresh in Jammu and Kashmir. It drew the expected reactions on either side of the Pir Panjal. The good part is that the statist cat is now out of the bag, helping civil society strategise for what follows over the next five years.
A prospective scenario that could unfold begins with the delimitation exercise. It would provide a more plausible cover to postpone elections than the currently-pending postponement, attributable to the Amarnath Yatra taking precedence over returning the state to democratic governance. The exercise can be expected to turn in constituency boundaries and identify constituencies for scheduled caste/tribe candidates that will foist the Hindutva vanguard, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), to its Mission 44. A little help from those waiting in the Valley for a dividend dating to their participation in spiking, last November, a promising move to return to an elected government. 
This would enable Amit Shah to fulfill his campaign promise of being rid of Article 370, Article 35A having been wrapped as an outstanding issue by then by either judicial verdict or ordinance. This is a well trodden route having been adopted to dilute Article 370 ever since compliant legislatures were deployed after incarcerating Sheikh Abdullah in the early fifties. 
This will have predictable security fallout, warned of by the mainstream parties in the Valley. The last time the right wing had bestirred itself in Jammu, led by their icon Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, even the Lion of Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, had feared for the future of Kashmir. Fearful of the steps he was taking such as an outreach to the Americans - as per intelligence input - the government put him away and out of the way. Now the right wing is at the door-step. With mainstream parties outflanked, the field is left to the separatists and the insurgency. 
Anticipating as much, Rajnath Singh - who functioned as the soft face of the government in its last innings - has been displaced from North Block. Amit Shah, who reputedly has a photo of Chanakya behind his desk, has advisedly been made de-facto deputy prime minister. In one description, the musical chairs has turned up a 'fearsome four' - strongman Modi, hatchet-man Ajit Doval, good-cop Rajnath and a political novice Jaishankar. The 'fearsome four' thesis has it that they are to collectively put the fear into Kashmiri backers, Pakistan, with Kashmir then falling dutifully into the bag. The pieces are in place to face the outcome. 
What does such a scenario signify for the army? The answer is predicated on the validity or otherwise of the three assumptions behind the yet-to-unfold Kashmir strategy. The first is that security forces having obediently put away some 600 militants, including a proportion of Pakistani terrorists, over the past three years, they would continue with same gusto into the future. This year's figure is already into the lower three digits. The second is that having administered a telling blow to Pakistan at Balakot, it is almost pleading to be let off the hook, so much so that its military has already started disbanding itself, with a budgetary cut this year as a good beginning. The third is that the current tenure will see Amit Shah positioning to take over from his mentor and earning his spurs to do so by coming up with the 'permanent Kashmir solution' that his predecessor promised but was too empathetic to deliver on. 
Taking the second assumption first, that Pakistan is on the ropes is read from its second missive to India begging for talks. Taking no chances, India is buying another 100 spice bombs to hurl across safely from own side of the border. It has speeded up mating the Brahmos to the Su-30. Since the last crisis ended on the note of missile exchanges, that in the event were aborted by American intervention, India is shopping for an American air defence cover to complement its Russian one, over and above the missile shield its own defence scientists have 'conferred' on it. Seeing all this, Pakistan is liable to extend the Bajwa doctrine, placate the financial action task force, be bailed out by the international monetary fund and have the conditionalities of the loan rein in the military. Besides, the Pakistanis have been served notice by the Americans that the onus to repair relations with India is on them. Not to forget, the Americans have already given India the green signal on the right of reply by military means to terror threats. 
With the wind stolen from Pakistan's sails, the Kashmiris would be left high and dry. Their replenishment rate for lost youth is stalling. The Zakir Musa funeral witnessed a lower turnout than it should have, even if Musa had a falling out with his compatriots over which ideology to die for. Admittedly, the state was better prepared this time to preempt a turnout. The rate at which youth participating in the militancy are being dispatched bespeaks of considerable information flow networks, for which the army takes care to credit the intelligence agencies and the police. It is no wonder then that - 'in frustration' is what we are told - militants are going after 'informers', including the territorial army's home and hearth Kashmiri soldiers visiting families and possible love interests of militants. 
As for the radicalization afoot, it is not all bad since it provides India with alibi to continue the killings, human rights coming a distant second to the Islamist threat in the era of populism. Nothing else can be inferred from the release of the 560 page long human rights report listing some 432 cases by the two do-gooder organizations in the Valley and India's turning a blind eye to 58 communications and 20 requests for visits from UN special rapporteurs in relation to their mandates there.
The third assumption is that voters have retained Modi to have him implement Hindutva. Since HIndutva is intelligible only in relation to its position on the Other - internal and external - Muslim. Besides, putting the national minority in its place - a task already done over the past five years and demonstrated tellingly in election results having no trace of a Muslim vote - this entails a hardline in Kashmir and against Pakistan. With liberal voices left dumbfounded in wake of the election victory, the home-front stands taken care of.
The army can therefore be unleashed. It need no longer be bothered as traditionally with a hand being tied behind its back. A BJP government in Srinagar run by a Hindu from Jammu will keep soft separatists off its back. One of the reasons the previous government was shown the door - in one reading of events recounted in the book Majoritarian State - was because it was somewhat unsettled by the unending killings. Apparently, the decision to withdraw support was foisted on the Jammu based ruling party honcho after meetings in Delhi which included one with Doval. (That the high official was moonlighting in a political capacity is no surprise. He was at it yet again late last year, reportedly briefing the ruling party at its headquarters immediately prior to the national elections being called.)
What is the army to make of this strategy and its role in it? Traditionally conceived civil-military relations would have it that it must take its orders and populate the martyrs' graveyards. The politics surrounding its orders are not within its ken. The unspoken advantage of sticking to the traditional is that it keeps the army at the forefront, enabling turf protection and protecting privileges that are otherwise threatened such as the put/let downs just received over limits to cars purchased under the canteen arrangements and the denial of non-functional upgradation. 
Can the army's role over the coming five years be appreciated differently? As the primary security agency, it has a duty to input decision making. Its professional advice must be tendered forthrightly. In a circumstance in which the political level is creating the conditions for instability - and looking to the army to clear up the mess - the army needs pushing back on the inadvisability of the situation being unhinged in first place. It has only recently returned the situation to a modicum of stability since its deterioration after the Burhan Wani killing. It would be back to square one - for perhaps the fifth time since troubles began - in case the politics in the scenario plays out. 
As for whether the second assumption holds, it must remind its civilian bosses that nuclear weapons are not meant for Diwali. Crisis can go to conflict in short order. Militaries in the nuclear age are better used for deterrence and not the real thing. Power drunk security minders believing their own propaganda pose a greater threat to national security if the army plays truant.
Finally, the third assumption is entirely false. The ruling party has not been returned to power to wage war against Indians. In any case, the army is patently not an instrument of Nagpur. It must insist on procedural rigour in policy and decision making. It should not be cowed by the 'fearsome four', but play the bureaucratic politics game deftly, perhaps relying on Jaishankar's wise counsel from within to moderate decisions. It can so prove that the army remains the only institution still standing. 

The Book Review

https://thebookreviewindia.org/recontextualizing-the-escalation-debate/

Recontextualizing The Escalation Debate

Book Name: LINE ON FIRE: CEASEFIRE VIOLATIONS AND 

INDIA-PAKISTAN ESCALATION DYNAMICS

Author name: Happymon Jacob

Book Year: 2019

Publisher Name: Oxford University Press, New Delhi

Book Price: 995

Book Pages: 432

Happymon Jacob is a rising-star, academic and journalist, a columnist with The Hindu and anchor of a web series on strategic affairs at The Wire, besides teaching at a leading international relations faculty at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. His book justifies the preceding sentence. He has taken pains in using escalation theory to interpret the data gathered on ceasefire violations since 2003 to reveal that India and the surrounding regions are sitting on a seemingly dormant, if not active, volcano. The data collation and analysis work was undertaken as part of a project he spearheads, India-Pakistan Conflict Monitor that has his doctoral student, Tanvi Kulkarni, assisting with the research.

Happymon makes the case that the ceasefire violations (CFV)––ever so routine as to be easily dismissed as inconsequential––not only have an inherent escalatory potential, but also serve to exacerbate crisis. Escalation is along three dimensions––political, diplomatic and military. In a key contribution, he reveals that CFVs are largely generated by ‘autonomous military factors’ (AMF) internal to the two militaries engaged in eye-ball-to-eye-ball confrontation on the Line of Control (LoC). He makes the case not only by looking at the data he has culled but also from eight case studies demonstrating the impetus to escalation stemming from CFVs.

Jacob’s finding is that the escalatory potential of CFVs can no longer be neglected since media-fanned nationalism may tie down a crisis decision maker’s hands, forcing a choice that may not be the rational and preferred option. His recommendation as a corollary is that an institutionalized regime along the LoC and the international boundary (IB) needs to be put in place.

The book had a timely release, hitting the shelves just prior to the recent India-Pakistan crisis. The crisis witnessed India’s trans-LoC aerial strike at Balakot, followed immediately by Pakistan’s vertical escalation along the LoC in the Rajouri-Naushera sector in military targeting by its air force, both for the first time. While a terror attack three years back at Uri that is close to the LoC resulted in surgical strikes, this time the crisis was sparked by a terror incident away from the LoC. It only partially played out on the LoC in heightened CFVs and the use of Pakistani aerial firepower astride it. (The precedent for an aerial attack on the LoC was in the Indian use of air power on the LoC in 2002 during the long-duration crisis, Operation Parakram.)

Reportedly, as the crisis ratcheted up, India readied missiles for retaliatory strikes to any Pakistani counter attack to its Balakot aerial strike, with Pakistan promising to respond in kind. Belated intervention by the Americans stayed yet another round of missile exchanges. What the crisis suggests is that a future crisis may be set-off at a higher threshold of blows, making it more difficult for either side to step off or step back. Happymon’s book is a timely reminder that the next crisis may not be triggered by a terror incident, but is as likely as not to spring from situational dynamics along the LoC itself.

Jacob implacably reveals the policy shortcomings of the two neighbours, into their eighth decade of sharing a common border. While for the militaries on the LoC to be in an operational active state may be understandable, it cannot be condoned on the basis of there being no common ground rules along the length of the international border. Apparently the last meeting to work out mutual border guarding standard operating procedures was in the early sixties. He is entirely right in characterizing this state of affairs as an unacceptable abdication of political responsibility and bureaucratic inattention that requires urgent fixing.

While known within strategic circles, Happymon spills the beans for the lay reader that the ceasefire along the LoC is not based on a written document but is ‘an understanding’. This was supposedly arrived at in a telephone conversation between the two military operations chiefs, with some parleys preceding it. Happymon ascertained in his interviews (he did 80 interviews of practitioners and members of the strategic community) that diplomats continue to be hesitant to put down the agreement in writing. This lack of institutionalization of the ceasefire two decades into its informal existence makes the LoC a fertile site for a spark to light up the tinder that the two sides have gathered on either side in their neglect of conflict resolution in Jammu and Kashmir.

Both sides seemingly prefer an active LoC. To the Pakistanis it enables infiltration by terrorists, while to the Indians it enables retribution across it. This setting is conducive for what Happymon identifies as Autonomous Military Factor (AMF) and their independent contribution to escalatory dynamics. These range from relatively mundane factors as personality traits and regimental reputation to an impulse for revenge and gaining moral ascendancy over the other side. AMFs are anchored in the institutional culture of the military, as also in military subcultures. Happymon unpacks this factor over a chapter, with a cautionary finding that AMFs need the attention of security minders, and especially since these days what happens at the LoC seldom remains there. The effect of body bags returning to district towns across India illustrates the political fallout.

Another useful chapter comprises eight case studies of three types of cases: one, where CFVs drive escalation; two, where they contribute to exacerbate crisis; and, lastly, in which CFVs are the vehicle for conventional military escalation. In the first case study of Operation Parakram at its mid-point when terrorists struck at army families staying in the rear, he shows how the resulting crisis played out in heightened CFVs along the LoC rather than eventuating in war. The LoC provided a venting ground. A case study of the CFVs in summer 2013 provides evidence of the second type of escalation, in which an incident in which five army men died on the LoC resulted in aggravating the political and diplomatic situation between the two countries. The third type of escalation––of which the recent aerial strike by Pakistan is an example––is possible to envisage in light of Operation Kabaddi that Happymon covers at the beginning of his book. Operation Kabaddi was a reverse Kargil operation that was to be undertaken by India in late 2001, but was aborted by the intervention of the Americans in the region in pursuit of bin Laden, the perpetrator of 9/11, then hiding in Afghanistan.

If expansive aims are not attributed to the Kargil War––it being intended to cut off Ladakh and Siachen––the war can be seen as resulting from an escalation of the confrontation in the mid-nineties. India was having the upper hand along the Neelum Valley, interdicting Pakistani supplies along that route. Pakistan wanting to reverse the score, decided to intrude into the  Kargil sector in order to similarly interfere with Indian supplies along the route to Ladakh. The rest as they say is history, with Pakistani mission creep and India’s stern reaction making for a minor war. Though the two sides are at the second decadal anniversary of the war, the situation on the LoC remains equally fraught.

Happymon calls for focus on the dynamics of the front lines. He recommends a clear and detailed agreement on the ceasefire along the LoC and on ground rules for the IB. The AMFs and the role of military cultures in CFVs require being contained by escalation control measures such as flag meetings, as also military glasnost such as exchanges of delegations, institutional level visits, attendance at seminars and so on. Happymon ends on a realistic note, writing: ‘The exercise of ensuring stability in the subcontinent lies in routine and mundane measures, not in the sublime and grandest of moves.’ However, to this reviewer, the book serves to underline that the best conflict prevention is in addressing root causes, problems of which CFVs, aggravated CFVs and border wars are merely symptoms.