 |
||
|
||
|
||
The United Nations defines any on-going conflict with a rate of
more than a 1,000 casualties a year as a state of war. The
low-intensity conflict in Kashmir between 1989-96 with an estimated
40,000 civilians, soldiers and militants dead or wounded, the
largest number in the sub-continent since Partition, was and still
remains a kind of war, given that the casualties have not come down
substantially since the elections and that the Prime Minister last
week categorically ruled out withdrawal of security forces from the
region.
So much has been written on Kashmir's troubles that it has often
seemed that the tomes penned by politicians, administrators,
journalists and human rights organisations are addressing not the
problem so much as each other. Now there is a welcome break which
also represents a radical departure from time-honoured military
tradition. Kashmir Diary: Psychology of Militancy by Maj Gen Arjun
Ray, published last week, is the first account ever by a serving
officer of the Indian army about a situation that he was actively
engaged in.
Gen Ray, as the Brigadier General Staff of 15 Corps in the
strife-torn Valley from 1993-95, was in charge of anti-militancy
operations and his book represents more than just a glimmer of
glasnost in the cloistered world of the defence forces.
In two principal ways this book is different from others on the
subject: first, for providing a unique insight into the mental
make-up and motivation of the Kashmiri militant and second, for its
equally penetrating vie w of media coverage of the insurgency of
the news-wars behind the war, and what happens when the dynamics of
conventional warfare are overtaken by an information war. Just one
example of Gen Ray's believe may serve as an eye-opener. "In a
row-intensity conflict," he says pithily, "winning the information
war is more important than killing the militant."
In most instances, however, Gen Ray substantiates his case by
marshalling information that is both significant and unusual and
also culled from carefully maintained diaries and personal
observations. At the outset he shows through a psychoanalysis of
400 captured militants that only 10 per cent were motivated by
religion. A large proportion, 46 per cent, were impelled by
"economic deprivation and deep sense of hurt," feelings of neglect
and alienation, while the remaining 44 per cent were simply coerced
into joining the scores of militant groups (tanzeem) that
mushroomed in the Valley.
"Kashmir militancy is not a religious movement yet," admits Ray,
but warns that "it may snowball into one if we continue to ignore
the fact that fundamentalism has arrived in the Valley ... (for)...
the Kashmiri does not appear to be unduly anxious or perturbed
about the 'de-Sufisation' of his religion." The inexorable
Islamisation of the Valley's population is demonstrated not only by
the rise in the number of *f2madrasas*f1 (religious schools) but
via a statistical break-up of the themes taken up in Friday
speeches at mosques ("Azadi", 50 per cent) and the time allocated
to the subjects ("Anti-India propaganda", 37 per cent).
Having opened a new window on militant psychology and behaviour,
Gen Ray transfers his basilisk gaze on the media's operations. Many
of the thousands of' journalists either based in Srinagar or
routinely visiting Kashmir who thought of themselves as watchdogs
may be surprised to find that someone was watching them too.
To be fair, when it comes to flashpoints, Gen Ray takes the right
stand: he thinks that banning the media from Charar-e-Sharif in
March 1995 was a "colossal blunder" and that censorship in a
conflict within the country is both 11 undesirable and
unenforceable". He is properly sniffy about the BBC putting in
Chechnya shots for its Kashmir coverage.
But it is his look at the shadowy, often partisan world of the
local and vernacular press, the flourishing but seldom
professionally trained network of 'Srinagar stringers' who
sometimes earned as much as Rs 1 lakh a month, that is necessary
reading for media analysts and media advisers. "The experience
defies all lessons in media relations," he writes.
Gen Ray belongs to that rare species of army officer whose
commitment to his job seems neither in conflict with his
understanding of life nor the breadth of his reading. If this
government, like its predecessor, is sworn to transparency in
public life, and if the debate on Kashmir of necessity must include
the soldier's point of view, then this book is an idea whose time
has come. Having unlocked the secret door, the defence
establishment should encourage its members to come forward now,
rather than wait until retirement, to give their version of
contemporary debacles.
|
||
|
||
|
||