Targeted killings of Hindus in Valley and the Kashmir Puzzle

New Delhi: In a sudden spate of targeted killings by terrorists, nine civilians, including a bank official, migrant labourers, police officials, teachers, and sarpanches, have been killed in the past one month in the Kashmir Valley. Terrorists, with the aim of changing the demography of the valley, are aiming for another mass exodus of Hindus from the valley after the 1990s. A huge number of Kashmiri Pandits resettled in the valley and given government jobs are on the verge of leaving the valley for Jammu. Terrorism’s sole aim is to terrorise society into submission. Terrorists using country-made pistols are clearly frustrated and changed their strategy to target innocent men and women from Hindu and Sikh communities.

In the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India is battling a multi-pronged hybrid war against terror. Thirty years of bloodshed and still a clear path towards peace and stability in the region is far from sight. As we have seen in the recent decades that most of the modern battles have been hybrid in nature, so is the Proxy War of Kashmir. It shows the multidimensional nature of modern military missions. Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq are class examples of the western world’s ‘hybrid war’ or ‘three blocks war’ concept being put into action in the war against terror.

The Indian Army’s much-praised initiative ‘Operation Sadbhavna’ combined with ‘Operation All Out and simultaneous Disaster Relief Operations is one such successful implementation of the ‘Three block war’ wherein, the Armed forces are fighting in Block- one, while simultaneously helping secure, stabilize and nation build in Block- two, and all the while, you are also helping people through disaster relief, humanitarian help and peacekeeping in Block- three to win hearts and minds of common Kashmiri people and to create an atmosphere of harmony amongst all, ever since the year 1998.

We can say it without twitching an eyelid that the Indian Army’s Operation Sadbhavna is the best humanitarian aid for the terror-stricken people of the valley. The olive branch extended by Operation Sadbhavana rates amongst the best humanitarian aid and nation building operations ran by any military in the world but, is not found sufficient. The humbling efforts by the uniformed men and women are winning hearts, but people are still being radicalised, stones are still being pelted and pro-Pakistan slogans are still being shouted.

The Reasons

There are other blocks too in the battle zone, like fighting the Jihad, the separatism, the religious extremism, but we leave them un-defended. Thus, the continued losses in the last three decades. We have not put sufficient intellectual energy and resources, and work towards the other Blocks specifically and then all the Blocks together. Successful counter-insurgency must involve several dimensions, including all blocks.

The western concepts

While implementing western concepts in India, we forget that those powers have invaded those nations on the pretext of fighting ISIS and the Taliban. They are using brutal force and weapons of mass destruction, which include guns, missiles, tanks, and drones to eliminate the so-called bad terrorists. They are rank outsiders 
for the regions yet indulging themselves in a bloodbath and creating havoc amongst the common people with the sole aim of keeping winning the first block. 

The efforts in the other two blocks are for showing off and making a balancing act so that the heinous bloodshed and destruction can be justified with their namesake humanitarian aid work. 

The Three Block War Concept

The ‘three block war’ concept has many flows. As the battle gets fierce and bloody because of collateral damage, the soldiers become more and more unpopular. The guerrilla fighting with the terrorists has forced the soldiers into taking a heavily armed posture, many times against Kashmiri local boys who have become mujahidin under the influence of Pakistan-sponsored proxies.

The Kashmiris don’t seem to find the evil of their own people. Instead, the military fighting the Jihadist forces as a part of their duty to keep the society free from evil forces is finding itself in the line of abhorrence of the local people. We must open our eyes towards a fact that we are losing it socially in Kashmir. The olive green 
has become a symbol of hatred for a vast majority of people from five terror infested districts of the valley.

The US and their coalition forces have bombed Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to stone-age. No regime in India can ever afford to bomb its own lands - the godly valley of Kashmir and bring it to ruins. The Jungles of Pine and Deodar and oak, the apple orchards, the towns, the landscapes, the Himalayas, its inhabitants, and 
the whole valley itself are as much Indian as we all are. India’s wish in the Kashmir conflict is nothing less than a thumping win in all the Nine blocks which will ensure the return of ‘Jamhuriyat, Kashmiriyat and Insaniyat’. A pyrrhic victory in Kashmir is not something the Indians wish for.

A Thankless Civilisation

There can be no winners in a civil war. The idea of India must be religiously, socially and politically assertive in Kashmir. When a government spends so much of money and efforts into rehabilitation and reform of a civilization and gets pelted with stones, the signs are worrying and warrant immediate course correction and 
strict disciplinary actions against the people concerned. We have failed to take a single step for de-radicalization of unruly and thankless people from some parts of the valley. For an avid reader of India’s military history, one is disappointed with the lack of innovative thinking from the Indian think tank, while battling Kashmir 
issue.

Securing the Rear

Matter of fact, is that the troops fighting on the front can only march ahead if their rear is secure. Stone pelting, terrorism, separatists, Cease-fire violations, infiltrations from across the border, BAT attacks and the unholy spread of Jihadist propaganda through mosques, processions and cyber Jihad clearly show that our backyard is not safe & secure. The barrage of attacks by bombs, bullets, stones and abuses from the rear makes the soldiers vulnerable.

A soldier never fears the enemy from outside but, it is the enemy within that makes one’s knees 
weak in a war. A hybrid war lurking in your own backyard can only be won, when all ends are  secure. While deploying the Armed Forces to battle it out upon all the fronts of the Kashmir Chakravyuha, we are falling prey to con of the western way of war  fighting on foreign lands. As the struggle of Kashmir is happening in our backyard, our biggest strength should be our own people, who actually are our major 
weakness in the valley.

We should remember that Kashmir to India is not what Gaza is to Israel. The state of Jammu and Kashmir is and will remain an integral part of India.

Correction of Demographic imbalance

Kashmiri Pandit exodus in the 1990s changed the demography of the valley. The government of India must take immediate measures to correct the demographic imbalance. The current security scenario warrants placement of ex-soldiers in the valley. Once the Veterans have secured the Backyard, the government, along  with the forces, can go back to the drawing board and chalk out a successful strategy for total integration of the people and their souls.

The misplaced Uniformed Soldiers

The uniformed soldier is unequipped, vulnerable and living in the Jurassic age as far as modern society is concerned. The serving officers and Jawans hardly get any idea about the deep functioning of the civil society from their fortified uniformed lives. A young man joining the services at the helm of his youth, even 
before undergoing the grinds of our civil society and understanding its prevailing undercurrents, becomes a soldier. One got retired in the year 2012. It took me three years in the civil society to learn its ‘normal ways’. I think, up to some extent, every ex-serviceman will agree with me.

Why does the counter-radicalisation strategy necessitates deployment of Ex-servicemen?

A retired soldier with his 15 to 20 years’ service to the Nations in ‘the Indian Armed Forces’ equipped with some years of post-retirement experience in our unforgiving civil society is our best bet for securing our backyard. (The other left out blocks).

Why only ex-servicemen? Other nationalistic groups too are in the foray.

During their tenures in uniform and off it, the Ex-servicemen have showed their true 
Indian Colours. They have proven their mettle during every natural calamity, every 
civil unrest, and every war that this nation has fought. If we take the risk of 
deploying the rhetoric savvy nationalistic groups, too early into the valley. It will 
not be a wise decision.

The Ex-servicemen are well versed with the policies and functioning of the Armed Forces, thus the question of blue to blue kill doesn’t arise. Ex-servicemen, because they know when to stop being aggressive, because we do not want to create another monster to curb a monster in the exquisite valley of Kashmir. Earlier Successful Examples of the strategy of Placing of ex-servicemen to secure social and physical security I shall remind ourselves and the government, with some scintillating yet simple examples, how we have been securing our backyards:

The 1962 war with china and the subsequent 1965 war with Pakistan, made the Union government realise that there is an urgent need to address a strategic concern to secure and populate frontier areas with patriots. To put a stop to infiltration, aggression, espionage and other anti-national activities at borders. For this purpose, the government began running a scheme for rehabilitation of Ex-servicemen in the year 1969, under which 330-odd Ex-servicemen and their families were settled on the great Nicobar island of Campbell Bay.

The militarily sensitive and strategically important, Rann of Kutch which has seen aggressive Pakistani forays as a prelude to the war, is a barren region bordering Pakistan with a human population less than that of cattle, the then Gujarat government had devised a strategic policy and invited ex-servicemen from Punjab and Haryana, largely Sikhs, to settle down here in the aftermath of the 1965 war with Pakistan.

Despite of the severe hardships and natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami, it is the ex-servicemen who have provided the show of presence and intelligence in sparsely populated, sensitive and dangerous conflict zones and remote border areas and kept the Nationalistic favor high on the agenda.

It was said at the height of militancy in Punjab, ‘you can only contain terror, but cannot stamp it out. The perpetuators of terror exploited fault lines of the society in Punjab and in Kashmir. Religion was used as a tool to motivate the alienated youth to self-destruct. Eventually, the secessionist movement in Punjab ran 
aground because it could not find support from most of the masses, of which ex-servicemen were a large majority.

For my research on Kargil War I interviewed some war veterans each veteran uttered nearly the same words during the interview: “It pains so much, after the war that you are alive but have lost your brethren who have fought along with you.” “I wish, could have fought on and gave my life instead of allowing them to evacuate me after I got injured.” “My kids are grown up and settled now, I once again wish to pledge my life to the nation.” I would also like to quote martyred Sepoy Aurangzeb’s father, Veteran Mohammad Hanif, “I am ready to die to unfurl Indian Flag in Kashmir Valley.”

The Indian Armed Forces are in themselves like a big neighborhood village where people from different walks of life are recruited and cast into patriotic mold. The forces have recruited foot soldiers, technocrats, engineers, teachers, religious preachers from Maulavi to Priest and the Pujari. They all retire at a very young age 
and become ex-servicemen. Why don’t we unleash these ex-servicemen as our extreme nationalist weapons against the religious extremists, separatists, Stone palters and the Jihadist perpetrators against whom the armed forces have no jurisdiction, by settling them in the five terror-prone districts of the valley?

The Kashmir riddle can be brought near a solution once we can counter Jihadist and separatist propaganda with nationalist propaganda. At present, the only narrative coming out of the valley of Kashmir is the Pakistani 
propaganda narrative. The proxies of Pakistan are successful in selling the Azadi and Jihad to the world and the media. Pakistan can exert so much control over our people and our lands that we are seen on docks now and then.

The UNHRC reports, western media and Indian Liberals are playing the music Pakistan wants them to.
The ex-servicemen hold an advantage in the situation as they have previous experience of the functions of the Indian Armed Forces and can carry out social balancing acts in tandem with the will and wishes of the Government and the military. They hold the key to stability and safety of India from rogue adversaries 
and the enemies within.

While fighting the terrorists in the Kashmir valley, we have left the social flank unguarded. The Pakistan proxies successfully made the Kashmiri Pandits leave the valley and thus isolated the society, affiliated to the 
people of a single religion, Islam.

The entry of ex-servicemen in the valley will definitely see resistance by the Wahabi fanatics, there will be violent clashes and there will be deaths. The battle-hardened Retired Soldiers have repeatedly proven their mettle while in uniform and off it too.

Mass migration of veterans in the five terrorism-infested districts of the state of J& K can lead us towards bringing a permanent solution to the riddle of Kashmir. For complete decontamination of the citadel of Kashmir from 
radical Islam and Azadi gang, these soldiers must be drafted into every organization of the state, every office, every private company, every newspaper, television channel, every government office panchayat everywhere. The 28 lakh strong belligerent ex-Army of soldiers will definitely bring back the heavens in Kashmir.

There are reports that Russians are deploying their ex-servicemen in Ukraine and Syria also.The Abolition of Article 370 & 35A, Air Strikes, surgical strikes and Operation all out of the present Modi regime are considered as milestones in India’s modern Kashmir policy.

The Modi government has shown the political will and therefore, there is no reason for the Kashmir issue to linger on beyond the next five years. It is just a matter of time before the ‘chakravyuha’ will be breached and smashed.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author Manan Bhatt and do not reflect the views of Zee Media)