Human Rights in the Context of Sub-conventional Warfare in India
Some sections of the media usually make much of West-askewed new fangled fads like animal rights, ecology, gay activism and what have you. The painful part is that, celebrity status prominent Indians too, are in the forefront in these matters; Mmes Medha Patkar, Arundhati Roy, Maneka Gandhi; Bahuguna, and Kaw to name just a few. Do these chaps really understand what they are mouthing? I doubt it. At least the environmentalists should also realize, that, hurdles in development in the name of rights of a few rustic land owners or on ecological concerns will only harm the poor in India in the longer run. Human-kind is superior and has priority over any dead dodo, exotic tropical fowl, bird-dog or jackal or jackass.
But, what really gets my goat is when even learned and know all jurnos and motivated organisations like the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC) and Amnesty International start bashing the Indian Army for its so-called human rights violations in the Valley. Wonder if they’ve heard of how the West was won by the US Cavalry for the White settlers. ..??
Will do these guys and gals good to hark back a few years and recall the state of the mutilated bodies of Indian soldiers taken PsOW in Kargil handed over to us at Attari .. . or even the rotting corpses returned to us some time after that the Pakistani Army in Suchetgarh. These were totally inhuman acts. They are wholly in contravention of the tenets of the Geneva Convention. No human rights activists will condone them. The blood letting of innocent by standers in Srinagar when an IED went off in their faces.. . .or the anguish on the faces of pilgrims on Amarnath yatra at having their fellow trekkers blown up by the foreign mercenaries.. . These are human rights violated in the most gruesome and callous manner.
Our human rights activists would do good to re-run in their minds a 1970s Hollywood award winning film titled “Soldier Blue”. It is all there. . the wiping out of entire settlements of the Sioux Red-Indians by trigger happy drunken US Cavalrymen. Indian Security Forces in J&K; by comparison; are saints and all restrain personified and should be canonized or some thing forthwith! Must give it to the Yanks, though for having produced such a moving movie and also such a litany of atrocities by the US military on film. Only the Americans have the courage of conviction (and funding) to go ahead regardless in fructifying such projects and getting away with it.
But then war is different ball game all together. . .every thing is fair in love and war .. as the wag said. . and counter insurgency operations a very sticky business, in the Indian context. I should know having had a taste of it in the North East and also a sad and sordid personal experience in J&K on a forward post on the Cease Fire Line, in the summer of 1965 (read my poem ‘Buzzard Feast’ inspired by this incident, appended below).
Not with standing the criticism of the security forces operating in J&K, particularly in the Valley, let it be said that, all reports of high-handedness are thoroughly investigated by formal institutionalised courts of inquiries, civil police inquests and probings by the media and NGOs. The guilty are brought to book promptly. Out of a total of 1290 allegations, till March 2008, only 53 ( a mere 4-5%) were found to have some basis. Even these have been settled in tune with the laws of the land & Security Forces regulations. The balance of 1242 cases have been amicably settled between the locals and the Indian Security Forces. The handing out of a seven year jail term to a serviceman for a gross misdemeanor in Doda was a good example of the dispatch with which the Indian Army deals with individual instances of excesses. Compare this with what the Pakistani army has been able to get away with in the erstwhile East Pakistan, despite the hue and cry from the very top in Bangladesh! Compare the Counter-Insurgency/militant operations of the Indian SF, with the fire-power intensive ‘could’nt careless’ ( about civilian/non-combatants’ casualties) attitude of Coalition ( read US Forces’) attempts to stem the insurgency in Iraq & Afghanistan. Or even how Pakistani Army is coping with in Waziristan; or even how the Brits managed to get the better of the IRA in Northern Ireland. All these operations are is in sharp & glaring contrast to the man-power ( ‘straight-legged infantry’ ) -intensive humane operations of the Indian Security Forces either in the North East, J&K or even now in Chathis-garh. ……
In our case the victims or their kith and kin get properly compensated in cash or kind or both. The Indian Army Headquarters publicises such cases in periodic briefings of the media. The ‘good copy’ hungry media, in turn, should lay off, and utilize their investigative journalistic talents on more purposeful efforts in other profitable fields.
The Indian Security Forces ( CPF, the Assam Rifles, but mostly Indian Army) have done a good & great job, they should be given more leeway to get on with it. They will continue delivering with the only way they know, that is firmness, and not with kid gloves on, else the government should let the IAS district administrators, civil courts and police forces handle the situation.
Buzzard Feast
( A Sequel to ‘Summer-Moonshine’)
By the time we returned to our FDL’s,
the sun, simmering through the pine, had
irrevocably broken the deathly dawn;
this time in new light;
now without doubt showing signs
of the lightening visitation by the Fifth Horseman,
the night before.
However,
the deathly silence was frequently
pierced by the swish of the high decibel bullets of the enemy
Brownings,
and the carrrumps of our three inch mortars,
in the clumps
of the rhododendron; fern
thicket and thorn
———- hope he makes it back ————————
through all this ——————–
safely……….. somehow.
during this transparently
hostile day
in May
Through the field glasses
I search the Western Re-entrant,
and all the spurs descending on Penga post,
and by and by,
I spy,
the extirpation——————-
also, the Turkey buzzard, the crow and the vulture feast
on dead ‘razaakars’, Rangers
and carcasses of buffaloes
and other assorted beast.
————— Days later.
the UN MOGIP slaps a formal cease- fire violation;
officially confirm the carnage.
That day in May,
the surviving sons-of-bitches
had been partying the carrion-scavengers
on slivers of
ole’ Kharke,
hacked by them with his very own ‘khukri’;
bit by very bit
whilst he was kicking still.
(The Writer Lt. Col A.K. ‘Sam’ Sharma is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Kharakvasla. Col Sharma was commissioned into the 3rd Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army in Februray 1964, He retired in 1997 after serving for 33 years. A graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, he holds a MSc Degree in Defence Studies from the Madras University. This officer has been on the instructional staff of two of Indian Army’s premiere training institutes: the College of Combat; now known as the War College; (Directing Staff Junior Command Wing-1972-1975) and the Infantry School ( Senior Instructor, Platoon Commander’s Wing—1984-87) both located in Mhow (MP); where he taught tactics at the unit and sub-unit levels to students, some of who were from friendly foreign armies. He has also served at the world- renowned Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. Col Sharma can be contacted at aksh9@airtelbroadband.in)