The Army's Law Can Be Harsh But Going Soft Can Make Things Worse

Major Leetul Gogoi’s latest escapade is nowhere near as serious as his first claim to infamy. He was briefly detained after an altercation at a Srinagar hotel over the establishment’s refusal to allow him into his room with a young Kashmiri woman. The woman told a magistrate later that she accompanied Gogoi of her own free will. At this level, the incident could well be a romantic assignation between two consenting adults. But given Gogoi’s past, questions remain. In any case, it was most indiscreet – if not dangerous – for him to go to a downtown Srinagar hotel to meet the woman.

The army has set up a court of inquiry into the incident and no doubt the first question the major would have to answer is how he was in Srinagar, where the army has no counter-insurgency role.

There are, perhaps, bigger questions over what kind of a relationship Gogoi had with the girl who is just about 18 years old. She is from a poor family and lives in a village outside Srinagar. Given the way the army looks at these things, there will also be issues about Gogoi’s marital status.

As things unfold, there will be interconnected issues relating to morality and the military as well as the somewhat difficult to grasp issue of “honour”. The reason is that the military is an authoritarian organisation functioning in a democracy. That is why it has its own system of law codified in the Army Act and its counterparts for the air force and the navy.

The Act shows how draconian the military can be when, in its Chapter VI, it lists the offences that are subject to a death sentence – desertion, cooperating with the enemy, surrendering, sleeping or being drunk on duty. Just abetting any of these crimes would fetch you 14 years’ imprisonment.

Video grab of Farooq Ahmed Dar tied to the bonnet of the Major Leetul Gogoi’s jeep as a ‘human shield’.

Being absent without leave or overstaying your leave can get you three years jail. But the more complicated issues come up in section 45 which speaks of “unbecoming conduct” – where an officer who “behaves in a manner unbecoming his position and the character expected of him” shall, if convicted by court martial, if he is an officer, be liable to be cashiered. Section 50 – unnecessary detention of a person or his confinement – can get you two years’ imprisonment.

The army punishment of cashiering is dramatic. It is designed to dishonour a person who has violated the army’s code of honour. The officer is publicly paraded, his epaulettes of rank removed, his shirt untucked, his decorations stripped, and he is frog-marched back to his cell. He also loses his retirement benefits. In the mid-1960s, this writer witnessed one at a regimental centre. It is not clear if this ceremony is still carried out, but the punishment is very much in the books.

There are other sections of the Act which can be quite all-encompassing. Section 46, which gives seven years’ imprisonment for “disgraceful conduct of a cruel, indecent or unnatural kind.” And section 64, which punishes a commanding officer for not acting on a complaint that his men have ill treated civilians, or intentionally insulted the religion and religious feelings of people.

By and large, murder and rape are left to the civil law, except if the personnel in question are in active service. In that case, the issue is handled through a court martial.

The army is particularly sensitive to issues like adultery, especially when it involves a “brother officer’s wife,” though adultery is really a civil law issue. In 2017, for example, a GCM (general court martial) found a brigadier guilty of having an adulterous relationship with a colonel’s wife. He was cashiered from service and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. In 2000, a lieutenant general commanding the Leh Corps was asked to put in his papers for being involved with another officer’s wife. In 2009, the army dismissed Major General A.K. Lal for molesting a woman officer.

In recent times, the armed forces tribunals have been arguing that the military take a more lenient view of extra-marital affairs given the changed social milieu. However, many disagree with this and say that sexual peccadillos need to be curbed in the military in the interests of good order and discipline. They say that even countries like the United States punish extra-marital activity. Last year, Maj General Wayne Grigsby of the US Army was forced to resign because of an “inappropriate relationship” with a female captain on his staff. Another officer, Lt Gen Ron Lewis, a top adviser to the US defence secretary, was demoted for using his government credit card at strip clubs. In 2015, Brigadier Jeffery Sinclair was demoted two ranks for an affair with a subordinate.

The latest incident involving Major Gogoi may be a good time for the army to revisit the importance of emphasising morality and ethical conduct in operations in Kashmir. In a 1998 lecture to the Defence Services Staff College, the army’s venerated Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw placed moral courage above physical for those moving into higher command positions in the military. He defined moral courage as “the ability to distinguish right from wrong, and having done so, to say so when asked, irrespective of what your superiors might think.”

In 1994, another chief, General B.C. Joshi, issued a set of Ten Commandments for troops involved in counter-insurgency in the North-East and Kashmir. These were printed on cards to be carried by the troops at all times. Among its first three elements were: No rape, no molestation, no torture resulting in death or maiming. It enjoined personnel to respect human rights in general and uphold dharma, defined as “ethical mode of life – the path of righteousness)”. It was during his tenure that the army also tightened up its procedures to punish wrong-doing by its own personnel in Kashmir.

Coffin of a Machil fake encounter victim being carried by locals. Credit: ANI Files

In recent years, we have seen questionable stands taken by the army leadership on a number of issues. Perhaps the most serious being the Machil fake encounter where three persons were killed and passed off as militants by rogue army personnel. After attempts to thwart justice, an army court martial had sentenced five people to life imprisonment. Last year, an armed forces tribunal suspended the judgment on dubious grounds.

The armed forces are guided by the Geneva and Hague conventions when they are involved in conflict, whether it is conventional war or counter-insurgency. India has signed the four basic Geneva Conventions, but it has refused to accept Additional Protocols I and II, the second of which deals with internal conflict.

In any case, it has been argued that Article 3, which is common to all the four Conventions to which India is a party, commits combatants and non-combatants who are no longer involved in hostilities, though they may be in the conflict area, to be treated humanely. Further, it prohibits any kind of violence to life and person, cruel treatment, taking of hostages and outrages on personal dignity.

To go back to Gogoi, the problem may have been his lenient treatment by the army authorities in the first place. He had definitely broken domestic law by taking a hostage, and most certainly violated sections 46 and 50 of the Army Act. And he clearly violated Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which has the force of domestic law ever since the passage of the Geneva Conventions Act of 1960.

The army’s emphasis on honourable conduct is not some throwback to medieval notions of war, but a practical need to ensure good order and discipline in an institution that wields so much power. Internal conflicts generate a huge amounts of stress for all armies, the Indian army is no different. But it is upto its leadership to re-discover the ethical roots that Manekshaw and Joshi emphasised.

The Wire May 29, 2016

A younger army: How India can move forward on defence reforms despite budgetary constraints

Next Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Singapore as the keynote speaker in this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence summit. Defence officials and military chiefs of regional and western alliance countries, are eager to hear what he has to say. India is currently billed as the Great White Hope of the anti-China alliance in what is now termed the Indo-Pacific. So far New Delhi has been generous on rhetoric and low on substance. But expectations will be that Modi announces measures to dramatically raise India’s military profile in the region.

Modi’s India fancies itself as a “net security provider” and a “leading power” that shapes rather than reacts to policies. But its key instrument – the military – is in a parlous state. Indian navy ships, some state of the art otherwise, lack long-range anti-submarine protection because it has not been able to clinch a deal to acquire 147 medium multi-role helicopters. Indian submarines, especially the modern Scorpenes, lack heavyweight torpedoes used to sink vessels at some distance. As for the second indigenous aircraft carrier, it seems to have been shelved at a time when China is making them on an assembly line.

Each of the three services have critical deficiencies, even though India is the world’s largest importer of major arms. Earlier this year, a report of the Parliament’s standing committee on defence cited the serving army vice-chief as saying that 68% of his force’s equipment was of the “vintage category”.

The committee also revealed that India actually spends a huge amount of money for its defence. Officially, this year’s defence budget is Rs 2,79,305 crore. But this leaves out the astonishing Rs 1,08,853 crore in pensions and Rs 16,000 crore spent by the ministry of defence (MoD) itself. The real total is Rs 4,04,365 crore, 16.6% of all government expenditure. The capital expenditure to buy new equipment, Rs 93,982 crore this year and considered grossly inadequate, is 33% of the total capital expenditure of the Union government.

Increasing this would certainly be unconscionable in a country where nearly half the children suffer from stunting because of malnutrition. But at the same time the country cannot afford to have a million plus military in a condition where they cannot accomplish the tasks they are expected to do. The country’s leaders have been told this by the forces themselves and the various specialist committees who have recommended deep structural reform of our military and MoD. But the political leadership has lacked the will and the application to undertake the task.

Reform is needed at four levels – first, in insisting that the MoD be run on professional lines by specialists both civilian and uniformed. Second, to get the military to fight as an integrated force by appointing a chief of defence staff to lead the process. A third and separate level relates to the deep overhaul of the defence R&D and industrial system by bravely dismantling the current structure and reconstituting it on new and better terms.

A fourth more complicated level is that of manpower. India cannot afford its 1.2 million strong army. One consequence of this is the growing pension bill; another is that with salaries and allowances eating the budget, no money is left to buy equipment to modernise. One solution is to recruit most of the personnel for a limited time – 10 years or so – and shed them, minus pension. At an average age of 28 they should be mandatorily recruited into government services, especially the state police and paramilitary.

Government has recently set up a new defence planning committee (DPC) under the NSA to advise the MoD on these issues. Considering the limited time on hand for the principals of the DPC, one wonders what its goals are: To actually do something, or block the pesky parliamentary committee from highlighting these problems.

Times of India, May 26, 2018

Did PM Modi’s Honeymoon Travels Bring India Frequent Flyer Miles?

How is one to assess Narendra Modi’s foreign policy at the end of four years of his term? Certainly, it has been characterised by great energy – 36 foreign trips to 54 countries so far.

Some, like those to Palestine and Mongolia, were in the “first ever” category for an Indian PM. Others, even to important countries like UAE or Seychelles, were after three decades and more, even neighbours like Sri Lanka and Nepal had not seen an Indian PM in 28 and 17 years respectively.

What a 56” Hug Feels Like

Visiting US for the first time shortly after he took over in 2014, Modi wowed the Indian diaspora with a rock-star like appearance at the Madison Square Garden. The attendance of several senators, 30-odd representatives and a governor sent a powerful political signal to Barack Obama whom he would meet in Washington DC a few days later.

“You have given me a lot of love,” The New York Times quoted PM Modi telling his audience. “This kind of love has never been given to any Indian leader, ever.” Foreign policy has been as much about the country as about Modi himself, his image as a global leader who can hug a Trump and call an Obama by his given name.

There is the Modi-touch in his style, the 56” chest spread on a larger canvas. So instead of inviting a head of government or two for his inauguration in 2014, he invited all the heads of SAARC governments. 

Likewise, instead of one chief guest at the Republic Day parade this year, Modi persuaded the entire ASEAN leadership to line up. Chutzpah is not something he lacks.

Modi has torn up the protocol manual. His physical embraces are a legend, the measure of his favour is whether he receives or sees off a guest personally.

He sat the sedate Xi Jinping on a swing on the banks of the Sabarmati in Ahmadabad, did a chai pe charcha with “Barack” at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi, and took French President Emmanuel Macron for a boat ride in Varanasi.

This is the style that must have persuaded the normally stiff and protocol-conscious Chinese to agree to an unprecedented informal summit in Wuhan in April.

Fleeting Romances

In many ways, his foreign policy is about telling the world that now that Modi is here, India’s assumption of ‘great power’ status will be accelerated. His ideas were articulated by his Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar who declared in Singapore in 2015 that India was now “a leading power, rather than just a balancing power.” There is a certitude of sorts in the worldview of Modi and the RSS that India is the Vishwa Guru (universal teacher/leader).

But wishes can only achieve so much. At the end of the day, your policy also has to factor in the behaviour of your foreign interlocutor. By that measure, the Modi foreign policies have, in the main, largely followed the footsteps of his predecessors.

Though there has also been a marked whimsicality, as evidenced by its marked U-turns on Pakistan, China, and Nepal.

But when you do the math, the outcomes are disappointing, in great measure because of the Modi government’s own actions. In the neighbourhood, Modi first befriended Nepal, then blockaded it and now wants to be friends again. On Christmas Day 2015, he descended on Lahore to celebrate Nawaz Sharif’s birthday. A week later, the Pakistan Army responded with the Pathankot attack. Since then, India has sought to corral Pakistan on account of terrorism, but with little success.

As for China, after an early exchange of visits by the leaders of the two countries, relations went south when New Delhi sought to shame Beijing into supporting its membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and to have Masood Azhar declared a terrorist in a UN listing.

India gains nothing but prestige by becoming an NSG member, and a UN listing would hardly curb Azhar, just as it had not done Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Hafiz Saeed who had been listed in 2008.

New Delhi very publicly boycotted the Belt and Road Forum in 2017, even though its partners like the US and Japan participated. It took the Doklam standoff and the prospect of Chinese stirring up the border on an election year to convince Modi to return to a more realistic low-key approach towards China. As it is, flush with cash, Beijing is now surging all over India in its own backyard of the South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region.

Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Addressing a joint session of the US Congress in June 2016, Modi uttered that memorable phrase that spoke of the two countries overcoming “the hesitations of history”. But the reality is that the ties with the US show incremental enlargement more than anything else. Modi’s signing up to a Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean and signing a base-sharing agreement was merely building on foundations established by the Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh governments.

Likewise, India’s ties with Japan have followed a script laid out first by the Vajpayee government, helped, no doubt, by Shinzo Abe’s prime ministership and Chinese assertiveness.

Perhaps the greatest and often unstated gains of a Modi foreign policy has been in the Middle East where he has managed to maintain and build upon a delicate relationship which balances India’s interests with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel and Iran. This is an area which India has had to navigate alone since the US conception of the Indo-Pacific does not include the north Arabian Sea.

In foreign policy, as domestic, Modi is driven by a deep desire to achieve things.

However, as of now, he has not quite managed to make the kind of impact he has wanted to. In great measure, this is because he has not been able to accelerate India’s economic development or use his Digital India, Skill India, Make in India or Start Up India to generate jobs, enhance skills, and accelerate manufacturing. The foreign policy consequences of an economically resurgent India are obvious.

In the meantime, the world will not stand still. Modi must face elections in 2019. Somewhat chastened, he is now reaching out to China and Nepal, and reportedly also to Pakistan.

In the meantime, he must factor in the disruption that Donald Trump could create in an area of his great success – the Middle East. Runaway oil prices, and, god forbid, war, would spell disaster as much for the region as for India.

The Quint, May 26, 2018

The last thing Beijing needs at this time is a trade war

Under US President Donald Trump, relations with China have a dramatic edger. There was a touch of Trump’s prime time show, The Apprentice, in the flourish with which he declared that he would extend a lifesaver to the Chinese telecom giant ZTE which was on a death watch after the impositions of US sanctions by his own administration. That touch was there in first snubbing in February, and then welcoming to Washington this month, Liu He, China’s Vice Premier and economic czar.

Now after a week of negotiations between a Chinese team led by Liu and an American one by Steve Mnuchin in Washington, the two countries appear to have a deal. China is now committed to buy more US agricultural and energy products aimed at reducing the yawning trade deficit between them. ZTE’s fate remains unknown as of now. Trump’s boast on instructing his department of commerce to help the beleaguered Chinese giant led to a barrage of criticism that his action was cocking a snook at the law.

The joint statement issued on Saturday has spoken of “meaningful increases in US agriculture and energy exports”. China’s trade surplus with the US was a record $375 billion in 2017. In all this, we do not know what part of Trump’s dealings with Kim Jong Un are a side-scene, but as is evident, the twists and turns are theatrical.

Trump’s handling of the ZTE issue clearly reveals his taste for staged about-turns. The US Commerce Department issued crippling sanctions against the company whose products are dependent on US components and software. The action was perfectly legal since the ZTE knew what it was up to when it exported its products to countries like Iran and North Korea which were under American sanctions.

Reportedly, Xi Jinping himself took up the issue of the company with Trump who tweeted on May 13 that Xi and he were working together to give a life line to the company and that the US Commerce Department had been instructed to get it done. In targeting ZTE, the US discovered a weapon whose potency it was probably not aware of, and now it also has Huawei in its crosshairs, and this is something that is giving Beijing sleepless nights.

The joint statement has only alluded to what many believe is the real problem: The American belief that China is using state-owned companies to promote the forced transfer of technology and cyber espionage to undermine the US technological lead. It has said that “both sides attach paramount importance to intellectual property protections and agreed to strengthen cooperation.”

Both sides are aiming for something more than just trade. The US wants to thwart China’s technological ambitions as much as Beijing wants to foster them. The US delegation that went to China earlier this month, clearly signalled that it was not in it for just the trade. They wanted Beijing to not only reduce the its trade balance, but open up markets and protect intellectual property. Further, they demanded that China not use the WTO mechanism to delay action.

Meanwhile China also has longer term aims. It is working on a two-track plan, one that seeks internal reform and a wider opening up to the world, and another to build up critical industries to prevent ZTE-like situations in the future. In a recent meetings and speeches, Xi is sounding the theme of China taking charge of its own technological destiny. The Chinese see the current battle as similar to the one they had to fight when the Soviets abruptly cut off aid in the 1960s. They see the American actions as aimed to block their “Made in China 2025” policy. In their view, it is about the US seeking technological hegemony and thwarting China’s rise.

The US has been conscious of the Chinese strategy of technology acquisition. Now a new American bill is being mooted to expand the powers of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to target Chinese tactics more effectively.

The Europeans, too, are waking up to the challenge though somewhat late.

Almost everyone is agreed that China would be a loser in a trade war with the US because its positive trade balance does not leave it with enough products to impose retaliatory tariffs on. More important, it confronts structural issues relating to its growing massive fiscal deficit, declining exports, dependence on US exports, its mountain of debt, the distrust it has generated in foreign enterprises.

Economic reform is, therefore, vital for China, and the process is finally underway following Xi’s consolidation of authority. The last thing Beijing needs at this time is a trade war. China wants to work along a policy “with Chinese characteristics”. But the US under Trump is in no mood to accommodate them beyond a point. But Washington, too, must realise that a trade war could be mutually ruinous. There is more leverage is to be had by effectively shaping the Chinese reforms rather than creating conditions that could prevent them from taking place.

Hindustan Times May 23, 2018

Modi-Putin meet: As global ties are being disrupted, a vital moment to shore up an old relationship

Reportage from Sochi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday has been sparse. This is, of course, by design. Modi has been innovative if not anything else in his foreign forays. He has patented the use of official visits abroad to drum up support for his agenda at home.

Now Modi has come up with a new feature: informal summits to reach out to key foreign leaders. Like his meeting in Wuhan with China’s President Xi Jinping in April, his meeting with Putin was “agenda-less”. Unlike Wuhan, which was spread over two days and featured delegation-level talks, the Sochi meeting was held over nine hours, and remained an interpersonal interaction between the two leaders.

The Indian statement on Sochi spoke of the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries, the words “special and privileged” signifying its uniqueness as a category among scores of strategic partnerships. A suggestive point was made about the importance of “building a multi-polar order” and the significance of the long-term partnership between the two countries “in the military, security and nuclear energy fields”.

Some nuances can also be captured from the opening remarks made in Sochi, according to news reports. Modi thanked Putin for helping India get a permanent membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In turn, Putin noted that “our defence ministries maintain very close contacts and cooperation. It speaks about a very high strategic level of our partnership”.

Modi made sure to make the point that India is in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, an outfit championed by China, courtesy the Russians. For his part, Putin seemed to remind Modi of the important business they had on the defence front, at a time Russia’s share of the Indian arms market was declining.

The Russian view, revealed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the meeting, said that the two sides focused on economic cooperation. This is a major area of weakness between the two countries whose relationship is dangerously dependent on the arms and energy trade. The decision to institute a Strategic Economic Dialogue between India’s NITI Ayog and the Russian Ministry of Economic Development is a welcome step in this direction.

Lavrov claimed that the two sides were against a bloc architecture for security in the Asia-Pacific. Bloc here means a grouping like the Quadrilateral – consisting of Australia, India, Japan and the US – which China and Russia are not part of.

It is unlikely that India would have criticised a group of which it is a member. Though, New Delh, a member of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, would hardly support any group that excludes its partners in that grouping either.

Looking ahead

Action on substantive issues, both economic and military, could come up in the formal annual bilateral summit between India and Russia in October. This could include discussions on a free trade zone between the Eurasian Economic Union and India, further movement in the International North South Transportation Corridor (to move freight between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and Central Asia), and further cooperation in the energy sector. This area has been boosted by the reworking of the Liquefied Natural Gas supply agreement with Gazprom and the purchase of Essar oil by the Russian giant Rosneft. As for the military side, the major issues relate to the purchase of the S-400 air defence system and the Russian proposal for the manufacture of Ka-226T utility helicopters for the military. There are a number of other offers, such as that for the Project 75I submarines, and the more sensitive Indian quest for nuclear-powered attack submarines.

Modi referred to the India-Russia cooperation on BRICS – the association of major emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and the International North–South Transport Corridor. First concieved of nearly 18 years ago, the transport corridor, involving ship, rail and road routes, is an ambitious venture whose time has come. But it is not clear whether the three partners behind it – India, Iran and Russia – are ready to create a multi-modal system that will link Indian ports like Kandla and Mumbai with Russia and Europe through the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. While test cargoes have been run, much more needs to be done to operationalise what could be a means of enhancing the weak non-military bilateral trade between India and Russia. But even as the three countries procrastinate, the Iran nuclear issue is casting its shadow on the region.

The shadow of CAATSA

India’s ties with Russia have been under strain for a while. The Ukraine issue and the resulting western sanctions have been steadily pushing Russia into the arms of China. On the other hand, New Delhi had made clear its interest in developing stronger ties with the US. This was manifested by the Joint Strategic Vision on Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean that it worked out with the US in 2015. This has been accompanied by greater acquisitions of military equipment from the US and the cancellation of important deals such as that relating to the India-Russia Fifth Generation Fighter.

The Russians are not too concerned about the Indo-Pacific, where in a way, their position as supporters of Vietnam is not very different from India. But as Lavrov noted, Russia is concerned about blocs that exclude them.

But now there is a bigger shadow looming – the US law called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. This law imposes sanctions on three countries, including Russia, Iran and North Korea and includes a section under which any country trading with Russia’s defence sector can face sanctions. More than 60% of India’s defence inventory comprises of Russian-origin equipment, many like submarines and missiles that the US itself is reluctant to provide. Under this Act, all this could be imperilled. There is talk of a waiver, but India needs to consider defence ties with a country that is wont to issue sanctions at the drop of a hat.

From the 1960s to 1980s, an antagonistic posture towards China cemented India and Russia’s ties with each other. But things have changed in recent years. India has become a significant customer of American weapons systems, while Russia has begun supplying its cutting edge fighters like the Su-35 to the Chinese. Beijing has also become the lead customer for Russia’s S-400 air defence systems.

In the past five years, the Sino-Russian embrace has tightened. The two countries have signed deals worth half a trillion dollars for the supply of oil and gas from Russia to China over the next quarter century. China has become an important source of Foreign Direct Investment to Russia and it is not surprising that Moscow has lined up with Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and even agreed to coordinate its Eurasian Economic Union activities with the Chinese. Last December, in a visit to New Delhi, Lavrov publicly called on India to join the Belt and Road Initiative.

Russia and Pakistan

Another visible shift has been in Russia’s approach to Pakistan. Last month, Russia began supplying Mi-35M assault helicopters to Pakistan, fulfilling a deal that was originally reached in 2015. Russian goals in Pakistan relate to its Central Asian commitments. Though it is under Chinese pressure in the region, it remains the region’s principal security provider and would like to retain its status there as its principal economic partner. In this, Russia views access to the Middle East through Pakistan as a major step. There has been a flurry of Russian investments in Pakistan, and the more Moscow is isolated in Europe, the more it turns East.

India and Russia have a relationship that has been tested by time and has served both countries well. But global relations are going through a period of unusual disruption. It was therefore useful for the leaders of India and Russia to put aside their other cares and focus for a brief while on the need to shore up their relationship.

The Scroll May 26, 2018

Why Modi government's Ramzan ceasefire in Kashmir is doomed to fail

The ceasefire ordered by the government is a poor copy of the one that was initiated by the Vajpayee government between November 2000 to May 2001. That was a carefully prepared event towards making peace in Kashmir by engaging the separatists and the militants and bypassing the Pakistanis.

A lot of behind-the-scenes work with the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) went into it. And it came apart because of systematic ISI pressure. First, after supporting it, the HM chief Salahuddin who resides in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, renounced his support.

Chaotic ceasefire

It was viewed seriously enough by the ISI that it triggered an attack on the Red Fort by Lashkar-e-Tayyeba terrorists and a suicide bombing at the headquarters of the Army’s 15 Corps in Srinagar. It led to severe infighting in the APHC and the eventual assassinations of the principal advocates of peace, HM deputy chief Abdul Majid Dar and Abdul Ghani Lone. Eventually, New Delhi threw in the towel and invited Musharraf for talks in Agra.

The current non-initiation of combat operations (NICO), to give the ceasefire a more precise name, comes in a confused and chaotic circumstance, in the middle of the government’s blood and iron strategy to finish off militancy for good in the state.

There is no doubt that the NICO will be a boon to the militants who have been under enormous pressure. But it has not even got token support from the militants of any stripe, or, for that matter, the so-called joint resistance leadership, who also doubles as the APHC.

From Clausewitz onwards, military strategists acknowledge that military operations are a means of fulfilling political ends. In the case of the Modi government in Kashmir, it is difficult to discern any other goals other than to militarily finish off the militancy.

Though the Prime Minister’s two-hour stop-over in Srinagar on Saturday to inaugurate a hydro project is being conflated as some kind of a political gesture, the fact is that there is no discernible political initiative accompanying the ceasefire. His last set of golden words, uttered while inaugurating another project in April, were his standard wordplay—“the youth of Kashmir have two ways ahead, on one hand you have tourism and on the other terrorism.”

There are problems with this approach and the current NICO appears to be aimed at heading them off. In what is increasingly appearing to be a failed policy, the removal of armed gunmen from the scene is only leading to their replacement by a radicalised mass of young Kashmiris who are increasingly ready to sacrifice their lives in attacking military convoys and even tourist groups with stones.

Mob fury

So far, rules of engagement have prevented mass casualties, but the recent lynching of a JCO and the killing of a tourist signal a situation that is slowly getting out of hand with the crowds escalating their violence using stones, Molotov cocktails. The Army is simply not trained to deal with this unless the government intends to give them the freedom to deal with the situation like the Israeli Army which does not hesitate to shoot at violent, but unarmed protestors.

The difference is that while the Israeli soldiers are killing “the enemy”, Indian soldiers will be asked to fire at their own unarmed, albeit violent countrymen.

Different tactics

The big challenge is to evolve tactics to deal with these mobs. For long it has been clear that the Army is not the right kind of force to deal with this because it is not equipped to handle violent but unarmed mobs. This is not an uncommon challenge, it is confronted by police forces across the world in Germany, France, South Korea or Brazil.

The handling requires special tactics, equipment, a very high level of training and psychological conditioning and a significant mass of personnel who would have to be deployed across the Valley.

Though the Modi government is an expert in appropriating ideas and icons, it seems to lack the creative ability or the executive skills to go beyond simple copying. The same seems to be the case with the ceasefire or NICO.

Experience should tell us that the problem has two tracks – the Pakistani and the domestic – which must be simultaneously engaged and the process synchronised in a manner that ensures that both move at the same pace.

Engaging one and not the other doesn’t work, neither does an uncoordinated procedure. More than anything else, it also requires a point man who has the prime minister’s authority. As of now, all these seem to be lacking and so, there is little chance that there will be any forward movement.

Mail Today May 21, 2018