B.RAMAN
In our exitement over the revolution from nowhere sweeping across the Arab world and in our preoccupation with trying to understand what has been happening in Egypt, we should not fail to highlight and protest against the utter barbarity of the cold-blooded murders of two young Kashmiri Muslim girls at Sopore in Jammu & Kashmir by three suspects believed to be from the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) on February 1--- two of them suspected to be locals and the third suspected to be a Pakistani.
2. Such jihadi barbarity has been known in the past and continues in the present. Public opinion ought to be shocked and outraged not only by the act of barbarity that put an end to the lives of two innocent and young Muslim girls, but also by the deafening silence of large sections of the population of the Valley in general and by many---if not most--- of the separatist leaders in particular.
3. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Sajjad Lone, the dissident leader, need to be complimented for strongly coming out against this barbarity. The almost total silence of many others in the face of the courageous articulation by leaders like them of their outrage should not be a matter of suprise either. It had happened in the past and it continues to happen in the present.
4.These silent people never hesitate to condemn and protest every time there are allegations of excesses by the security forces. They never hesitate to come out in their hundreds and thousands and demonstrate in the streets against the security forces.
5. But they seem to have lost their voice, conscience and courage when innocent civilians were deliberately and barbarically killed by the jihadi terrorists. Their silence not only speaks of their physical and mental cowardice. Worse still, it also speaks of their willingness to tolerate and white-wash jihadi barbarity . Jihadi barbarity is understandable. That seems to be their view.
6. Silence in the face of barbarity amounts to complicity in the commission of barbarity. Not only is the cold-blooded murder of these two girls barbaric, the cold-blooded silence of these people is equally barbaric. Those who murdered these girls are guilty of barbarity in action. Those who remain silent are guilty of barbarity in mind.
7. One has not yet seen any strong reaction from roof-top liberals such as Arundhati Roy and her ilk to the barbarity perpetrated at Sopore. One should not be surprised if they come out with double-edged words to rationalise the act of barbarity while seeming to deplore it.
8. Our electronic media has done well in highlighting the barbarity and the accompanying criminal silence. They should keep it up. It should not be just a proforma outrage. It should be a real outrage.(2-2-11)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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10 comments:
Instead of word jihadi you could use some other word because it is a holy word for some people.
Esoteric,
How wrong can you be!!!
Firstly, just because ordinary people are not demonstrating their anger you say the grievances of the people is with the security forces??? Perhaps you don't know that the ordinary person is more AFRAID of the terrorists than Indian Military.
Why do we have 700K army for a few hundred jihadis? Don't you remember what happened when we vacated the high points for winter in Kargil sector? Jihadis occupied them. Then we had to fight to evict them! The Jihadis ran away like scarred dogs with their tails between their feet is a different story.
The few hundred jihadis are capable of mass murder mayhem through suicide bombings and IEDs. In a counter insurgency the ratio of enemy to army has to be this high.
We are fighting these pests for the last several years unsuccessfully?? What are you? 8??
Do you even know what was the situation in Kashmir in 1989? four hundred thousand hindus were thrown out of their homes and every day the militants killed scores. There was utter chaos! Today J&K is peaceful (the protests in summer were nicely stage-managed from Pakistan). THe borders are almost water tight and Jihadis fear to tread out of their homes. Almost every day the army has one or two kills and that too based on info from local intelligence.
India is WINNING this fight. Wake up and smell the sunshine :)
A similar uprising in Bangladesh resulted in a seperate country in a few months. Kashmir has been an honoured and equal (actually more than equal) part of India for the last 20 years!!! and will continue to be so for eternity...
Murder is murder.Its indeed strange that there were no calls for shutdown or protests for the killing of the two girls.On the other hand,in Shopian for instance there was a protest as the security forces arrested a boy for some petty crime.
There is no doubt that there is lack of trust of security forces and State/Central Govt.Its also true that separatists have support of the people and institutions,inside and outside the country.The grievances of people have never been barbarism by militants but by Indian forces.At the initial stage of militancy,the militants were targetting people who didnt want protection.Then why did we deploy the army there? Remember,attacks on the Army by militants was a phenomenon that started at a much later stage of the militancy.Well, the point is'nt about the deployment per se but the magnitude and duration.KPS Gill managed to finish off the Punjab insurgency and the army played only a minor role.
So the logic of 700k Indian army forces in J&K fighting a few hundred now or even a few thousand a few years earliar is difficult to fathom.If another J&K like situation develops say in Punjab,how will army then guard our borders??.
Deployment of the Indian army in J&K is atleast a 1 Billion USD Industry.Seed funded by a few million US dollar Separatist Industry.99% of the men in uniform are men of honor but 1% still might collude with babus,politicians and others to benefit from this deployment.Its in their interest to keep the pot burning.
Wouldnt have crack commandoes units gone after these militants rather than being sitting ducks in barracks.They end up spending much of their time and effort securing themselves..
Is this a rought replica of the AF-Pak US/NATO model where huge conventional forces fight a handful of militants for years unsuccessfully?..and yet best kills are secured by drone attacks.
Sarang,
Good Morning!
I agree with your first point,that people are more afraid of militants than security forces.The emotive appeal of protesting against the establishment exceeds that of protesting barbarity of people arguably fighting your own cause.
I doubt if the army is deployed in Kargil even today.The issue anyways isnt with deployment in border areas but rather in civilian one's.Have there not been allegations of excesses by forces?? It doesnt matter who the actual perpetrators were.People would rather believe the militants.No army is trained to be benevolent,I wouldnt want Indian forces to be so.Best place for the army is on the borders.Period.Find some other people or method to fight the militants.
Im almost five times of '8'!! Agreed the security situation is vastly different today than in '89. But wait, have you forgotten June '10 stone throwers?(who sponsored them doesnt matter).Are you not sending 'tainted' interlocutors to talk to the same 'barbarians'? Why? In 1989,you wouldnt dream of talking to them.
India is probably winning the security forces fight against the militants but fast losing Kashmir in the bargain(through a weak and corrupt Govt and wrong strategies).
Law and order should have been handled by the local police (if they could'nt or wouldnt a way should have been found to train them aka Afghan forces)...aka KPS Gill.
You didnt answer how will the army respond wrt deployment if another J&K situation comes up concurrently? or fight two-front wars as the new doctrines is supposed to be about.The difference is that you are worried about winning battles against militants,while I worry about looming multi front wars.Moot point.
Waiting for Mr Raman to praise B.Dutt for her "exceptional" coverage.
this Indresh kumar and RSS will never change their tactics. Pls. Do some thing Rahul baba. i beg to you. now this rogue RSS terror has started killing young girls. Diigi raja,pls. convince Rahul baba for this fight. Oh God.....
You are raising a very good point Mr. Raman. Seems like Omar Abdullah has started to realize that he needs to act and that too soon. Otherwise he could end up a helpless viewer stranded between BJP/RSS and the separatists. May be he could inspire more kashmiris to condemn such killings of innocent people no matter who did it.
Anyone and everyone who has remotely been following news in India since the advent of cable television knows that the term rooftop liberals is an accurate description of not only Arundhati Roy but also Barkha Dutt. Funny how Mr. Raman has not pointed that out.
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