Rajnath's visit to Islamabad

The outcome of the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Islamabad to attend the 7^th ministerial conference of SAARC home and interior ministers last week was predictable. Given the hostile climate in Pakistan, nothing much was expected from the visit, which Singh may have well decided to make to deny comfort to terrorist leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Kashmiri separatist Syed Salahuddin who had said that they would prevent him from setting foot in Pakistan.On the other hand, it is possible that Prime Minister Modi, who would have ultimately taken the decision on sending Singh, took a chance in doing so, with a view of  signaling to the world that India will not be found wanting in reaching out to Pakistan, despite the  somewhat difficult conditions prevailing. 

Third, the government of India may have calculated that in sending the Union Home Minister to Pakistan at this juncture, they would send a signal to the separatist agitation in the Valley that notwithstanding their passion, it was business as usual for New Delhi and Islamabad.

But for this very last-listed reason, Islamabad would not have wanted the visit. At a time when Jammu & Kashmir is rocking with civil protest and there is a chance that this will aid the revival of the militancy, Pakistan would not want to show that it was conducting business with New Delhi. As the SAARC chair, Pakistan could not ask Singh not to come, but it could show that it would deal with  India in a minimalist fashion.  

In any case, whatever may have been Nawaz Sharif’s desires and calculations, the Pakistani military appears to be clear that they do not want any thing to do with India. On one hand, they are focusing on the developments in Afghanistan, on the other, they believe that India (read Ajit Doval) is trying to light little fires in their backyard, given the uptick of activities of the Sindhudesh Liberation Army and the violence in Karachi.  

As for Kashmir, they probably believe that everything was going for them in the situation where the waning militancy had taken on a new life without much effort on their part. So, it was important to signal to the separatist constituency in the Valley, that Islamabad, if not Rawalpindi, was firmly behind them, ready once again to fight to the last Kashmiri.

So, even the minumum courtesies were not offered the minister’s visit was blacked out by the Pakistani media on instructions from above. So, the Pakistani media did not give coverage to the visit or the Singh’s speech. The Pakistani Interior Minister took the bizzare position of boycotting the lunch that he himself was hosting for the gathered delegates so as not to be seen dining with an Indian minister. In any event, Singh decided to skip the event as well

Singh did what he could under the circumstances which is to use the opportunity to needle Islamabad. “Terrorism,” he declared in his plenary speech, “remains the biggest challenge and threat to our peace.” He did not name Pakistan, but no one would have doubted who he was alluding to when he said that “Those who provide support, encouragement, sanctuary, safe haven or any assistance to terrorism or terrorists must be isolated.” In case, people didn’t quite get it, he added,  “Strongest possible steps need to be taken not only against terrorists and terrorist organisations but also those individuals, institutions, organisations or nations that support them.”

The gulf between India and Pakistan was obvious from the fact that in his remarks, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif claimed “remarkable gains” in Pakistan’s fight against terrorism through Operation Zarb-e-Azb and the implementation of the National Action Plan against terrorism adopted last year. Pakistan, he said remained committed to “jointly work with the SAARC member states in fighting terrorism, corruption and organised crime, among others.”

Singh’s indirect response was contained in his speech and also the next day Friday, on the floor of Parliament when he  pointed to the fact that Pakistan’s commitment to regional cooperation on terrorism was questionable. He noted  that Pakistan was yet to ratify the SAARC Convention on Mutual Assistance on Criminal matters, or give its concurrence on setting up of SAARC Terrorist Offences Monitoring Desk (STOMD) and the SAARC Drug Offences Monitoring Desk (SOMD). There was a touch of exasperation in his tone when he declared that despite repeated efforts by Indian leaders this neighbour refuses to mend its ways (yeh padosi manta hi nahi hai).

The Modi government’s Pakistan policy has seen a great deal of ups and downs. It began with Prime Minister Sharif accepting the invite to participate in Modi’s inauguration in 2014. It peaked when Modi made a surprise visit to Lahore to greet his counterpart Nawaz Sharif on his birthday on December 25 last year. The two leaders walked hand-in-hand and interacted with Sharif’s family on the occasion of the marriage of Sharif’s grand-daughter.

Then came the low of the Pathankot attack a week later and somehow things have not quite been normal since, the long promised comprehensive bilateral dialogue has simply not got underway. In the meantime, Prime Minister Modi has ranged through the world denouncing terrorism with a passion that did not quite match up to the lowered levels of Pakistan-origin violence that India has faced since 2008. His repeated and loud denunciations of terrorism, appeared designed to diplomatically isolate Islamabad. Now, with the ongoing Jammu & Kashmir agitation, and Pakistan attacking India on account of alleged human rights violations, the relations seem to be in a free-fall.

Clearly, the problems between India and Pakistan are deeper than the pappi-jhappi of the Modi drop-in on December 25 can resolve. Pakistan’s refusal to act against the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and the Jaish-e-Muhammad are a major problem for India, but so is the Kashmir issue. We may argue that Jammu & Kashmir is an internal issue of India, but that does not convince anyone else in the world. In any case, issues relating to human rights are today everyone’s business. From earlier claiming that J&K was a part of Pakistan, Islamabad now says that all they support is the idea of self-determination for the Kashmiri people, but it has seriously undermined its own standing on the issue by supporting armed proxies and terrorists to attack India. The result is that the international community is agreed that that the only resolution to the issue is through a bilateral dialogue between India and Pakistan.

Earlier, the two countries took this up through what was called the Composite Dialogue process, but this ran out of steam after the fall of Pervez Musharraf. Its considerable achievements included the sharp fall in cross-border militancy and terrorism aimed at India and the emergence of a four-point formula which could have resolved the Kashmir issue.

However, since the Mumbai terror attack of 2008 derailed the process, the two countries have not been able to get back on to the track of a meaningful dialogue. The big problem is the refusal of the Pakistan Army to support the four-point formula on Kashmir, or to act against the terror proxies it maintains in Pakistan. It has successfully prevented Pakistan’s civilian governments of Asif Ali Zardari and now Nawaz Sharif from taking any significant step towards India, or responding to an Indian initiative. So where do we begin ?

The next step in the relationship between the two countries will be at the summit meeting of the SAARC in Islamabad in November. The last time the summit was there, the Vajpayee-Musharraf bilateral meeting opened up an era of good relations between the two countries that lasted till Musharraf’s ouster. It would be a miracle, indeed, if the two countries were able to give a positive turn to their relationship this time around. The problems between the two are unlikely to be resolved any time soon, but there is no reason why a step by step approach is undertaken, rather than the one we see today which fluctuates wildly between euphoria and despair.

Prime Minister Vajpayee once famously said in the context of Pakistan that you cannot choose your neighbour. If the neighbour refuses to be agreeable, you have to keep on trying. You are not doing this as a favour to anyone, but acting out of self-interest.

We have already fenced and floodlit the border and found it doesn’t quite work. We could build a wall like Israel has done with Palestine, but that is not likely to be a workable proposition. In any case given India’s porous borders in Nepal and Bangladesh and open coastline, it is unlikely that we can keep out undesireable elements. We can do a tit for tat, which the Pakistanis believe we are already doing, but that will only enhance instability in our neighbourhood and may blow back on us.

A return to the 2004-2007 process is the best, perhaps, the only option. The conditions are the same: Nothing that Pakistan or the separatist movement can do will persuade India to alter its border. On the other hand, peace will enable India to allow greater self-governance in the Valley and eventually a great measure of demilitarisation. In the meanwhile more crossing points in the LOC will reduce the friction it creates today.

 But that requires committed and skilful political leadership in Islambad and New Delhi. Currently it would appear that the Modi government is not very clear and what it wants from Pakistan and what it thinks it can achieve through diplomacy or coercion. Needless to say, Modi’s loud denunciations of terrorism have not quite isolated Islamabad, nor rallied the world community behind India. On the other hand, the Pakistani government’s position is even more incoherent with the weakened Nawaz Sharif showing little appetite for taking or responding to initiatives and the Army saying little, but refusing to budge on the point of acting against armed militants who it shelters and launches against India.

Of course, this  process also requires important and synchronised initiatives in Jammu & Kashmir because, like it or not, the internal situation there plays an important role in the India-Pakistan stand off. Again, as in the case of Pakistan, New Delhi does not seem to be clear in its mind as to what it wants in Jammu and Kashmir, and how it will achieve it. As of now, the entire focus is on crushing the protests. But, in the ultimate analysis, what happens in J&K, and with J&K, is a function of the India-Pakistan relationship. If the latter is dysfunctional, so will the former be.

Gaffe-Prone Parrikar’s Latest Blunder Exposes Centre’s Efforts to Stifle Dissent

The fact that we have a bombastic, and some may say boorish, defence minister is common knowledge. Manohar Parrikar’s bouts of verbal excess are now fairly well known. But the latest instance – where he apparently referred to the Aamir Khan “patriotism” controversy – has the elements of the sinister as well.
 


Speaking at a book release function on Saturday, Parrikar said that “anyone speaking against the country must be taught a lesson the same way that an ‘actor’ and an ‘online trading company’ were.”
To quote the entire paragraph as it appeared in the Indian Express report:

“Actorne jeva hey kela, thehva jya company la toh advertise karat hota… online trading company hoti. Aple log thoda jaste hoshar ahet. Mala mahite ahey there was a team which was working on this… They were telling people you order and return it… The company should learn a lesson, they had to pull out his advertisement… (When the actor did this… then the company which he was endorsing was… an online trading company. Some of our people are very smart, I know. There was a team which was working on this. They were telling people you order and return it… The company should learn a lesson, they had to pull his advertisement).”

Parrikar did not name Khan nor Snapdeal, of which the actor was brand ambassador. But the November 2015 incident and Snapdeal not renewing its contract with Khan are too well known for there to be any ambiguity about who Parrikar was referring to.
He also took an oblique swipe at JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, saying that “such people who speak against the country need to be taught a lesson by the people of this country”.
After the controversy erupted, Parrikar on Sunday declared that he was not referring to anyone specific, going on to add that although he was not opposed “to the freedom of expression” he “feels that country is supreme.”

No stranger to a blunder
Parrikar’s verbal gaffes have now become a legend. Just two months ago he claimed that the Indian army did not get the respect it deserves because for “40-50 years , we have not fought a war.” Egregiously he added that he was not advocating a war, but that “because we haven’t fought a war, the importance of the army in our minds has dwindled”.
A war, it was said, was too important a matter to be left to the generals. So, across the world, it became the norm that the best military was that which remained firmly under the command of the civil authority, otherwise known as politicians. But Parrikar’s swagger has turned the logic upside down. In Kashmir, where even the generals say that there is a limit to what the military can achieve, having, in any case, brought down the militancy to a near zero status, Parrikar was ready a while back for an eye-for-eye tooth-for-tooth battle, declaring that “kaante se kaanta nikaala jata hai” (A thorn can only be taken out by another thorn).
Returning from the US last year, he expressed his readiness to get the Indian military to fight ISIS, were the UN Security Council to pass a resolution.
And once, he even accused an unnamed former prime minister of compromising the nation’s security.
Surely, such a serious charge should not have been made in passing and if Parrikar knows about a former prime minister compromising national security, he should inform the relevant authorities because such an act counts among the highest levels of treason.

The citizen is supreme
There are important issues that come from Parrikar’s most recent statement, regardless of his clarification. First, that the attack on Khan and Snapdeal were executed by a ‘troll army’, which used this kind of cyber attack to teach them a lesson. That India’s defence minister is privy to this information and has done little about it is alarming. Parrikar should not complain when Chinese cyber armies run amuck on his ministry’s computers.
Second, is Parrikar arrogating to himself or to his parivar the right to decide who is to be condemned for speaking against the nation? If so, he betrays lamentable ignorance and also his oath as an MP and union minister. The union of India most certainly does not belong to either Parrikar or to the Sangh parivar entities. Indeed they, if you recall, had opposed its formation.
Third, Parrikar is wrong in saying that the nation is supreme. The physical nation is just land, rivers, lakes, trees and shrubs. It is the people who give it the character that it has and they are supreme.
Their supremacy is not something abstract, but laid out in a compact called the constitution of India. As a consequence of avowing this document, the people get inalienable rights, the most precious of which is the right of dissent. Just when dissent or resistance becomes “anti- national” is not for the politicians, policemen and sundry Hindutva outfits to decide, but for the courts of the land, who do so through the due process of law that springs from the constitution.
It is, of course, well known that the curriculum of our IITs, which produced a Manohar Parrikar, is seriously deficient in teaching these political science basics. But surely, the politician Parrikar should have by now learnt these things, considering he has taken a solemn oath to protect the constitution and has been given the important charge of being the union minister of defence.
By himself, we all know that Parrikar is a fairly decent and well-meaning man who is the victim of a half-baked educational system, which results in half-baked words, ideas and actions. Parrikar is not unaware of the problem; recall last year he had promised to take a six-month break from making comments before the media.
But what is more worrisome are his revelation of the organised nature of the effort to stifle dissent in this country. We all know that some rationalists were killed in Maharashtra and Karnataka allegedly by a splinter Hindutva group; in New Delhi, JNU dissenters were physically attacked in the very premises of a high court, again allegedly by some wayward individuals; and gau rakshaks are already patrolling the heartland to tackle those who have a different dietary preferences.
Now, however, we are getting a hint that things may actually be more organised, since it turns out that the alleged anti-nationals were being taken down by a secret cyber team, presumably with links to the Sangh parivar. Tomorrow such teams could actually be tasked to physically take down so-called liberals and “sickulars”, all in the name of nation.
The Wire August 1, 2016

Looking to India for a sea change

With the dust uneasily settling down following the stunning verdict on the South China Sea (SCS) arbitration, questions are being asked about what New Delhi’s stakes are in the outcome.
The SCS issue does not impact directly on India’s security. However, it is an important waterway for Indian trade and commerce with South-East Asia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China. New Delhi has routinely signalled its world order concerns by strongly urging the importance of safeguarding the freedom of navigation of the seas, the right of overflight and the importance of peaceful settlement of disputes within the ambit of international law — read United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). These have come out in several joint statements with countries like Vietnam, Japan and the US. New Delhi’s position has been further burnished by the fact that it has accepted a negative ruling by an UNCLOS tribunal relating to its maritime boundary with Bangladesh.


India’s stand has been sufficiently ambiguous for China to declare on the eve of the Tribunal verdict that New Delhi was supporting its case when it agreed during the Russia-India-China trilateral meeting in April 2016 that even while the UNCLOS formed the basis of the legal order of the seas, “all related disputes should be addressed through negotiations and agreements between the parties concerned.” This was with reference to the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), which the Chinese claim had committed the Philippines to direct negotiations, instead of which it went in for arbitration.
Yet, India’s position is more nuanced. Over the years it has built up an important relationship with Vietnam, both because of an identity of interests, as well as a kind of pay-off for the Chinese activities in South Asia. Since 1988, India has been involved in oil exploration in the seas off Vietnam and has developed a low key, but important, defence relationship that is mainly focused on capacity building, training and maintenance of equipment. Indian war ships routinely visit Vietnamese ports and conduct exercises with their counterparts. India has also offered Vietnam a $100-million loan to purchase Indian-made defence equipment.
The Indian Navy had a brush with the South China Sea issue when, in 2011, its warship INS Airavat was warned over the radio to stay off ‘Chinese waters’ by a voice claiming to speak for the Chinese Navy, just 45 nm from Vietnamese coast. No vessel was actually visible and the Indian ship continued on its path unhindered.
ONGC Videsh has several deals for exploring blocks in the Phu Khanh, Nam Con and Lan Tay basins. In September 2014, India and Vietnam agreed to expand their cooperation in oil and gas exploration, overriding objections by China. The Indian view was that they had been exploring some of the blocks well before the Chinese decided to place them on their list of blocks for bidding.
Since 2013, India has made its concerns over the issue of freedom of navigation explicit through Joint Statements in summits with Japan, Vietnam and the United States. The India-Japan Joint Statement of 2013 first spoke of the commitment of the two to the freedom of navigation and unimpeded commerce “based on the principles of international law, including the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).”

The Modi government went a step further in 2014, when, in an Indo-US Joint Statement during the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington, it was noted that the two sides “expressed concern about rising tensions over maritime territorial disputes” and affirmed the importance of “ensuring freedom of navigation and over flight throughout the region, especially in the South China Sea.” This formulation, adding the South China Sea, was repeated during President Obama’s January 2015 visit, but has since been dropped.
Countries of the ASEAN have privately expressed their desire for India to play a greater (read balancing) role vis-à-vis China in the region. But just how India should do so is not clear. ASEAN itself is a house divided and, in any case, its constituent nations have much more important economic ties with China than with India. They are therefore cautious in their outreach to India and their policy is often one of hedging, rather than seeking any deeper relationship with us.
But, as part of its ‘Act East’ policy, India needs to boost economic ties with the region and can do so it if it can participate in the global production chain into which ASEAN countries are deeply enmeshed and which are controlled by companies in the US, EU, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. At the same time, India needs to build up strategic networks that do not quite have the status of alliance, with a host of countries like Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, Japan and the US with a view of advancing our political interests in checking overbearing Chinese behaviour, and shoring up our world order concerns relating to the freedom of navigation and overflight.
Mid-Day August 2, 2016

Why 'President Trump' wouldn't be bad news for India

FiveThirtyEight, America’s best-known poll forecaster, has predicted that Donald Trump has a 50.1 per cent chance of winning the US presidency. It is time to suspend disbelief and assess just what a Trump presidency could mean for the world and India.

Trump has divided the US electorate down the middle. He has been attacked for his erratic ways, racism, and questionable business practices. 

Yet, he bested the powerful Republican establishment to become the party nominee for the presidential elections.

Polls now indicate that Donald Trump is the 50.1 per cent favorite to become the new US President

 

Inequality

What forces have carried Donald Trump to this stage? Win or lose, they will be around in the US over the coming decade.

Most noticeable is the feeling among large sections of the people that the American establishment has colluded with the rich in other countries to impoverish the average American.

This has led to a chronic, growing inequality in the US and an exacerbation of the race issue. 

Globally, instead of benefiting from the rise of East Asia, the US has spent a fortune in wars in the Middle East, and is now witnessing the destabilisation of its key ally, Europe, by Islamist terrorism and unchecked migration.

Meanwhile China expands its military and economic capacity and could challenge the US, first in East Asia, and then possibly the world.

Assuming Trump does not quite live out his persona as POTUS, and that he is a person of reasonable intelligence, it is possible to get a reasonable idea of how he will be different.

A lot will depend on the outcome of the Congressional elections, because while the Congress cannot make policy, it has the capacity to obstruct a President’s agenda just as has happened in the case of Barack Obama.

Perhaps the most significant shift will be in the way the US engages the world.

The US played a crucial role in setting up the UN, the international monetary and trading system, non-proliferation, arms control, and a host of international agreements that bind the world.

It shaped a global environment in which most states believed that following the rules was in their self-interest, and in turn the US paid the primary cost of policing that system.

Now, Trump wants out. Many Americans have spoken of free-loading allies, but for Trump it has been an obsession.

His world will be much more transactional, where say in the area of security, Europe, Japan and the Middle Eastern allies of the US will be asked to cough up their contributions.

Momentum

His words and deeds suggest that he will seek to restore the geo-political balance which has been skewed by the Western policy on Ukraine, which has sent Russia into the arms of China.

He will take a tough stand on Islamism, with implications for the Gulf monarchies.

On the matter of trade, the horse has already bolted. Trump has attacked Mexico and NAFTA, but in recent year many US analysts have averred that the US gave China a free ride in the trading system and by cleverly under-valuing its currency, Beijing sucked away US industries and jobs. 

There is little they can do to reverse this; China has unstoppable momentum.

Trump is committed to opposing the brahmastra of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) but he is bound to a tough-line on China on trade and currency issues.

Worldview

India does not figure in Trump’s Manichean worldview - which is for the good. India simply does not impact on the US to the extent that Russia, Europe or China do.

IPR and job outsourcing issues are there. But they are minor in the larger scale of problems that the US must tackle to reduce its debt, reform its tax laws, rewrite trading agreements and get on to the path of growth which also benefits the average person.

Trump promises to take a tough stand on Islamism, with implications for the Gulf monarchies

Whether it is in tackling China, Islamism, or the Russian rift, Trump’s policies will benefit India.However, New Delhi will also be on that transactional framework where it will be asked what it has on offer to merit the US’s friendship - and we cannot rule out an American decision to knock heads on issues like Kashmir.

Every US President since the Cold War have been committed to maintaining the American global hegemony.

Trump and his supporters believe that their harsh agenda is the necessary medicine for the US and the world, to save them - and in the process retain America’s number one status.

Mail Today July 31, 2016

Lesson From Kashmir: The Art of Policing Lies in Tiring Out a Mob and Not Firing Upon It

The way sensible riot control is done is to deploy sizeable numbers before rioters every day and to use attrition as their principal weapon.

Youths throwing stones at security forces during a clash in Srinagar on Thursday. Credit: PTI/S. Irfan

Within five days of the shooting of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani, 36 young Kashmiris had died and 1500 or so injured in the ensuing protests.  Earlier uprisings in 2008 and 2010 had also seen more than 200 people killed in protests. Today, the death toll stands at 45.
Even though many more civilians were killed in the state every year in the past – in 2001, for example, SATP figures show, civilian casualties were as high 1067 – what makes the present figure so unacceptable is that the most violent phase of the Kashmir insurgency is long behind us. Clearly, the security forces are ill-equipped to deal with the rise of protest movements involving civilians. The first wave of mass protests was against the lease of land to the Amarnath Yatra board in 2008. In 2010, it was the shocking Machhil fake encounter that brought young men and boys onto the streets.  This time around, it is the death of Wani.
A common thread in all these protests is that they brought ordinary folk, mostly the young, out onto the streets. While many of them may have sympathised with the demand for independence, they were themselves neither militants nor active political workers. In other words, they were civil protestors who often expressed their anger in the somewhat uncivil way of throwing stones at the security personnel – something protestors in Haryana, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh have done in the recent past, to mention just a few regions of India.
Given the overwhelming dominance of the army and paramilitaries for over a decade, militants today can only operate in the Valley in very small groups of three or four and it is not easy for them to move around with their weapons. There are some forest and mountainous areas where they can gather in larger numbers, but in populated areas, they are very cautious because the police and IB’s information network is dense and often the militants get cornered in their hideouts. The rules of engagement say that the security forces should try and arrest them, failing which shooting is the only other option.
The problem arises with civil protestors who gather in crowds that can vary from 30 to 100, often emerging from narrow alleyways in urban areas.
There has often been talk of militants operating with the crowds and using weapons. Though there have been reports of shrapnel injuries caused by the odd grenade, till now there is no record of any police officer being shot while confronting a crowd. The problem really is in the inability of the police to manage the crowds – which often assume the form of a riot, with protestors throwing stones at the police personnel.
In a riot-like situation where the police and security forces find themselves at the receiving end, standard operating protocols demand that they be prepared to open fire – especially when there is danger of the force being overwhelmed and losing its weapons. However, the large number of non-combatants who have been killed in recent days indicates the police has also been trigger-happy – or is simply not trained to deal with civil protest and riot-like situations.

Poor training, high stress
Since 1990, the security forces have operated in the Valley in response to an insurgency-like situation to combat armed militants. But, those days are over and have been over for the better part of a decade.
However, the police force which was trained to deal with militant with guns, remains untrained in handling riots where the main weapons are stones. There was talk of retraining forces and some were, indeed, trained to deal with crowds. That is the point in time when the police acquired rubber pellet guns. Now the term ‘rubber pellet’ is a misnomer. These are actually shots of steel covered with rubber and therefore can be pretty dangerous, especially when the police are too close to the crowd. Actually, researchers have questioned their use either way.
Well before India turned to ‘rubber pellets’, a study in 2001 conducted in a Jerusalem hospital after the Palestinian uprising and published in Eye, the journal of the Royal College of Opthalmologists, found a high instance of eye injuries among those hit. It concluded that “the term ‘rubber bullet’ is misleading. ‘Rubber bullets’ cause a wide variety of ocular and periocular injuries. Orbital fractures are common. The tissues of the orbit are easily penetrated. If the globe is hit, it is rarely salvageable.”
Its not clear whether the police is using Israeli ammunition, or that made by the Ordnance Factory Board. Pictures and x-rays of those shot indicate that these are metallic balls. Either way, these have to be used under strict rules of engagement, which means shooting low and at distances beyond 50 metres,. But in riot-like situations, it is difficult to meet the SOPs, a problem made more difficult  by ricochets in urban locations in Kashmir.
The ironic difference is that the Israelis are using these bullets against people they do not consider a part of their country. This is something that Modi-bhakt hawks do not understand when they hold up Israel as a paragon of counter terrorism. India’s goal is to try and ensure that Jammu and Kashmir remains part of this country. Surely, it calls for tactics and procedures which are designed to achieve that end.
The police and security forces cannot be blamed for this development. The blame rests squarely with the politicians and their mandarins, whether they sit in the secretariat in Srinagar or North Block in New Delhi. Time and again they have messed up the politics of running the country and then ruthlessly used the police to fight the fires that they have been responsible for lighting. Their assumption is that just because they pay the salaries of the police force, they can do what they like with them.

Repeating old mistakes
In 1990, the Border Security Force, which had never been involved in internal policing for more than a couple of days, was press-ganged into the Valley and ordered to re-establish the state’s control in the urban areas of the Valley. To do this, they set up pickets in militant dominated areas where night after night their bunkers came under fire. The stress of living there and for others, running the gauntlet to supply them, inevitably created a kind of mentality which was responsible for great excesses by the force.
The story of the CRPF is no different. In the 2002 elections, and here I am writing from memory, I reported about a CRPF unit deployed in Kashmir. It had, in the previous six months, never spent more than 10 days in one location because they were asked to douse fires all over. Fourteen years later, nothing has changed. So yesterday you could have been in Chattisgarh fighting Maoists, today, there is a riot in Gujarat demanding reservations for Patels, tomorrow the Jats revolt in Haryana, and now you are fighting separatists in Kashmir. There is black humour in the joke that CRPF stands for Chalte Raho Pyare Force (Keep on moving force.) Stressed out constables, usually deployed in penny-packets and commanded by non-commissioned officers, they are liable to excesses in the cauldron into which they are thrown. It is not as though there are no drills and courses for the jawans. The problem is that too much is expected from them – from counter-insurgency to riot control and guarding VIPs.
The experience in anti-Maoist operations has revealed in stark detail the disaster that happens when a force which is trained for static policing is ordered to counter well-prepared guerrillas after some rudimentary jungle warfare training. And that disaster is compounded when this same force is asked to counter civil protest and riots, with little or no retraining. Is it any wonder that when dealing with a riot, they confuse the adversary for the “enemy” to be overwhelmed, failing which their own lives are at stake.
The training of police to deal with civil protests which degenerate into riots is a highly specialised job and requires substantial investment in personnel, equipment and training. It is not that the government does not understand this. We have the experience before us of how – after repeated riots often made worse by police excesses in the 1980s – the Rapid Action Force was created asa unit within the CRPF. Currently it has 10 battalions – that’s roughly 10,000 men and women – spread across the country. Which means they can at best deal with one-and-a-half major riots.
But given the situation in J&K, you would need a force of that size to be stationed permanently in the Valley itself.
 The way sensible riot control is done is to deploy sizeable numbers before rioters every day and to use attrition as their principal weapon. They need to be specially equipped and provided with protection against stones and they need to be specially trained for  crowd control.  Being policemen, they need to be told that time is not the issue, but the need to wear down the rioters is. So they should be prepared to go on – day-in, day out – confronting the rioters in the largely passive mode of blocking their movement, even while using tear gas and an occasional lathi charge when things threaten to get out of hand.
Other countries have done this and succeeded. The best example is that of South Korea which had a major problem with its police forces prior to the 1988 Olympics. Clashes between the police and students had led to scores of deaths. However, in the run up to the Olympics, South Korea decided to retrain its force on methods of crowd and riot control.
Since then, these have been held up as models around the world. South Korean rioters can be more than a handful. On one occasion, they even came equipped with flame-throwers and other incendiaries to attack the police, but to little avail.
The troubles in Kashmir are not about to get over soon. In any case, in a large and chaotic country like India, there is always going to be need for trained riot police. The time has come to give up ad hoc solutions and think about the police and policing in a much more systematic and rational manner.

The Wire July 22, 2016

Not just China, the world's in deep water

The biggest issue arising from last week’s verdict by the arbitral tribunal on the South China Sea is the question of the rule-based international system. Since 1971, the world community has made an effort to bring the People’s Republic of China into this system by helping it become a member of the UN Security Council, the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the World Trade Organisation and other global regimes.

By rejecting, as it has done, the procedure of the compulsory dispute-settlement mechanism of UNCLOS, China could well undermine a raft of international agreements that incorporate arbitration to resolve a dispute which cannot be settled through bilateral negotiation. This has wider implications, since compulsory arbitration often feature in business agreements.
In ratifying the UNCLOS, the Chinese voluntarily accepted its compulsory dispute resolution mechanism. Beijing, therefore, has to accept the tribunal’s decision because UNCLOS rules say it is the tribunal which decides whether the exclusions claimed by a state apply in a particular case, not the state itself. The tribunal’s award is final and without appeal. In this case, the tribunal considered China’s objections and overruled them.




 Activists protest in Vietnam yesterday after China rejected a UN tribunal’s ruling that dimssed the country’s territorial claim to much of the South China Sea. Pic/AFP

Yet, realpolitik would suggest that the tribunal decision is unlikely by itself to persuade China that its claims in the South China Sea are far more limited than it had assumed. But neither the tribunal, nor the Philippines has the power to enforce the ruling which China had declared at the very outset that it would not honour. There is one body which could, theoretically, legally enforce the verdict — the UN Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. But, as is well known, China is a veto-wielding member of the UNSC.
Officially, China has said that the maritime delimitation issue of the South China Sea should be settled through negotiation with countries directly concerned, “in accordance with international law, including UNCLOS.” Beijing is being careful not to trash UNCLOS itself, but only offering what it had on offer before — bilateral negotiations. It has also referred to its earlier offer of shelving the dispute and entering into joint development projects in the region.
But it has not said anything about the fact that the tribunal has questioned its very claim to territorial entitlements for the artificial islands that it has constructed. Neither has it commented on the tribunal’s refusal to accord the Nine Dash Line any status in international law.

The choices before China are quite stark. It can aggravate the situation by evicting the Philippines from the Scarborough Shoal and building an artificial structure on it. Or, station fighter aircraft on the artificial islands and declaring an ADIZ over the South China Sea.
A base in Scarborough Shoal would be just 185 nm from Manila and at a strategic location that would be unacceptable to Washington DC. Such a posture will bring it to a dangerous edge in its relationship with the US, which is treaty-bound to support the Philippines.
China cannot easily ignore the US. Besides their trade, which tops $560 billion, and China’s holdings of $1.3tn US treasury securities, there is a huge government-to-government and people-to-people interaction between the two countries. A conflict over the South China Sea would be disastrous for both, as well as the international community.
Historically, countries like the US, Russia and other great powers have resisted rulings of international tribunals, but they have all, subsequently, found ways of arriving at an accommodation. The US and EU should work to manage the fallout in a manner that does not compel China to lose face, and, more important, feel that its security is in any way imperilled. Hopefully, China is looking for an honourable exit.
If it is, then quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy can be undertaken to moderate and then eliminate the tensions. This could be by first allowing Filipino fishermen to access Scarborough Shoal, in exchange for the Philippines withdrawing its military contingent from the Second Thomas Shoal. Second, China could freeze and then roll back its artificial island construction activity. Actually, what the verdict has done is to reduce the area of maritime claims of all the claimant states by declaring that none of the features of the Spratlys Islands are true ‘islands’ entitled to a territorial sea and a 200nm EEZ, though some could be classed as rocks visible at high tide and have a 12nm territorial sea. This is, then, an opportune moment for them to de-escalate and go in for genuine negotiations. Further, China and ASEAN could move forward in working out the long stalled Code of Conduct.
As the most powerful state among the claimants, China needs to think hard about the consequences of conflict with the US, as well as buying permanent hostility of its South-east Asian neighbours by denying them their rightful maritime claims by the use of force. It needs to think hard, too, about its reputational damage as an emerging great power.
Mid-Day July 19 2016