To tackle Kashmir, Army chief’s tough talk and action are need of the hour
Armed Forces' heads are supposed to be politically correct and stick to the safe and usual ‘We will give a fitting answer to external aggression' statements. But Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Bipin Rawat has, from the time of taking charge, been upfront and even bellicose in his response to the unrest in Kashmir valley. This has to do as much with his persona of a no-nonsense officer as it is to do with the prevailing political environment in the country. Soon after coming to office, Gen Rawat had made it known that stone-pelters and those who obstruct anti-terrorism campaigns of the Army would be treated as over-ground backers of militants and dealt with accordingly. And now, responding to criticism of the recent action of an Army Major who tied a stone-pelter to an Army convoy vehicle to ensure the safe passage of troops and Election Commission officials who had been surrounded by a violent mob armed with stones and acid bombs, he has said that “innovative” methods have to adopted by officers on the ground to tackle “dirty proxy wars”. Gen Rawat is absolutely right, because the situation in Kashmir cannot be always handled by the Armed Forces in a conventional manner. Critics of the Army Major's action and of remarks by the Army chief have not the slightest understanding or experience of the conditions on the ground, and yet they are ready at the drop of a hat to express their opinion. laughably, a representative of one of the communist parties, in a television talk show, actually said that the Major's decision to use a human shield went against the “rules of combat”. He was, and rightly so, derisively asked if he had seen a bullet in his life, let alone been in a combat zone to understand the rules he was talking of. Gen Rawat's stern stand has been fully backed by the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government, with several Ministers including Minister for Defence Arun Jaitley supporting both the COAS and the Army Major.
For far too long, the country has been fed with the impression that the Kashmir unrest has to primarily do with the discontent of the locals over the failure to reach a ‘political solution'. Mainstream regional leaders have been especially harping on this matter. Given the present situation and various revelations in the media on how the violence has assumed a religious fervour, the bigger and more dangerous agenda of the agitators and their patrons of seeking to establish an ‘Islamic caliphate' in Kashmir, is evident. Neither the separatists nor the paid street agents who throw stones and acid bombs on Indian security forces' personnel are seeking a political solution; they want dismemberment of Kashmir from the Indian Union. It may be so that a few of these stone-pelters are naïve participants, but a majority understands what it is up to and is still engaging in violence. Such people do not deserve a healing touch, but a response of the kind the Army chief has promised. Yet, the Army, despite grave provocations, has remained largely restrained — though there is anger and, naturally, increasing loss of patience. This is evident in Gen Rawat's remark, “I wish these people, instead of throwing stones at us, were firing weapons. Then I could do what I want.”