| by Samar
( November 15, 2012, Hong Kong,
Sri Lanka Guardian)
In the popular discourse mere mention of Indian Army evokes two extreme and
mutually incompatible responses. The believers see it as the last standing holy
cow of the chaos called Indian nation, one that is incorruptible in the face of
corruption that has become the new normative and remains fiercely apolitical
when everything else is politically inclined, and dirty by extension. Ask the
wretched fellows stranded on the wrong side of post-colonial history, and
Indian army comes as a brutal occupying force that derives sadistic pleasures,
and of course patriotism, from maiming, raping and killing the very people it
is supposed to protect.
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The same Indian army which has doggedly refused to be dragged in ‘civilian strife’ raging in the jungles of central India does not think twice before shooting at teenage protesters! Do the responses seem to come out of the same forces?
Intriguingly, the conspicuous
contradictions run along the axes of geo-political realities and not along the
premodern structures like caste, creed and religion that produce a million
fissures underneath the modern and democratic body politic of the nation. If,
contrary to this, they really do, then Indian army deserves a lot of praise for
concealing them with exceptional aplomb. It maneuvers its ruthlessness in a
continuum that is directly proportional to its operational distance from the
national boundaries and, thus, earns a genial and almost affable image exactly
where it matters.
Isn’t a sight where one find minorities,
particularly Muslims, otherwise almost always persecuted by the law-enforcing
agencies rooting for army in the middle of any riots as much a condemnation of
a state claiming to be a secular, socialist and democratic republic as it is an
honour for the Army? Haven’t we found this to be the case more often than not,
be it Uttar Pradesh, Andhra or Gujarat? In fact, many a studies have
corroborated the allegations against the local civil and armed police and found
them siding with the rioters belonging to the majority community and ensuring
heavy losses of life and property over the hapless minorities.
Army, as opposed to them, has almost
always found to be impartial law-enforcer. Indian army has merely bolstered its
image with its dogged opposition to the government’s attempts of dragging it to
contain the ‘Maoist’ insurgency that has spread over many parts of erstwhile peaceful
parts of central India. Its treatment of the problem as a civilian conflict
which should be dealt by the civilian administration has not only helped its
case of not getting dragged into a war with its own people but also has stopped
the insurgency from fanning out into a full-blown civil war. This army, unlike
many others in the subcontinent, seems to know the rules of engagement with
citizens as against the enemy.
Not really, for the rosy pictures gives
way to a thorny reality once one starts getting close to the international
borders. The same army which enjoys the confidence of the minorities even in a
state as communally volatile as Gujarat loses all of that in Manipur. Think of
it, Manipuri Hindus belonging to the majority religion of India are as fearful,
and scornful, of the Indian army as are the Christians of Nagaland and Muslims
of Kashmir. Interestingly, in these ‘disturbed’ areas, the army that takes pride
in its secular credentials starts speaking a language rooted in theology and
vouches for black laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1956(AFSPA) as
being pious and indispensable for its operations.. Ask them how they contain
riots in rather mainstream parts without such protection, and they repeat that
AFSPA is pious.
Dig a little deeper and a thousand
skeletons come tumbling out of the closets of the Indian army. The skeletons
are of those who are otherwise buried inside yellowing files that declare them
to be ‘missing’, sometimes for decades and deny, in the process, closure to
their kith in kin. The skeletons must have belonged to someone like us, alive,
before finding their bullet-ridden bodies getting summarily buried in over
2,700 unmarked graves scattered across three districts of Kashmir. Think of the
existence of 2,700 unmarked graves whose existence even Indian government could
not wish away and was shamed into ordering a probe into. Sometimes the dead
scream louder than the living, don’t they?
The stories of such bravery of Indian
army are not limited to otherwise serene and scenic province of Jammu and
Kashmir alone. It has received many such medals in the North-East of the
country, ironically, just as scenic as Kashmir and therefore dubbed as the
‘lost paradise’ in the ‘incredible India’ campaign launched by the tourism
department of Indian government. Paradise it certainly is, at least for those
who were sent to their graves by the Indian army. In these parts of the
country, epitaphs do not remain as epitaphs; they turn into the medals
decorating the officers of Indian army. Look intently at them and one can read
the stories of bravery of army officers inscribed in bright red letters on
these epitaphs.
Top brass of both the Army and the civilian
administration is well aware of the situation. They keep on responding to the
enormity of the problem as well. The responses center around warning the
‘erring officials’ and ‘repeated’ adoption of policies named like ‘zero
tolerance regarding human rights violations’. They also keep directing their
field commanders to ‘exercise maximum restraint’, appeal them to ‘use minimum
force’, that too ‘in good faith’. Then the field commanders respond by nabbing
a young, unarmed surrendered militant to compensate for their failure to
apprehend real ones, drag him inside a medical shop, and come out with the dead
body of his. That a heavily pregnant unarmed civilian Rubina was also killed in
the ensuing melee is beside the point for Indian army does believe in the idea
of ‘collateral damage’ even if it does not acknowledge that. They could have
justified even this had Tehelka, a reputed newsmagazine, not brought out
definitive photographic evidence of him being unarmed.
Then the field commanders in Kashmir
follow it up by shooting to kill teenagers pelting stones at their armoured
convoys knowing fully well that the stones contain no significant risk either
to the vehicle or the soldiers inside. They do it with such aplomb that even
the Prime Minister of the country has to wake up from his slumber and take
note. It does not really matter that it takes him more than two months and
fifty killings for doing so, does it? He then acknowledges that militant
activities in the state had been ‘curtailed’ and now it was the ‘public order
dimension’ that has become ‘a cause of serious concern’. Standing true to his
affable image, he called upon the officers for revisiting the ‘standard
operating procedures and crowd control measures to deal with public agitations
with non-lethal, yet effective and focused measure.’
The same Indian army which has doggedly
refused to be dragged in ‘civilian strife’ raging in the jungles of central
India does not think twice before shooting at teenage protesters! Do the
responses seem to come out of the same forces? Not really, for its not only the
Army but Indian polity itself which is so fiercely divided over the ways to
deal with the ‘insurgency’ or the ‘public order’ problem or whatever it is in
the border areas. Nothing defines this rupture more than juxtaposing the calls
of Omar Abdulla, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and those of Cabinet
Committee on Security. Mr. Abdullah’s appeal to the security forces for
exercising ‘maximum restraint’ was followed by Cabinet Committee ordering the
same forces for ‘maximum crackdown on the miscreants’.
How does, then, the army maintains its
affable and pro-people image in the largely peaceful northern and southern
provinces of the country. Simple, it does that by employing the same methods
which it does to maintain its ‘clean’ and ‘incorruptible’ image despite having
a long and shady history being knee deep in corruption. It keeps itself aloof
from the local nexus of corrupt officials and influential politicians and
steers clear of controversies. The ‘image’ of the army gets a much bigger
boost, though, from the fact that it does never meddle into muddy waters of
‘politics’.
Politics being ‘the dirty thing’ for the
middle classes; an apolitical army got to be loved by the middle classes, is
not it? It is politics, after all, that stands as the single biggest hindrance
to their efforts of usurping all sources of power including the public opinion
and dissent. The army, however, does not return the favour. It views and treats
the ordinary folks with a little disgust; a disgust betrayed by the way the
army men look down upon ‘civilians’.
This is the contradiction that defines
the behavior of army men right from the level of ordinary soldier to top
general. They perceive themselves as the Brahmins of Indian society, pure,
incorruptible and virtuous unlike the ordinary civilians. Dig a little deeper,
however, and this façade collapses like a house of cards. The inside stories
from this holy cow institution are not only haunted by a thousand scams, they have
had shady characters like Adnan Khashoggi and Chandraswami as their lead
protagonists.
The bogey of the scams within army that
started with Jeep scam soon after the independence and ended up making
Jawaharlal Nehru cry during the debate in the parliament did never end. Forget
the ones like Tatra trucks and Bofors, the arms lobby that operates within the
army, in fact, did not think twice even before minting money out of the coffins
of soldiers who laid their life for the country in the Kargil war. So much to
support the claims of army being the infallible institution defining the
country!
This is why the army needs to confront
with itself to resolve all these contradictions. The honour of the Indian army
lies in the fact that unlike its counterparts in many other countries,
including Pakistan and Bangladesh, it has never ever challenged the
constitution that imbues sovereignty in the people and makes them supreme. It
had won laurels for the patience it showed in tough operations like Operation
Blue Star. It has earned respect for its dogged refusal to get dragged into
civilian conflicts like the one raging in Bastar and other parts of central
India.
The same army, however, recently has
been in news for all the wrong reasons. Its soldiers have repeatedly violated
the fundamental rights of the citizens they are duty bound to protect in areas
dubbed as ‘disturbed’ under a draconian and bad in law act Armed Forces Special
Powers Act. There had been skirmishes between the soldiers and the officers.
Its formal general has gone to the Supreme Court against the government that
had appointed him, a first in the hitherto unblemished history of Indian Army’s
complete submission to the civilian administration that is the most crucial
guarantee for a functioning democracy. To top it all, it has, reportedly, moved
two of its units towards Delhi without prior permission of the government. It
is no one’s case that the practice was an attempt of coup or something like
that, yet, the fact it happened with the general being embroiled in a legal
battle with the government makes it alarming.
The point is simple, it is high time for
the army to reengage not only with its own soldiers but also the general
population which it disdainfully refers to as ‘civilians’. It must sensitise
its soldiers against violating the human rights of ordinary citizens of India
irrespective of wherever they live. It must immediately stop to treat states
like Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland, Manipur and Assam as enemy territories and
their people as enemy combatants. It must instill within them the same sense of
confidence it evoked within the minorities of Gujarat facing the worst ever
pogrom against them, orchestrated and led by the state authorities.
Unfortunately, this seems to be a tall
order for an army that tries to goes out of the way to protect its officers
guilty of violating human rights of their fellow citizens. Remember the former
general V.K Singh who confessed that he could not do anything against the
person, including senior army officers, who offered him a bribe for making arms
deal, and the job looks like an impossible one. The stakes are rather high,
though, to let the job of reforming army from within unfinished.
The laws of the land and rights of its
citizen are one and the same. We must realize that if an army officer can get
away with impunity after violating the rights of a fellow citizen in Kashmir,
however deeply entrenched in mainstream India we are, we would not remain safe
for long. Every such violation of the rights of a citizen of India, therefore,
threatens the democracy. We have not gone the Pakistan, or Bangladesh way till
now partly because our army did not go that way either and we need to keep the
record unblemished. Sensitising the army men regarding the human rights of
citizens and demolishing the arms lobby can be a beginning.
Samar is Programme
Coordinator , Right to Food, Asian Human Rights Commission
 In the popular discourse mere mention of Indian Army evokes two extr...){kind=link}