Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shocked the army, and possibly alienated it seriously, with his statement in Srinagar on Monday that under his Bharatiya Janata Party government “for the first time in 30 years, the army admitted its mistake”.
Already junior field commanders were simmering at the restraints placed on them by top generals in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). In a furious WhatsApp message that whizzed through army networks, junior officers blamed the deaths of eight soldiers in a militant strike near Uri on last Friday on tight operational restraints that were allegedly blunting the combat edge of front line units.
The perception that unit and sub-unit commanders’ hands are tied is rooted in two recent events. The first is the public admission (referred to by the prime minister) by Lieutenant General D S Hooda, the army’s top general in J&K, that soldiers at an army checkpoint made a mistake in shooting dead two Kashmiri boys on November 3 after their car ran an army check post near Chhattergam village in south Kashmir. An immediate court of inquiry swiftly found nine soldiers culpable and further disciplinary action will follow. The second event on November 15 was the awarding of life sentences by a court martial to five soldiers, including two officers, for cold-bloodedly murdering three innocent Kashmiri men who were cynically labelled terrorists. This will only be reinforced by the prime minister’s ill-advised statement.
In fact, while these events sent a powerful message through the army, there is nothing to support the allegation that soldiers unnecessarily died in the Uri attack because sentries hesitated to shoot at the militants as they approached the army post. The army rightly insists that soldiers manning a vehicle check post on a busy public road in broad daylight should be restrained in opening fire, even when suspicious behaviour is observed. Yet no commander has, or would, demand restraint from a sentry at an isolated post near the Line of Control when he sees figures approaching him during a night curfew. Army media managers have been active on social media, highlighting this crucial difference.
.The bull that nobody wants to take by the horns is the reality that as long as Kashmir remains a battleground between two opposing sets of heavily armed men, with both sets wary of being attacked any moment, errors like the one at Chhattergam will take place. No army conducts a serious counter-insurgency campaign in a heavily populated area without collateral damage. Mistakes will have to be condoned, or else transform the army’s mission to armed policing Even as the generals have ignored the possibilities of this virtuous spiral, New Delhi has failed to understand that hard men with guns cannot manage Kashmir forever .
Ajay Ahukla in the Business Standard
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