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KASHMIR BY MY LIGHTS

By

ALI AHMED

Ali Ahmed, PhD (JNU), PhD (Cantab.),

is a former infantry officer and has been an academic and a UN official.

He blogs at www.ali-writings.blogspot.com and tweets at @aliahd66.

  

For Kashmiris, fellow citizens

Preface

I have compiled here my occasional long form writings on Kashmir since the high tide in the affairs of Kashmir in the early nineties.

To begin with the earliest, which is at the fourth and last in order in this compilation. It was written when on leave in Srinagar as a subaltern. During my stints in Punjab, where my infantry unit was deployed in an anti-infiltration role along the Pakistan border for some time and later in Sri Lanka with the Indian peacekeeping force there, I grew an interest in the contextual factors of insurgency. In the period, I spent my leaves in Srinagar where my parents were, my father posted at Badami Bagh first as chief of staff and later as the corps commander during the outbreak of troubles in Kashmir. This meant I was more or less in conflict zones, when with my battalion, that went on to Assam and participated in Operations Bajrang and Rhino there, and even when on holidays.

As all officers of my generation, I got adept at the tactical side by participation in three counter insurgencies – Punjab, Tamil in Sri Lanka and the Bodo and ULFA in Assam – and during leave I was exposed to the operational level of it, watching keenly from the sidelines. My interest at the operational levels was whetted by occasional visits to my uncle who was commanding general of the corps my battalion was part of in Assam.

Thus, I was somewhat uniquely positioned to have a view of the tactical and operational levels, while my reading habit enabled me to keep up with the political - contextual – factors through devouring strategic literature well beyond my rank. In effect, rather early on, I had a somewhat unique view of the tactical, operational and the political levels. Writing alongside honed this interest. The inclusion placed at the end here – ‘Kashmir: A Study in Insurgency and Counter Insurgency’ – is a product of that period.

The second, and first inclusion in this volume, is my MPhil chapter written at Cambridge University in the mid-nineties. By then I had like my fellow course mates seen enough of insurgency environments, but unlike most, had had a ringside view of events in Kashmir when on leave thorough the nineties. I also had, atypical for most young officers, an exposure at the national capital, at its very heart, living for two years in Rashtrapati Bhawan, as aide to Rashtrapati Shankar Dayal Sharma. My free time – and there was more of it than warranted – was spent in the libraries at the United Services Institution (USI) and the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), where I also spent my time occupying backbenches at seminars in the national capital, including at the India International Center. The time evidently not entirely wasted, enabled me a space in the master’s program at King’s College London, followed by MPhil at Cambridge, for which the army – uncharacteristically - afforded me sabbatical. I mention this since I used the effort put into my dissertation to try and understand my own experience better. Thus, my Cambridge dissertation had chapters on the Sri Lankan Tamil insurgency and on Kashmir. The Kashmir chapter – ‘Pakistan’s involvement in Indian Kashmir’ - is reproduced here.

The third entry is when I got back to the army. I still had a yen for study and writing. I could not sublimate it by taking up a doctoral seat in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) that I was selected for on my return since I had run out of sabbatical time. I then took up a non-resident fellowship at the USI holding the Ministry of External Affairs Chair for a year, extended by a year as Operation Vijay intervened, in which we were deployed in the desert sector in anticipation of and to deter horizontal escalation. The Kashmir insurgency, that I had followed closely through the nineties, was then at its height. I devoted a chapter of my fellowship paper to the insurgency, writing up while serving on staff on the Line of Control in Kashmir during the period. The study was not published since it would have required military intelligence clearance to do so and I suspect that would not have been possible since the study was critical of the Indian handling of the insurgency, besides, in another chapter, questioning India’s move to nuclear status that had just been attained then.

The last paper included here is a book chapter I did for a book on terrorism after retiring from the army. I had by then another stint in Kashmir, on the Pir Panjal ridgeline with the Rashtriya Rifles. Thus, a worm’s eye view of Kashmir supplemented the bird’s eye view I always had, and informed my thinking and writings, a rare advantage. Whether I used that advantage to good effect I leave it to readers to judge.

I was then with the IDSA as a research fellow, while also doing a doctorate with the JNU alongside. I got selected a second time round for the latter and was able to undertake the same finally since work with a Delhi based think tank alongside a doctoral position is permissible by the rules. In the period, there as respite in Kashmir, enabling revisiting the issue with little less urgency and allowing for a more reflective approach. The book chapter – ‘Countering insurgency in Kashmir: The debates in the Indian Army’ – captured the debates ongoing within the army between the two schools – hardline/kinetic and softline/WHAM. I was of the latter school and often sparred with those of the former on the pages of some in-service publications. Often my letters to the editor failed to make it to between covers of publications since they went against the dominant narrative. I have compiled these into a volume of ‘Unpublished Writings’ on my blog. I took the opportunity of a book chapter contribution to have the last word.

The four taken together cover the first two decades of the militancy in Kashmir. I actively covered the last decade in Kashmir writing extensively in online publications and in the Kashmir Times on how not handle Kashmir and how it should instead be managed. Some 100 op-eds in the latter comprise a complementary volume, Kashmir: Strategic Sense and Non-sense, also available at my blog and on academia.edu. I leveraged my developing interest in peace studies that covered peaceable approaches to violence, acquired in my academic avatar as a university teacher and later as a United Nations official. These commentaries and articles from my quarterly column in the second half of 2010s in the Economic and Political Weekly, are available at my blog, www.ali-writings.blogspot.com. I suspect the quality of these was such that my alma mater, Cambridge University, under its PhD by special regulations program considered by candidature favourably, awarding me my second doctorate.

 Acknowledgements

Over the last three decades there have obviously been some very significant influences on my thinking. I wish to thank them but at the risk of being accused of name dropping. The ones not listed here are left solely on account of space. Even so, the usual caveats apply in that this is an unaided work, the sole responsibility for errors in facts, inference and reasoning being entirely mine and institutions the writings were submitted to have no responsibility for these. 

Let me begin with my father, General MA Zaki, the ‘saviour’ of Kashmir for India in the nineties (an apt observation by Manoj Joshi), whose appending of comments on the first essay mentioned (visible in the pages at the end of this volume in his neat hand), constitutes fuel that keeps me going thirty years later; my uncle General Jameel Mahmood, who took time off to converse with me, a young officer, on affairs higher than my pay grade; Generals SC Sinha and Dipankar Banerjee, old boys from my school, mentors while I was in Delhi; the Rashtrapatiji Pandit Shankar Dayal Sharma, of the great generation of freedom fighters, for without his shadow over me I could never have acquired academic grounding; my first company commander Colonel CP Muthanna; my battalion commanders – Brig. ‘Jerry’ Gonsalves, Brig. SP Sharma, Brig. Ranjeet Misra, Col. SV Chaudhry, Col. Amit Sehgal, Col.  Bhupinder Singh - who allowed me to moonlight from my duties; my subedars who kept a hawk eye on my company and battalion when I was physically present and mentally absent, including Hony Capt. Bharat Jadhav; Shri. NN Vohra for suggesting to the concerned bureaucrat not to sit on my study leave file in the ministry; Prof. Kanti Bajpai, who accepted me as a doctoral student only to see me falling out even before joining; General Satish Nambiar for taking me up for the MEA Chair and doyen of strategists, late Shri. K Subrahmanyam, for guiding that study; Prof. Rajesh Rajagopalan, India’s leading realist theoretician, who tolerated my ambling along on a liberal tangent; Prof. James Mayall who went through my life’s work, so to speak, including writings on Kashmir, to pronounce it, along with Dr. Vipin Narang, worthy of a Cambridge doctorate; General Prakash Menon, who allowed me access to his doctoral work my generous editors Anuradha Bhasin, Seema Mustafa and successive EPW teams; and my peers, General Hariharan Dharmarajan, who I mention hoping it won’t jeopardise his career, since his only fault was we were cadets together; General Virk, who as chief instructor at Staff College Wellington let me off the hook when some Hindutva inspired brigadier (my retrospective judgment) thought my unorthodox writings merited a march up; General SS Dhillon, a Rimco, for letting me off this time for interception by military intelligence of a letter home from the Line of Control, else it would nipped both my careers, as a military officer and writer; and finally, Polly, our pet parrot, that sitting on my shoulders did the spell check, fact check and grammar.

As is lot of partners of writers, Farah finds mention last. More so because there is no vocabulary my cadet school equipped me with nor do I know Urdu, the language in which what needs saying can perhaps be best expressed in. Maybe my next book will comprise letters to her from Kashmir on faded red service inland letters, preserved by her for no reason I can fathom. 

 

 

CONTENTS

 

A.   

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY – 1995-96

MPHIL DISSERTATION –

INTERVENTION IN INTERNAL AFFAIRS BY STATES IN SOUTH ASIA

CHAPTER III : CASE STUDY II

PAKISTAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN INDIAN KASHMIR

B.   

USI PROJECT: MEA CHAIR 2000-01

INSTITUTIONAL INTEREST:

A STUDY OF INDIAN STRATEGIC CULTURE

CHAPTER III - CASE STUDY II

THE ARMY AND KASHMIR

C.   

BOOK CHAPTER

COUNTERING INSURGENCY IN J&K:

DEBATES IN THE INDIAN ARMY

Maroof Raza (ed.): Confronting Terrorism,

New Delhi Penguin Viking India, 2009

  D. 

KASHMIR: A STUDY IN INSURGENCY

AND COUNTER INSURGENCY

(unpublished essay, 1990)

 

Cultural nationalism as a national security threat

An extended version of the KT op ed http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=108226

Former Vice President Hamid Ansari has yet again drawn attention to the Othering of Muslims ongoing in India and thereby the threat posed to Constitutional values. In discussing his newly released autobiography, By Many a Happy Accident, at various forums, he has reiterated that the drift towards a majoritarian democracy has a potentially adverse underside. It tends to marginalize India’s, and indeed the world’s, largest minority, India’s Muslims, thereby contravening two constitutional values, secularism and fraternity.

He had earlier made the same observation in lectures delivered prior to demitting office of vice president and later during his retirement. He has reverted to this theme since the situation appears to be getting worse in the second term of the Union government, marking its coming to power with an increased majority in the lower house a turning point on this score. The instances of Othering have increased, such as through legislation both at the Center and in Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled states on for instance ‘love jihad’, and the street power exercised by supporters of the regime by violence against minorities.    

In national security discourse, a threat to national values is taken as a national security threat. To the extent Hamid Ansari is right, there should be a corresponding interest in the threat to national values in national security commentary. However, that is not the case. The silence over this national security issue owes to either the national security commentariat acquiescing with the phenomenon or being too overawed to start referring to it as a national security threat. 

Hamid Ansari observes a change in the complexion of the Republic and the resulting perception of insecurity in a significant section of the population, India’s Muslims. Does the threat that causes insecurity for the minority, comprising over 14 per cent of the population and with a geographical spread across the country, constitute a national security threat?

The minority figures in national security thinking only in terms of terrorism in Kashmir and in the hinterland and radical Islamism to which the terror threat is attributed. There is little reference to the threat from militant cultural nationalism vitiating the security perception of the minority. This article makes the case that militant cultural nationalism constitutes a national security threat and must be counted as such in national security thinking, discussion and strategy.

The recent invasion by hard right elements of the United States’ (US) Capitol is an example of how a threat can mutate and pose a national security challenge. A fallout was in the manner the swearing in ceremony of the new US president was conducted at the same location under conditions of heightened security. That former US president, Donald Trump, instigated the mob is now the subject of an impeachment trial. While the threat of white supremacism has been around for some decades in the US, best illustrated by the Oklahoma bombing in the mid-nineties, its security agencies have been cognizant of the threat and treat it as such.

Analogy from the threat from the extremist right wing in the US is not inapt. Whereas presently, when a right wing government is in power in India, right wing extremists may not pose a threat to the state apparatus as such, since in their mind’s eye, power is being exercised by a right wing government they support. This accounts for the symbiotic relationship between the government and right wing militant cultural nationalists. The government does not recognize them as a threat and therefore there is no action against them even in cases of violence, for example, for their role in the Bhima Koregaon violence of 2018 or the more recent role in Delhi riots of February 2020. Instead in both cases the onus for the violence fell on the communities subject to the violence, the Mahar and Muslims respectively, with the law additionally proceeding against some left wing activists in the former case. However, in case of a democratic change over, their increased power, visibility and reach under the current regime, may embolden them to pose a national security challenge, as have white supremacists in the example above in the US.

Whereas this is a potential national security threat that can manifest in future, they also pose a threat currently in their generating a threat for the minority. This is where the symbiotic relationship with the ruling party kicks in, wherein they serve as the militant foot soldiers for advancing the anti-minority agenda of the cultural nationalists. The resulting polarization furthers the political interest of the Hindutva espousing BJP.

Understandably then, in the national security thinking on internal security threats there is never a mention of the right wing as a threat. The three ‘usual suspects’ in this list are terrorism in Kashmir, Left Wing Extremism and militancy in the North East. This silence owes in part to national security being statist in orientation and dependent on the government’s input, expending much attention in rationalizing the government’s policies and actions. To an extent, the realists that populate the strategic community share the realist thinking of the government and many also subscribe to a Hindutva worldview. Consequently, this is an area of deliberate inattention rather than evidence of non-existence of a case for including militant cultural nationalism as a national security threat.

The threat is constituted along two lines. One is that potential of marginalization of the minority resulting in a militarization of its response. The terror taken as minority perpetrated is liable to go up. This has been on the crosshairs of analysts for long in their dwelling on the penetration of radical Islamists ideas in Muslim communities and deradicalization as a measure against it. Even in this commentary, missing has been a focus or reference to right wing perpetrated terrorism. Whereas it found mention early last decade in the home minister’s reference to saffron terrorism, those whose actions prompted the observation have largely been left off after the BJP came to power. This implies that the threat from militant cultural nationalists that could push a minority towards violence in rebound would not be registered among the causes. Therefore, the likelihood of persistence of the insecurity that might provoke such a response.

The second is more significant. Militant cultural nationalism is already changing the complexion of the Republic. Its pursuit of increased solidarity within the Hindu community through an attempt at homogenization overriding the diversity that constitutes the community requires an ‘Other’ to stand in contradistinction to Hindus and Hinduism. Having alighted on Muslims and Islam as the Other, it has reduced inter-community fraternity – a preamble articulated Constitutional value – within India. The ruling party has introduced laws such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which have imposed on the secular fabric of Republic.

They also build in inequality in citizenship to detriment of Muslims. If the sequence envisaged of a National Population Register (NPR) populating exercise is followed through with, along with perhaps the census exercise, then the CAA-NPR constitute a double whammy, with Muslims at the receiving end of the legislative stick. In light of such portents, the possibility of a Hindu Republic is not a theoretical one anymore. Since this shift in the constitutional moorings changes India as we know it, does what is behind the shift –militant cultural nationalism – constitute a national security threat that should be recognized and countered as such?

Whereas a threat causing insecurity for the minority can be proceeded with through implementation of rule of law, the shift in the Republic’s moorings is not so much from militant cultural nationalism as from cultural nationalism that is behind it. Since the ruling party is persuaded by cultural nationalism, it is unwilling to exercise its rule of law function of governance against the vehicle with which, as mentioned, it shares a symbiotic relationship. Therefore, any expectation of inclusion of militant cultural nationalism as a national security threat shall remain unmet.

Since cultural nationalism empowers militant cultural nationalism and is an ideological push against constitutional verities, can and should cultural nationalism be taken as a national security threat? Hindutva is now an entrenched ideology that energises supporters of the democratically elected ruling party. If constitutional values are substituted by Hindutva endorsed values in a democratic and procedurally legal manner, the challenge against such a shift can only be political and by a democratic counter mobilization for mounting a legitimate challenge.

However, as seen, militant cultural nationalism is a vehicle for cultural nationalism, enabling its polarizing sway over voters. This is an illegitimate practice. A state apparatus controlled by the ruling party and one rendered hollow by preceding years of political inroads and enervation cannot be expected to stand up for the law against its own misuse. Expert commentary has it that even the courts have to a large extent vacated the moral high ground. Therefore, while change may be ongoing and underfoot, to the extent militant cultural nationalism is at its vanguard, the change, albeit by procedurally legal means, is illegitimate.

To the extent militant cultural nationalism is used by cultural nationalism for its purpose of replacing a secular republic with a Hindu republic then it cultural nationalism is a national security threat. Cultural nationalism that plays by a democratic playbook is not a national security threat, even if it aims to question the constitutional schema, but turns into one in case the instrument and means it uses are illegal and illegitimate. Attempting to change the republic in its desired image democratically is expected to be countered by the checks and balances in the system such as the doctrine of basic structure. In so far as these check and balances are delegitimised by procedurally illegal and illegitimate means, such as mounting pressure on the judiciary that is custodian of the doctrine of basic structure, then cultural nationalism would turn into a national security threat.

Showing the national security card to cultural nationalism is important not only to deter its abuse of militant cultural nationalism as an instrument, but to ensure it sticks to the accepted political practices in its bid to turn India into its preferred image. Securitisation - labelling an issue as an issue in national security - serves the purpose of focusing minds, in this case on a political ideology, as invoking security, with its existential connotations, draws the attention. Whereas the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, that is the crucible of the ideology, has been banned on occasion earlier, the political fortunes of its political front, the BJP, have emboldened it and given it an impunity. The ideology has the acquired the advantage of political mainstreaming and furthering through the dubious instrumentality of the state. Therefore, it is unlikely to be called out or put back in the box by the state, that it now controls. The challenge to the cozy co-habitation of the state, that is meant to be impartial and neutral, with a political ideology has to come from outside. While the political opposition has on occasion spiritedly pointed to this, notably Rahul Gandhi who once named it while his party was in power as the principal national security threat, there has been little or no traction of this perspective.

The strategic community has been amiss in steering clear of discussing cultural nationalism and militant cultural nationalism in national security terms. Whereas cultural nationalism as a political ideology may be unexceptionable, it has long been inseparable from militant cultural nationalism. A problem area that emerges from such selective gaze is that the national security discourse then lends itself to manipulation.

An illustration is the inflation in the terror discourse of terrorism attributed to Muslim perpetrators. For instance, there are 22 pending cases of encounter deaths in Gujarat pertaining to the Modi period there as chief minister when supposedly terrorists out to kill Modi or commit terrorism were killed by the police. There are also questions over provenance of some terror bombings across the country in the first decade. These questions remain since there was little effort to uncover evidence that would point to other than a Muslim hand in such incidents. Lack of evidence was on account of lack of effort to collect such evidence rather than its absence. That most such incidents led to Muslims being incarcerated, many being left after years in jail, is suggestive not only of incompetence but also a cover up that cries out for investigation.

A captive media has dutifully magnified the police handed out versions. Polarisation resulted and has accrued in a political dividend for the ruling party. Thus, the electorate has in a sense been manipulated by fake news on black operations. While this is relevant to understand the first BJP election victory, the second one did not witness preceding terror incidents since terror incidents, other than in Kashmir, curiously ceased on the BJP attaining power. This is yet more evidence that the earlier mainstream reportage over instances amounted to fake news. The gainer being the BJP implies a complicity and casts a pall over the manner it attained power. When in power it has turned the other way as majoritarian mobs have carried out micro terror pushing Muslims to the ropes over the beef and love jihad issues.

This marginalization of Muslims is an assault on the constitutional values. Therefore, the resulting insecurity of Muslims, as pointed out by Hamid Ansari amongst others, is a national security issue on two counts: from the sway of militant cultural nationalism, to levels the state has lost monopoly over instruments of violence, and, second, but more importantly,  as it points towards the incipient make over of India from a secular republic to a Hindutva subscribing one. 

 

 

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=108226

http://epaper.kashmirtimes.in/archives.aspx?date1=2/27/2021&page=4

Securitisation of cultural nationalism

Former Vice President Hamid Ansari has yet again drawn attention to the Othering of Muslims ongoing in India and thereby the threat posed to Constitutional values. In discussing his newly released autobiography, By Many a Happy Accident, at various forums, he has reiterated that the drift towards a majoritarian democracy has a potentially adverse underside. It tends to marginalize India’s, and indeed the world’s, largest minority, India’s Muslims, thereby contravening two constitutional values, secularism and fraternity.

He had earlier made the same observation in lectures delivered prior to demitting office of vice president and later during his retirement. He has reverted to this theme since the situation appears to be getting worse in the second term of the Union government, marking its coming to power with an increased majority in the lower house as a turning point. The instances of Othering have increased through legislation both at the Center and in Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled states, such as for instance on ‘love jihad’, and so has the street power exercised by supporters of the regime in violence against minorities.    

In national security discourse, a threat to national values is taken as a national security threat. To the extent Hamid Ansari is right, there should be a corresponding interest in the threat to national values in national security commentary. However, that is not the case. The silence over this national security issue owes to either the national security commentariat acquiescing with the phenomenon or being too overawed to start referring to it as a national security threat. 

Hamid Ansari observes a change in the complexion of the Republic and the resulting perception of insecurity in a significant section of the population, India’s Muslims. Does the threat that causes insecurity for the minority, comprising over 14 per cent of the population and with a geographical spread across the country, constitute a national security threat?

The minority figures in national security thinking only in terms of terrorism in Kashmir and in the hinterland and radical Islamism to which the terror threat is attributed. There is little reference to the threat from militant cultural nationalism vitiating the security perception of the minority. This article makes the case that militant cultural nationalism constitutes a national security threat and must be counted as such in national security thinking, discussions on policy and strategy.

The recent invasion by hard right elements of the United States’ (US) Capitol is an example of how a threat can mutate and pose a national security challenge. While the threat of white supremacism has been around for some decades in the US, best illustrated by the Oklahoma bombing in the mid-nineties, its security agencies have been cognizant of the threat and treat it as such.

Analogy from the threat from the extremist right wing in the US is not inapt. Whereas presently, when a right wing government is in power in India, right wing extremists may not pose a threat to the state apparatus as such, since in their mind’s eye, power is being exercised by a right wing government they support. This accounts for the symbiotic relationship between the government and right wing militant cultural nationalists. The government, the gainer by their actions, does not recognize them as a threat and therefore there is no action against them even in cases of violence, for example, for their role in the Bhima Koregaon violence of 2018 or the more recent role in Delhi riots of February 2020. However, in case of a democratic change over, their increased power, visibility and reach under the current regime, may embolden them to pose a future national security challenge.

Whereas this is a potential national security threat, they also pose a current threat in their threat to the minority. Since their polarizing actions furthers the political interest of the Hindutva-espousing BJP, there is never a mention of the right wing as a threat. The three ‘usual suspects’ on the list of internal security threats are terrorism, Left Wing Extremism and militancy in the North East. This silence owes in part to national security being statist in orientation and dependent on the government’s perspective, with commentators expending attention and effort rationalizing the government’s policies and actions. To an extent, the realists that largely populate the strategic community subscribe to a Hindutva worldview. Consequently, this is an area of deliberate inattention rather than evidence of non-existence of a case for including militant cultural nationalism as a national security threat.

The threat is constituted along two lines. One is that potential of marginalization of the minority resulting in a militarization of its response. Terror has been on the crosshairs of analysts for long in their dwelling on the penetration of radical Islamists ideas in Muslim communities and deradicalization as a measure against it. The threat from militant cultural nationalists that could potentially push a minority towards violence in rebound is not registered among ‘causes’. Consequently, the likelihood of persistence of the minority insecurity may provoke such a response.

The second is more significant. Militant cultural nationalism is already changing the complexion of the Republic. Its pursuit of increased solidarity within the Hindu community through an attempt at homogenization overriding the diversity that constitutes the majority requires an ‘Other’ to stand in contradistinction. This has reduced inter-community fraternity – a preamble-articulated Constitutional value.

The ruling party has introduced laws such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which have imposed on the secular fabric of Republic. They also build-in inequality in citizenship. If the sequence envisaged of a National Population Register (NPR) populating exercise is followed through with, then the CAA-NPR constitute a double whammy. In light of such portents, the possibility of a Hindu Republic is not a theoretical one anymore. Since this shift in the constitutional moorings changes India as we know it, does what is behind the shift – cultural nationalism and its vehicle militant cultural nationalism – constitute a national security threat?

Whereas rule of law can mitigate militant cultural nationalism, the shift in the Republic’s moorings owes to cultural nationalism. Since the ruling party is persuaded by cultural nationalism, it is unwilling to exercise its rule of law function of governance. Therefore, an expectation of inclusion of militant cultural nationalism as a national security threat remains unmet. Since cultural nationalism empowers militant cultural nationalism and is an ideological push against constitutional verities, can and should cultural nationalism be taken as a national security threat?

Hindutva is now an entrenched ideology that energises supporters of the democratically elected ruling party. If constitutional values are substituted by Hindutva-endorsed values in a democratic and procedurally legal manner, the counter can only be political and by a democratic mobilization. However, to the extent militant cultural nationalism is used by cultural nationalism for a stealthy purpose of replacing a secular republic by a Hindu republic, then cultural nationalism amounts to a national security threat. Cultural nationalism that plays by a democratic playbook is not a national security threat, even if it aims to question the constitutional schema, but turns into one in case the means – militant cultural nationalism - is illegal and illegitimate.

Attempting to change the republic in its desired image is expected to be countered by the checks and balances in a democratic system such as the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution and upholding of it by the courts. In so far as these check and balances are undercut by procedurally illegal and illegitimate means – such as by pressure on the courts - then cultural nationalism turn into a national security threat.

Showing the red card to cultural nationalism is important to deter its use of militant cultural nationalism. Securitisation - labelling an issue as the subject of critical national security scrutiny - serves the purpose of focusing minds since invoking security has existential connotations. In this case, a political ideology, Hindutva, needs to be served notice. The ideology now has the advantage of political mainstreaming through the dubious instrumentality of the state. The challenge to the cozy co-habitation of the state and a political ideology has to come from outside.

While the political opposition has on occasion spiritedly pointed to this, notably Rahul Gandhi who once named it while his party was in power as the principal national security threat, there has been little or no traction of this perspective. The strategic community has been amiss in steering clear of discussing cultural nationalism and militant cultural nationalism in national security terms. Whereas cultural nationalism as a political ideology may be unexceptionable, it has long been inseparable from militant cultural nationalism.

While the threat militant nationalism poses to Muslims is easy to qualify as a national security threat, the steady movement towards a majoritarian democracy is not easy to classify. Even so, the illegitimate use of militant nationalism needs being deterred, for which examining cultural nationalism in national security terms calls for a start.  

 

 AN AIDE'S RECALL OF AN EPISODE IN THE EARLY DAYS OF INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR

I don't remember the dates but another time, a unit in Uri had ambushed a very large column of terrorists with huge loads of weapons and ammunition. Several of them were killed. The terrorists dropped their bags, abandoned their dead and ran helter skelter and many were mopped up in search operations. A group of media persons from Delhi were coming to cover this operation. An IAF MI-17 heptr was arranged, the Corps Commander, Adviser Law and Order (Ved Marwah) and I accompanied this team from Srinagar to Uri. It was a remarkable operation by the troops and everyone was happy with the outcome. I sensed that your dad and Ved Marwah after complimenting the troops were very worried. It was for the first time that the scale of Pakistani proxy war was beginning to dawn on people. One win here in Uri but if enough large infiltration attempts are made, inevitable that some would get through. 

As we took off from Uri, Gen Zaki went to the cockpit and asked the pilot to fly along the LC towards Gulmarg and then to Srinagar instead of straight line back to Srinagar. The air force pilot said he had a flight route and would not be able to take a detour. Followed by a long death stare. The pilot then said he would do a small detour to avoid the cloud formation enroute and everyone agreed it was a good idea. 

After about 10-15 minutes Gen Zaki walked to the windows on the right side and then called Ved Marwah. He showed in a particular nala and said this is a probable infiltration route. Ved looked and nodded wisely. I looked though another window and wasn't able to find anything significant about this nala as there were many like this. We came back to Srinagar and on reaching the Corps HQ, he called BGS and Col GS to the ops room and after a discussion, he ordered a column to be moved to the nala. Over the next couple of months, more infiltrators were caught here than anywhere else in the corps! 

How and why did such things happen with him? Because he had a photographic memory. He would remember people, dates, places and events in graphic details 35 years later as if they happened yesterday. He also spent at least an hour every day in his study, studying maps of the corps zone. In 1: 1,000,000 then 1:250,000 and finally in 1:50,000 scale. Sector by sector, he recreated 3D terrain images in his mind. Basically a Google map before the idea of a Google map would have been ideated. It also helped that he had been GOC of the Baramula division and then had basically walked to most posts in the sector. An old style soldier who believed that for any sort of tactical or strategic planning in the mountains, understanding the terrain was most important. His knowledge of the land was extraordinary and freaked out his formation commanders and staff alike. Once during the daily morning 'sitrep' briefing in the corps ops room, listing out the over 100 instances of exchange of fire on the LC during the night, Gen Zaki suddenly said 'not possible'. Everyone literally jumped. Why was it not possible that X post of the Pakis had fired with AD guns in ground role at Y Indian Army post on the LC? Because he said, the posts are more than 7km away and there is no line of sight between the two posts! 

A combination of knowing the terrain, very strong Instincts, ability to out think the Pakis: Gen Zaki was a very special Corps Commander for a very special Corps at a vital time in its history. The Governor, his Advisors, DG Police, IG BSF and everyone else in J&K listened to him and depended on him. In some ways, he was holding Kashmir with India with the Army when every other organ of state had failed utterly.

An ADC recalls his charge, Chinar Corps Commander

That was a man, an officer, a gentleman, a leader..... actually so many things rolled into one. My great fortune to have served with him, seen him in combat. 

Fd Marshal Manekshaw was wrong. I know for sure as a first hand witness. Saw your dad under fire and there was no fear. Not every soldier who knows no fear is a Gorkha and your dad certainly wasn't one. Bloody abnormal if you ask me. But then when was he ever happy being normal? Set his own standards and they were always higher than anyone else.

Every time we ended up going to a fire fight, he freaked me out. I was shit scared. Not for myself, but I was scared he would get hit and how would I face your mom? So I did everything I could possibly do to keep him safe while he did everything he possibly could to get involved in the fighting. He truly is a reincarnation of a fighting man. In his previous lives, he might have been fighting with Spartacus, or Alexander, Shivaji and the likes. In the front row.

Actually on the occassions we were in combat situations, everytime something really wierd would happen. I wouldn't be able to cook up these things even if I had a more fertile imagination. Real life around your dad was unusual:

- Once near Nawa Kadal, we had a cordon around a locality and a search was on. One guy in a feran was walking through the cordon. About 100 yards away. After he ignored our calls to halt, your dad asked me to fire a warning shot. A puff of dirt in front of his feet, he didn't stop. He said fire. I fired 5 aimed single shots and all missed him when he was at walking speed. Those days I had 100% hit rate at 300 m. That guy was meant to get away and live. 

- Another day, we were walking around in Rainawari when terrorists were firing on 20 SIKH columns from windows of upper floors. I heard some sound behind a building, went around and found a terrorist with an AK. I fired at him with my pistol and missed. He threw his AK down, jumped into the water and tried to swim away. I ran to the edge of the water and started to shoot. Got him with my 4th shot. Later when I was returning the weapon to kot, found that the last case had not ejected and was stuck. This guy was destined to die because if that round missed, he would have got away before I could fix the stoppage.

Whatever your religious beliefs (I was an atheist), around him, in combat situations, you would believe in destiny. Damn freaky 🙄😳

At this time I was engaged. Both families were very keen on early marriage. I kept giving excuses till we reached Dehradun. Didn't know when things could go wrong and didn't want to leave a young widow. I somehow believed then that if I survived the Srinagar ADC tenure and was able to get your dad out safe too, then for the rest of my service, I would be safe. Turned out like that.

- In Kokernag, when he got wounded, he asked me to go around the fire station building and coordinate the fire support when the assault party would move in. I went around and by the time I returned, he was crawling towards the fire station with a JCO and 6-8 men from his escort!!! Maj Gen Mallik of 8 Div was trying his best to control covering fire. Have you ever seen a Lt Gen crawling towards the enemy with a pistol in his hand (he would go towards the enemy bare handed too) and a Maj Gen trying to control 4 LMGs and giving him covering fire? Whole thing was bloody rediculous and both could have got hit. I asked Gen Mallik to stop firing to allow me to catch up with your dad, who by now was reaching the building. I just took my chances and dashed across the open ground and reached him when he was trying to get into the door which was latched from inside. I asked him what he was doing and he said let's go in and get them. The Corps Cdr wanted to lead the charge with a lousy pistol!! The he saw I was carrying 2 grenades and he asked me to hand them over. I gave him both grenades, then jumped up and smashed the glass on the ventilator above the door. He threw in both grens one after the other. I kicked the door open and went in. Behind me was one jawan with an AK and third to enter was your dad. We were going from bright light and snow to a dark and dusty verandah and we're initially blinded. From the other side of the corridor, about 20m away, a burst of AK, bullets going past me. One hit the jawan in his palm, went through, hit the barrel of his AK, splintered and these splinters went like a shower, upward, hitting your dad in his scalp. He collapsed and there was profuse blood from his head. The escort just covered his body with theirs and pulled him out of the building. I took position near the stairs to cover them. Then for the next hour, he was revived by doctor and refusing to be evacuated to Anantnag till I was brought out as well " he may need medical attention more than me". So at some point Gen Mallik and others assumed I was dead, started to bring down the building with RL fire. Truck loads of RL HE rounds were being fired into the building while I ran from one side to the other, ears not functioning after so much blast shock. Gen Mallik then told your dad that I was dead and he could leave. He did not. When I came out much later from the ashes of the building, he was as surprised to see me alive as I was to see him alive. We drove to Anantnag where a chopper was waiting to take us to Srinagar. He was taken to Base Hospital for patching up and I went to meet your mom at home. She had already been harassed by journalists asking her if it was true that Gen Zaki was no more. She had gone through this once in 1965 already so this time she was praying. When I reached her, the sight of me with soiled clothes and blood stains must have confirmed her worst fears. "Aap unke saath the AP, kaise hone diya?" Apparently her worst fear was the same as my worst fear: keeping Gen Zaki safe was not easy. Only an hour later when your dad reached home did she actually believe he was alright.

 Lots of bodies were recovered from the rubble, I was the last person to get out alive from the building. Couple of fire department employees had been killed by the terrorists. A school teacher sent in to talk to them to surrender was also killed by them. A Hav of the GR unit which was ambushed by these terrorists and had tried to sneak into the building at night to take revenge was also killed and there were other bodies under the rubble.

I think he shaped my mind more than he did yours. You were the rebel kid, questioning dad, assuming you knew better than him (you didn't then, but he was indulgent too, let you be). I was like a sponge, absorbing every word he said, never once questioning his words, actions or choices. In the end I became somewhat like him. Often in difficult situations, decision dilemmas, I would try to imagine what he would do in that situation. That was my answer. Still is.

When I came back to my unit, everyone assumed I had come back from a ceremonial ADC tenure. Few believed that I was mostly in combat fatigues and often under fire.

 M y 600th blog post:

 https://archive.claws.in/1567/nurturing-radical-professionalism-ali-ahmed.html

Nurturing Radical Professionalism

With the conduct of the first Lt Gen Hanut Memorial Lecture, the Center for Joint Warfare Studies has taken on annual yeoman’s task. While the lecture topics will over coming years no doubt reflect the key themes of professional interest of the times, they would hopefully also serve to highlight the significance of radical professionalism, associated with the likes of Hanut Singh.

India’s martial history is replete with instances reflecting and personalities imbued with radical professionalism, ranging from epic heroes to medieval soldier-saints. The two – episodes and personalities - can hardly be separated. Indeed, only leaders and warriors with radical professionalism can pull of feats of radical professionalism.

Rather than defining the term, illustrations serve the purpose better. Episodes of display of radical professionalism are easy to spot: Saragarhi; Rezangla; capture of Haji Pir; the first step on the Saltoro ridgeline; the battle for Quaid post are some such. Others do not readily spring to mind, but are of no less a category: Dewan Ranjit Rai’s stand at Pattan; the occupation of Namka Chu; the miscued heliborne operation in Jaffna; and the unshod assault with a prayer on the lip into the holy precincts of Golden Temple.

Equally, figures embodying the phrase are easy to identify, more so in retrospect. For instance, the figure immortalized by the words ‘dil maange more’, Capt Batra, was distinct from the more modest but equally inspired and inspiring, Manoj Pandey. Charismatic leaders also fit the bill: Manekshaw, Bhagat, Hanut are among those reaching higher echelons. However, that is not a necessary condition for qualifying as a radical professional. While ‘NJ’ Nair’s Ashok Chakra and Kirti Chakra attest to his radical professionalism, those who knew him recount that they were aware of it even when he was not decorated.

Also, it does not require rendering conspicuous service to qualify. For instance, anyone in the National Defence Academy in the early eighties could spot the colossus Subedar Major Darbara Singh striding across the parade ground as personifying the traits. Only apparently prosaic, another example is of the redoubtable Gorkha soldier with his Khukri single handedly fighting off bandits on a train. All have acquaintances meriting inclusion in the category. All have been privy to mess conversations in awe of such feats, such as professional stands taken and personal sacrifices made. 

This recounting is necessary to highlight that radical professionalism remains ticking, testifying to its good health when challenges arise. However, complacency on that account is unwarranted. The bureaucratization of the service; the eclipse of amateurs; the impersonalisation of processes and procedures; the substitution of the man behind the machine with a dazzling array of acquisitions; the assembly line system in place for ingestion and turning out of soldiers and officers; the inexorable expansion; organization innovation suggestive of dilution in rank and status; displacement of the leadership ethic by management etc., all conspire to degrade radical professionalism.

In face of such onslaught, either at a minimum alertness is required and at a maximum concerted action protective of radical professionalism. Since alarmism is undesirable, this article merely serves to alert. Being article length, its discussion is confined to the officer cadre.

Moments in the life of the officer corps that did prompt introspection, such as the more visible one in the shadow of defeat of 1962 and the less obvious long interregnum after the end of 1971 War till the tests of Operations Blue Star and Pawan. The 1962 defeat did energise the army through the sixties, resulting in its good showing in the 1965 War, brought home to contemporary attention during the observation of its fiftieth anniversary, and culminating in the 1971 victory. However, relative peace thereafter was jolted by onset of irregular conflict in the mid eighties. The jolt was best expressed in the famous Sundarji DO to all officers.

However, there has been no cataclysm such as the Vietnam War was for the US officer corps. That debacle inspired the junior who served there, enabling a makeover of the US army in its turning out leaders such as Colin Powell, Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf and later, David Petraeus. The latter’s doctoral dissertation was on the effect of Vietnam on the US military.

It is apparent that among other measures, in its recovery the US military nurtured and preserved radical professionals. The commander of the Hail Mary manoeuvre that truncated the Gulf War I to only 100 hours was an amputee from the Vietnam war, General Franks heading VII Corps. Take Petraeus himself. When shot accidentally in a battle inoculation, he arranged a premature discharge from the hospital for himself by knocking off fifty push-ups.

Learning from others implies recognizing and valuing radical professionalism. This is not unknown to the army. This author’s research into the battle histories surrounding the 1965 War at its anniversary enabled insight into such traits and testimony of their in-service value. Research turned up a citation, written largely by the Field Observation Officer that accompanied the company in action that reads:

Major A (to remain unnamed here) was van guard company commander. The enemy    consisted of a coy plus of 7 BALUCH with detachments of 5 HORSE…. When the van guard was practically taken by surprise and came under heavy small arms fire, mortar and artillery fire, Major A appreciated the situation and put in a lightening attack with his company… Major A led the attack personally and with the (regimental) war cry…. over ran the enemy defences. In the close dog fight... he was himself severely wounded in the left arm but continued the assault 600 yards deep till the objective was captured. Profusely bleeding and growing with pain (sic), he led his coy and ‘reorganized’ beyond the objective. He refused to be evacuated till another company was sent up…Throughout this fighting battle he was up and in the assault line encouraging and leading his coy…

The officer decorated for gallantry as company commander in the war went on to three star rank in command in an operational area. His ADC there recounts that once, the general officer once under fire led his QRT in a house clearing drill and suffered a head injury when lobbing a grenade through a window. Berated by the then Chief for the potentially dangerous action, the general officer replied that so long as he was the senior on the ground, it would remain his privilege to be first to put his life on line. 

This remains the case. An officer who stood up for what is right while at MS Branch went on to be army commander. Another officer who reputedly did so too only to be packed off to Siachen, nevertheless today continues on the ladder. When the army was held up momentarily by LTTE in its assault on Jaffna, General Sundarji handpicked a few rough and tough officers and sped them off southwards to do their thing. An army commander known for moral courage reportedly warded off pressures for attack at the onset of Op Parakram, citing preparedness. The current day army chief, known for being no mean runner of 10k even today, forewent staff course selection in order to be alongside his Gorkhas in Sri Lanka.

Clearly, the army continues to be cognizant of the indispensability of radical professionals in its ranks. The conclusion here is that it must continue doing so irrespective of inevitable technology upgrades, managerial compulsions and profusion of equipment.