insurgency

Intellectual Insurgency and Mahesh Raut

We are witnessing a pretend politics which lives on the time borrowed from a deferred revolution.

“I shall speak of ghost, of flame, and of ashes”

– Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question

It is not easy to write about the scholar and activist Mahesh Raut without sorrow and rage. Raut was a fellow of Prime Minister’s Rural Development programme; it has been five years since he was arrested on June 6, 2018. He is the youngest prisoner in the Bhima Koregaon case, currently awaiting the mercy of the judiciary for bail in Taloja central jail. His health has been deteriorating in prison. The evidence presented in the Bhima Koregaon case was found to be spurious and was planted onto the computer of another accused activist Rona Wilson.

It will be imprudent and immoral to write about Mahesh Raut without recalling the circumstances which have been keeping him prison, and above all it would usher in the evil of cowardice. These very circumstances are now articulating the macabre events unfolding in the tribal areas of Manipur which augur what may spread soon to different corners of India; the atrocities against the lower caste people and Adivasi (tribal) people which are recurring across the country; the simmering hate campaign against Muslims in Haryana which are reaching the neighbouring states (given, as Khalid Anis Ansari showed, that the Muslims who are killed in pogroms are mostly lower caste); and the moronisation of the education system in India.

The Bhima Koregaon case, in which Raut has been incarcerated, is related to the very origins of the upper caste supremacist RSS (National Self Service Corps) which is rooted in the anxieties of the Brahmins in the face of the political mobilisations of the lower caste majority in the 19th century in Maharashtra. Peshwa Brahmins were the oppressors of the lower caste people in Maharashtra, as Joti Rao Phule wrote:

“The poor subjects, according to the Bhat rulers were specially created (by God) to serve the Bhat Peshwas and their caste-men as helots”.

In January 1818, an army comprising of Dalit soldiers defeated the Brahmin Peshwa army, and the East India Company created a pillar to memorialise the soldiers who died in that battle. Especially since Ambedkar and his followers gathered around the pillar in 1927, it became a locus of the lower caste political mobilisation. In 2018, the memorial event was called “anti-national”, which stands for against Brahmin interest, by Akhil Bharatiya Brahmin Mahasangh (All India Brahmin Congress). The event was disrupted by a mob led by upper caste supremacist groups and was marred by the riot which followed. The very first FIR filed in this case named Sambhaji Bhide, a former RSS worker. This man is highly regarded by the major political parties.

Divya Dwivedi and Shaj Mohan, Indian Philosophy, Indian Revolution: On Caste and Politics, Edited & introduced by Maël Montévil, Hurst Publishers (UK) and Oxford University Press (US), 2024.

In the 19th century, the power of Brahmins began to wane in proportion to the modern colonial reforms which included unprecedented recruitment of the lower caste people in the army, their right to employment, and the caste disabilities removal act of 1850. But above all, these reforms created the opportunity for receiving modern education through the military schools. Phule would reiterate that before colonial rule the deprivation of education or enforced ignorance kept the lower caste people in ritualised slavery:

“The Aryan Brahmins forbade the Shudras to take education, which was the root-cause of their wretched condition.”

This degradation and depravation are part of the denigrate-dominate function, which is the principle of the “Aryan doctrine”.

The significance of Bhima Koregaon is not just the memorialisation of the event in which the lower caste people defeated the upper caste army. It symbolises the promise that through modernity – the assertion that the present can be the origin for a better world without any sanction of the past – the lower caste people across religions can rise together and raise a new and egalitarian world from the ruins of the “Aryan doctrine”.

Raut was neither an organiser of this memorialising in 2018 event nor a participant in it. His real crime was that he educated those who were forbidden to receive education and thus were held “to the (meanest) level of the beasts (of the field)”. Raut was working among the Adivasi (the original inhabitants or tribal people) and educating them about their constitutional rights and human rights – “Raut has worked extensively to strengthen gram sabhas [village councils], guiding them on how they can safeguard their own rights over forest produce and their land”. His arrest compels us to ask of the meaning of the relation between the India and the Adivasi people.

The relationship of upper caste supremacists of today towards the Adivasi people are not that different from that of the “Aryans” who arrived in the subcontinent millennia ago. It is mediated by “the denigrate-dominate function”. In the already racialising casteist texts of the “Aryans” the Adivasi people are often described as forest-dwelling bloody-thirsty demons. The subjugation and at the same time the distancing of the Adivasi people abound in the Mahabharata – the killing of Hidimba (who may have been the god of a pre-“Aryan” civilisation as evidenced by his continuing presence in the Himalayas), the mutilation of the tribal boy Ekalavya, the burning of forests, and the sacrifice of the tribal warrior Ghatotkacha. The evidence for these ancient interactions exist within the Vedic language which borrowed terms for geographical features from Adivasi languages.

When the RSS stubbornly refers to the Adivasi people as “Vana vasi” (forest dwellers) the ancient denigrating meaning is invoked. The killings and humiliations of the Adivasi people receive little media attention, since that would challenge the upper caste supremacist idea of India as the land of the “Aryans” of northern India who have the right to enforce their social codes, language, and oppressor narratives upon the rest of India.

The BJP and most other political parties including the Congress have continued their relation to the Adivasi people through the ancient denigrate-dominate function. They have never encouraged critical, theoretical and jurisprudential discussions on the relation between the modern constitution of India and the rights of the Adivasi people. If one cares to look, there is extraordinary suffering, state sponsored or directed oppression, and exploitation taking place in the Adivasi lands distributed across India. Through all institutions which they control, the upper castes maintain the denigrate-dominate function.

In July a man named Pravesh Shukla urinated on the face of an Adivasi man in the state of Madhya Pradesh, a BJP ruled state in which such crimes are not the exception. In 2018 an Adivasi man was beaten to death by a mob in Kerala for stealing food. Last year, an Adivasi was killed in Rajasthan for the crime of drawing water. In the state of Jharkhand, 122 Adivasi people were arrested and kept in prison for five years under false charges of terrorism, and they were released in July 2022 by a court which observed that:

“No evidence or statements recorded by the prosecution was able to establish that the accused were members of the Naxal wing and was involved in the crime. No arms or ammunition seized by the police were proved to be found from the accused.”

Upper-caste supremacy transcends political party boundaries and the majority lower caste people and those who work from the lower caste majority position can often be beaten, humiliated, killed or imprisoned at ease. Mahesh Raut certainly violated the ancient norms of the “Aryan doctrine” when he brought education to the lower caste people and the Adivasi people.

In India, we have never engaged in a sustained discussion on the meaning of education although some of the most important leaders of politics before 1947 were concerned with it. These days, we mostly discuss education in the most deplorable terms, that is, of having to defend the reservation given to the lower caste majority in educational institutions. These discussions are often puerile and occasionally vulgar in the mainstream media, as seen on the issue of the reservation provisions for the lower caste Muslims and Christians who constitute the majority of these groups. It reveals a ‘miraculous’ situation where the lower caste majority are being oppressed by the upper caste minority, and yet the minority people find it their right to grant reservations to the majority as if it were an undeserved pittance.

There are two opposing tendencies with respect to education in India – the lower caste majority position and the upper caste supremacist position across religions including Islam, Sikhism and Christianity. The latter seeks to deprive the lower caste majority of education and academic positions in the educational institutions of India, as evident in the upper caste (mostly Brahmin) membership of the recently created NCERT committee which has been entrusted with “investigating in” what the lower caste majority (of all religions) should learn in schools.

M. K. Gandhi stands for the latter position on education. Gandhi wrote about giving education to the peasants (who are not Brahmins):

“What do you propose to do by giving him a knowledge of letters? Will you add an inch to his happiness? Do you wish to make him discontented with his cottage or his lot? And even if you want to do that, he will not need such an education.”

Further Gandhi argued in favour of the “traditional” Brahminical education, “Our ancient school system is enough”.

The terms “discontent” and “unrest” in Gandhi are complex and we have dealt with it elsewhere. Gandhi found that “just as the state between sleep and awakening must be considered to be necessary, so may the present unrest in India be considered a necessary and therefore, a proper state” and “Unrest is, in reality, discontent”. Then, discontent is the state which precedes the fight for freedom, which is the meaning of politics. For Gandhi, political unrest is a necessity but only for a few since his views on education reveal that he wanted the lower caste majority to remain asleep while the upper caste minority decided the lower caste majority’s destinies. Hence, he wished to reserve the power of discontent, and the education in necessary discontent, for the upper caste minority.

On the other hand, the intellectual leaders of the lower caste majority had always argued for the egalitarianism of the restlessness or the unrest of thought which precedes all creations of freedom and the fights for freedom. Today, when the unity between postcolonial and decolonial academic project and upper caste supremacism (which masks itself as Hindu majoritarianism) is asserting itself through the imposition of Hindi, and the upper caste codes of diet, we should meditate on Joti Rao Phule’s text on unrest, discontent, modern education and the effects of colonial rule who said that God himself “has sent the English to our country to end the Brahmin’s proscription of education for the Shudras and Atishudras and to empower them […] the newly educated Shudras and Atishudras will establish their own state and, like the Americans, will govern it themselves” (p107, The Third Eye and Other Works: Mahatma Phule’s Writings on Education, Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, 2023). Narayana Guru in Kerala had demanded that the lower caste majority become the masters of English language and modern knowledge systems.

Later, B. R. Ambedkar, the most educated politician in Indian history said something similar, “if you give education to the lowest strata of Indian Society which is interested in blowing up the Caste System, the Caste System will be blown up”. Indian politics since the 19th century had been nothing other than the battle of these two positions – the lower caste majority position and the upper caste minority position – across religions. The educational imperators of the upper caste minority are trying desperately to prevent another beginning from out of a “blown up” caste system. Rather, we are witnessing a pretend politics which lives on the time borrowed from a deferred revolution.

The conflict between these two tendencies of education articulated the political awakenings in the many university campuses. It began in 2015 with the ban imposed by the central government on the lower caste majority education project Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle, which since then has sprung up in other campuses. Eventually these movements were diverted into upper caste discourses on nationalism. While the television networks debated the difference between “Hindu” and “Hinduness” (Hindutva) the crushing of these intellectual currents continued away from attention. Today, intellectual acts are themselves forced into a certain intellectual insurgency through the terms such as “urban naxal”, “urban Maoist”, “Khan market gang” and so on.

But then we must begin to think what it means to pursue and share education today such that we ourselves come to excel at intellectual insurgency. In the Kantian sense education is the training of the faculty which allows us to encounter the world under un-anticipatable circumstance, it is a preparation for the obscure. For Kant, it is founded on courage – the opposite of which is being cultivated by the bands of cowards – to think without the crutches of religion and superstitions. That is, education never finishes, for it creates humanity anew each time someone’s thought breaks boundaries.

Education in that sense also discards the ends (telos) or goals which are external to it, and imposed on it. Education generates its own ends and opposes the imposition of ends and goals from outside it. These endogenous ends of education threaten fascisms. For example, the imposition of the ends (telos) of Hindi language and upper caste supremacism (Hindu nationalism) for the Indian union enforces the goals of the minority upper caste of northern India upon shockingly diverse and divergent cultures which exist in the Indian subcontinent. Instead, education can create new collective faculties to attune to one another as if one were harmonising, deviating, and creating new tonal relations in a concert.

And that brings us to the other important component of education. In order to play a musical instrument one must train one’s fingers (for example, a piano or a fiddle) to reach the correct positions so that the intended notes are heard. For playing alongside the many instruments and many kinds of tonal cultures such as raga and scales, one must master the musical instrument and the theory. In politics, the equivalent of praxis and theory is organisation and the knowledge of constitution and political theory. When someone joins any political organisation whatsoever with the goal of being trained in political praxis, but without surrendering to the ends imposed by that organisation, it is equivalent to training the fingers to play the piano.

However, an intellectual insurgency must keep knowledge alive the way Fahrenheit 451 taught us, through external and internal memories. More importantly, intellectual insurgency is learning to read poetically (more than what is said by the letters) and critically (by asking why those words were written, and from which position). Today this training and intellectual insurgency can be conducted through the sharing of science and humanities text books, video lessons, social media, blogs, and the creation of websites. There are many academics and intellectuals in India who would join and teach for the gatherings of learners forced into the underground of education. Intellectual insurgency is generosity and egalitarianism at work (energeia).

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

The present regime is run by the political offspring of an organisation led by barely educated Brahmins, and several of these political leaders have either questionable or scant literacy. The present regime has removed evolutionary biology and the periodic table from 9th and 10th classes from schools, whereas these items should have been introduced much earlier. This regime has also removed portions on Mughal history, caste oppression, and the 2002 pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat when Modi was the chief minister.

We can anticipate what is coming through the newly constituted upper caste NCERT committee from the example of Modi’s Gujarat. In 2004, the students in Gujarat were already reading chapters titled ”Hitler, the Supremo” and ”Internal Achievements of Nazis”. The textbook goes on to say that Hitler “lent dignity and prestige to the German government” and “instilled the spirit of adventure in the common people.” The concern of an intellectual insurgency should be that the vegetarianism of Hitler and the instilled “spirit of adventure” which resulted in millions of deaths should not be repeated as farce in India.

However, the composition of the NCERT committee, which was earlier led by the likes of Romila Thapar, now forebodes the same “spirit of adventure” continuous with Nazi Germany and Gujarat since 2002. It includes a Tamil Brahmin praise poet of Modi. The inclusion of Sudha Murthy, the “pure” vegetarian Brahmin who happens to be the wife of a billionaire and the mother in law of the current British prime minister should be worrying. For Murthy is also “a member of the Board of PM CARES Fund Trust”, which is a constitutionally dubious “non-state” organisation that received “Rs 2,913.6 crore between 2019-20 and 2021-22” from government run companies. In November 2022, Murthy prostrated before Sambhaji Bhide (the former RSS worker named in the first FIR filed in the Bhima Koregaon case) and took his blessings in public.

Also read: An Anthology of Anti-Caste Essays and the Question of Who Gets to Kill Whom

The word “insurgency” is often used to refer to the refusal by people to obey orders and to recognise authority. For example, the call for a “total revolution” by Jaya Prakash Narayan in the 1970s which was heeded by the RSS was in effect a political insurrection. It remained short of what Marx, in The Poverty of Philosophy, called “total revolution” – “a struggle of class against class, a struggle which carried to its highest expression”.

The philosophical concept of insurgency is related to but distinct from the statist notion. Insurgency comes from the Latin roots “in”, “sub” and “rego”. “Rego” meant “to correct”, “to make something right”, and also “rules” and regulations in the way in Descartes used it “Regulae ad directionem ingenii” (Rules for the direction of imagination).

Philosophically insurgency means to rise up or to raise from below in order to constitute new Regulae, or to create another beginning.

Epilogue: Without Melancholy

The text above was composed in August 2023, and revised in October, as per the demands of the book’s editor Maël Montévil, to make sure that it remained up to date as far as possible. Not much had changed in the incarcerated life of Mahesh Raut in October, nor is there anything significant to be supplemented now.

However, we know little about the health and the inner life of a most promising young man who has been condemned by the casteist canard of judicial process and the more or less casteist public sphere which has made him ahoratos (ἀόρατος, unseen). On 27 September 2023, a supreme court bench “comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela M Trivedi” stayed the bail order of the Bombay High Court – “The stay was granted by the top court after NIA challenged the September 21, 2023, order of the Bombay High Court granting bail to Raut”.

Raut had sought bail to visit his home in Gadchiroli – a town surrounded by forests and villages – when his grandmother died. The NIA court denied him bail on 5 June 2024, again. His bail plea will come up before the supreme court again very soon on 21 June. The court has asked Raut’s council, “Funeral was on May 26 so what ceremonies are left? You have not given any details as to when they would be”; and from it we should reckon the moral character of the society we have come to be over the last ten years.

There is no doubt to us about Mahesh Raut: he is brave, he has that extraordinary courage that is needed to begin again. But in the past few days since its electoral loss, the BJP, which has subsequently formed a precarious coalition, has been trying to intimidate and distract the people with certain irrational manoeuvrings. There is a surprising tone of post-election fearmongering coming from several well-intentioned voices in the country and abroad. What new levels of fear could be scalped in a system which confined Rohith Vemula to the Velivada, killed Father Stan Swamy in prison, incarcerated scores of journalists, students, activists, and nearly 65% of whose prisoners are SC, ST, and OBC as per NCRB? Apocalyptic responses never help, and moreover they do no harm either. For it is the people of this country who have shown through their struggles and their exercise of their democratic rights that the tiger is still made of paper. This country shall not fall to upper caste supremacism (and its latest iteration Hindu nationalism) so long as we listen to the individuals of whom we hear less than we ought to – Mahesh Raut, Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, Khalid Anis Ansari, J. Reghu, Gajendran Ayyathurai, Sudha Bharadwaj – and so long as the majority lower caste people continue their struggles.

For those who have been sharing their fears in public and those who are afraid, there is a Spinozist lesson to be learnt from Raut. Spinoza wrote in his Ethics,

Whenever the mind imagines those things which lessen or limit the body’s power of action, it endeavours as much as possible to recollect what excludes the existence of these things. (Proposition 13)

For Spinoza, fear and that which causes fear reduces our power to act. Joy on the other hand is that which increases our faculties. The corollary is that the mind as such has the tendency to remain in itself a power, a faculty, and hence it is “averse” to that which causes fear; that is, in order to be, the mind must shed fear. Fear, in Spinoza’s political theory takes a lot of work to create and then to sustain it, and hence it cannot last a long while. Fascism, the politics of fears, is brittle for this very reason. Love is the opposite of fear; love corresponds to the feeling of joy, which in turn augments our faculties.

We should be like Raut and practice a certain improvised Spinozist proposition – to love is to let that which one loves develop newer faculties and joyfully witness it coming to be otherwise than, and more than, what it is. Mahesh Raut scored 99.79% in the state common entrance test (CET) for law with the aid of books from the prison library on 3 May; he is courageous, and he loves.

The above is an excerpt from Indian Philosophy, Indian Revolution: On Caste and Politics, edited and introduced by Maël Montévil. A new epilogue has been added and adapted for this excerpt.

Shaj Mohan and Divya Dwivedi are philosophers based in the Subcontinent.

‘Anek’: A Half Baked Attempt to Discuss Northeast India on the Silver Screen

Though it is one of the few movies to focus on the neglected region, it disappointingly treats all the states as one homogenous entity.

There are few instances that represent the issues pertaining to Northeast India in mainstream cinema. The recently released Anek, starring Ayushmann Khurrana, is one of the first commercial movies to explore the complex issues of the region – often limited to insurgency and racism.

The trailer of the movie generated quite a lot of interest – because of Khurrana’s track record of selecting issue-based movies. There were also some apprehensions, mostly amongst academics who study the Northeast and its complex situation – which is already beset by inadequate resources; misrepresentation and underreporting by ‘mainstream’ media; and public as well as government apathy.

The first step to solving or representing a problem is to correctly identify the issue first. While Anek does its best to portray insurgency in Northeast India and other issues, it will also likely contribute to the average person’s misconceptions about the region. In fact, it appears to be an attempt to attract eyeballs and amplify the saviour complex that the ‘mainland’ Indians tend to have for the ‘backward’ Northeasterners.

The movie starts with the police raiding a pub in Delhi and there are no prizes for guessing what unfolds. Along with a flurry of racial slurs like ‘Chilly Chicken’ and ‘Chinese’, girls from the Northeast are called “Massagewali’s from Bangkok”. The female lead in the movie, Aido (Andrea Kevichusa), is a boxer who aspires to represent India on the international stage. But India doesn’t consider her one of her own. The image of a few girls walking past Aido wearing India jerseys while she is walking on the other side of the road is quite striking.

The protagonist, Aman or Joshua (Khurrana), is an intelligence officer currently posted in Northeast India. He is tasked with negotiating with separatist leader Tiger Sanga to a peace accord signed between the Government of India. Aman narrates his time in the remote parts of the region and how over a period, he understands the complexity of the problem, gets emotionally invested, bringing out the “saviour” in him. He eventually acts against all odds to do what he thinks is right.

The movie centres on establishing peace in the Northeast – but as one of the scenes says, what is peace for one might not be for another.

One review described Anek as a rare, timely and powerful socio-political drama that brings to focus the troubled region of Northeast India. Though it acknowledges that the movie is flawed in many aspects and is occasionally preachy, the review calls Anek a “well-meaning and rare attempt that poses critical questions about who is an Indian”.

But here’s the thing, one of the biggest contributors to the failure to understand the issues from the Northeast is treating the entire region as a homogenous entity. Even today, an average Indian might just be unaware of the different languages, cultures and terrains in the Northeast. The political is even more complicated and warrants a separate examination.

Anek fails to address this most basic issue. The movie does not mention where Aman is posted and which insurgent group from which state or ethnic group he is dealing with. In fact, even the numbers plates of the vehicles in the movie have “NE” written on them, and not the initials of the state – clearly treating the entire region as one entity.

Also Read: Review: ‘Anek’ Is Missing the Micro Moments That Make a Convincing Movie

The movie undermines the decade-long struggle by the Northeasters states to mark their own distinct linguistic and cultural identities.

The problem of insurgency in the region has very deep roots in the cultural and linguistic groups of the region. Each state of the region has different reasons for their struggles and the creation of each state from the colonial Assam state has a vast and vivid reason associated with it.

Anek blatantly disregards the linguistic diversity of the region. Neither does it identify the language spoken by the ‘separatist leader’ nor does it distinguish between the different languages spoken by the members of a different group. Each linguistic group in the region has its own views on things. So, a solution for one group might not exactly be a solution for the other; and this was quite dramatically conveyed by the movie. But the movie itself fails to identify the linguistic groups it depicts.

For the longest time, only incidents of violence from the region managed to grab the attention of the ‘mainstream’ Indian media. The underlying problem of the region – under-representation, asymmetric utilisation of the abundant natural resources, lack of infrastructure – are ignored.

Anek attempts to tackle this problem, touching upon how it’s a game of profit for all and also very briefly shows how communities in the region are reeling because of drug trafficking and addiction. It also depicts community organisation and attempts by residents to work towards being self-sustainable and solving the underlying issues behind the insurgency. But these issues deserved greater examination. But instead, a majority of the movie dwells on acts of violence in the region.

It is also unclear in which era the movie unfolds. Insurgency and separatism are issues that the Northeast has faced since the independence of India. Each phase and each state has a different struggle. Through the name ‘Tiger Sanga’, the allusion to the peace accord, ethnic flags and the constitution, the movie did try to indicate a time and state. But with Khurrana driving around in a fairly new Mahindra Thar, the audience may infer this is present-day Northeast. But the socio-economic and ethnic issues now are clearly quite different.

The history and struggles of the Northeast are sensitive and complicated issues. Racism, insurgency in the region and politics of separation are just the most known facets of the plethora of problems that the region faces. Anek was an attempt to discuss and highlight some of these issues – but it was clearly half-baked. Half knowledge is very harmful – especially in commercial movies targeted at a passive audience – and can have serious consequences on how people understand the Northeast.

Though the movie may not rake in money at the box office – people may instead choose to watch mass entertainers like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, when the movie is released on over-the-top streaming platforms, it is likely to be watched by a larger population. For those unaware of the complexity of the Northeastern region, Anek‘s generalisation and inaccuracies could have troubling implications.

Australia: 13 Soldiers To Face Dismissal After Afghan Report On Unlawful Killings

An independent report published last week said there was evidence that 39 unarmed Afghan prisoners and civilians were killed by 19 Australian soldiers.

Sydney Australia has told 13 special forces soldiers that they face dismissal in relation to a report on alleged unlawful killings in Afghanistan, the head of the country’s army said on Friday.

An independent report published last week, in redacted form, said there was evidence that 39 unarmed Afghan prisoners and civilians were killed by 19 Australian soldiers.

None of the 19 soldiers were identified in the report, which was written by a state judge appointed by the inspector-general of defence. The 19 current and former soldiers have been referred for possible prosecution.

Under mounting pressure, Lieutenant General Rick Burr, the head of the Australian army, said 13 current soldiers have been issued with notices that could eventually lead to their termination. Burr did not identify any of the 13 soldiers, but said they were not part of the 19 current and former soldiers who face possible criminal charges. He said the 13 soldiers that face dismissal have two weeks to respond to the notice.

“At this time, 13 individuals have been issued administrative action notices in relation to the Afghanistan inquiry,” Burr told reporters in Canberra.

“We are all committed to learning from the inquiry and emerging from this a stronger, more capable and effective army,” he said.

Australia’s most senior military official apologised to Afghanistan last week after the release of the report. The report into the conduct of special forces personnel in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016 said that senior commandos may have forced junior soldiers to kill defence-less captives in order to “blood” them for combat. The inquiry examined more than 20,000 documents and 25,000 images, and interviewed 423 witnesses under oath.

Australia sent troops to join US-led forces that tried to defeat the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan in the years after the Islamists were forced from power in 2001.

(Reuters)

ULFA (I) Militant Dhrishti Rajkhowa Surrenders Near India-Bangladesh Border

Rajkhowa is a close confidant of ULFA (I)’s self-proclaimed ‘commander-in-chief’ Paresh Baruah.

Shillong: Meghalaya Director General of Police R. Chandranathan on Thursday said the insurgency in the state has come to an end with the surrender of banned ULFA (Independent) outfit’s second-in-command Dhrishti Rajkhowa.

Rajkhowa, a close confidant of ULFA (I)’s self- proclaimed ‘commander-in-chief’ Paresh Baruah, along with four other militants surrendered before the Army near the India-Bangladesh border in South Garo Hills district on Wednesday.

He was active in the Garo Hills region and had aided several other insurgent outfits.

“Rajkhowa’s surrender marks the end of two-decade-long armed conflict in the restive Garo Hills region in particular and Meghalaya in general,” the DGP told PTI.

“He was under tremendous pressure. It was just a matter of time before he surrendered. He was left with no other option but to give up arms,” the top police officer said.

Chandranathan said the militant had earlier narrowly escaped twice this year in encounters with the state police.

“We had missed him twice this year. In the latest encounter, one of his bodyguards was injured but he had escaped unhurt,” the police chief said.

There are five-six pending cases against Rajkhowa and the Meghalaya Police will pursue legally to get him for trial in the state, he said.

“We are bringing him here for the heinous crimes he had committed, including murder and extortion,” Chandranathan said.

Rajkhowa had contacted his wife in Assam and directed her to get the Army involved for his “safe” surrender as he did not trust the Meghalaya Police, a source told PTI.

While the Army was discreetly transporting Rajkhowa and his four other aides to Assam in civilian vehicles after their surrender, the Meghalaya Police stopped them in East Garo Hills district around 6 pm on Wednesday evening, he said.

Also read: Anti-Talks ULFA Faction Likely to Participate in Peace Discussions With Centre, Say Report

“It is then that Rajkhowa reportedly told a senior police officer that he had earlier thought of surrendering but decided against it because every time he came across the police in Garo Hills, an exchange of fire would ensue,” the source said.

He admitted to having been present during the Bolbokgre encounter in Rongara area of South Garo Hills district two weeks ago and said Bangladesh was no longer a safe haven for him, the source said.

Born Manoj Rabha in Assam’s Goalpara district, 50- year-old Dhrishti Rajkhowa alias Bura Dada is believed to have personally trained several top insurgents in the Garo Hills region in jungle warfare, besides providing several militant outfits with arms and ammunition in exchange for money.

The Meghalaya government had formed a ten company- strong counter-insurgency force, Special Force (SF) 10, in 2014 to fight the militants. Since then, it has neutralised several top insurgents in the region, including Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA)’s self-proclaimed ‘commander-in-chief’ Sohan D. Shira in February 2018.

Rajkhowa had narrowly escaped death during Shira’s encounter as he had gone to a stream for a bath, the ULFA (I) militant told the Meghalaya Police on Wednesday evening, as per the source.

He, along with four other ULFA (I) militants, surrendered before an Army team from Assam at Dilsengre village near the India-Bangladesh border and laid down an AK- 81 assault rifle, two 9 mm pistols and 107 cartridges.

Of late, militancy in Meghalaya was largely concentrated in the Garo Hills region. However, many GNLA insurgents have laid down arms following the deployment of SF-10 commandos in the region.

Other militant outfits like ANVC, ANVC-B and the UALA have signed a peace agreement with the Meghalaya government, while Khasi Hills-based group HNLC, with a cadre strength of less than 20, is considered largely inactive and has not been involved in subversive activities for many years, sources said.

Army Red Flags Home Ministry’s Proposal to Take Full Control of Assam Rifles

At present, the home ministry has administrative authority over the paramilitary force while the Army has operational control.

New Delhi: The Army has red-flagged the home ministry’s proposal to take operational control of the Assam Rifles, saying that it would have serious national security implications including adversely impacting vigil over India’s disputed border with China.

Strongly opposing the move, the Army has instead sought overall responsibilities of guarding the entire Sino-India border in the Eastern sector to effectively deal with any Chinese transgression, top military sources told PTI. At present, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) patrols several segments of the border.

The sources, concerned over the proposal by the home ministry to take operational control of the nearly 185 years old Assam Rifles, said that the Army has taken up the issue with the defence ministry last week seeking its immediate intervention in the matter. At present, the home ministry has the administrative authority over the paramilitary force Assam Rifles while the Army has its operational control.

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is likely to examine the home ministry’s proposal to merge the Assam Rifles with the ITBP and bring overall operational control under it. “Shifting the operational control of the Assam Rifles from the Army to the home ministry will severely jeopardise the surveillance along the Line of Actual Control with China,” a top military official told PTI on condition of anonymity.

The sources said that the views of the Army’s top commanders on the matter have already been conveyed to the defence and security brass of the government.

The nearly 55,000-strong Assam Rifles has been guarding India’s 1,640-km long border with Myanmar besides providing operational and logistics support to the Army in keeping a strict vigil in several key sectors along the Sino-India boundary in Arunachal Pradesh. The Assam Rifles, which was raised in 1835, has also been carrying out counter-insurgency operations in militancy-infested states in the Northeastern region.

Sources said that the home ministry has already prepared a draft note to be presented at the CCS seeking total control of the Assam Rifles.

The Army feels that the Assam Rifles provides significant assistance in keeping strict surveillance over the border with China as it frees up Army units from “static defensive” role. Moreover, 70-80% personnel of the Assam Rifles are deployed in conventional military roles.

Also read: Separate Flag, Constitution Key for ‘Honourable’ Peace Solution: Naga Group

“The Assam Rifles fills the void when Army units carry forward the battle to the enemy territory. This is the only genuine paramilitary force which actively participated in all the wars since Independence including the 1962 and 1971 wars,” said a senior Army official.

The Assam Rifles, at present, has a total of 46 battalions, and most of its units are headed by Army officers since 1884. The Assam Rifles was put under the complete operational control of the Army in 1965.

The two-thirds of the overall composition of the training imparted to the Assam Rifles personnel are based on conventional warfare so that they can help the Army in times of war, the official said.

The Army has also questioned the timing of the proposal to bring the paramilitary force under the home ministry when the security scenario in the Northeastern region has been fragile due to the issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC).

“The ongoing peace talks with Naga insurgent groups is at an advanced stage. There is a growing apprehension among people of Manipur and Assam regarding the possible impact of any agreement between the Centre and the NSCN(IM). The NRC updating process is also likely to cause some turbulence,” said the official.

Separate Flag, Constitution Key for ‘Honourable’ Peace Solution: Naga Group

The NSCN (I-M), which is in peace talks with the Centre, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

New Delhi: The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) [NSCN (I-M)] has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that no “honourable solution” to the drawn-out Naga peace process could be arrived at without a “separate flag and a constitution”.

On August 3, 2015, the NSCN (I-M) and the Centre entered a framework agreement to arrive at a Naga accord. Modi was present during the signing of the agreement in New Delhi.

The present apprehension of the NSCN (I-M) leaders is considered to have been aggravated by the recent scrapping of Article 370 and 35A for Jammu and Kashmir, as per which the state had a separate flag and constitution. On August 25, the flag was brought down from the Jammu and Kashmir secretariat in Srinagar.

Every August 14, the Nagas use the NSCN flag to celebrate their independence from the British. The flag, over the years, has also become a symbol of the long-standing Naga demand for a ‘political solution’ for themselves. Soon after Article 370 was read down, the Nagas were apprehensive about the status of Article 371A, which grants special powers to Nagaland under the Constitution. However, the government categorically said the article would not be touched.

Unofficial Naga flag. Photo: Wikimedia commons

As per the publicity department of the NSCN (I-M) this past August 24, the framework agreement signed with the Centre on August 2, 2015, recognised the “special history of the Nagas”. “However, what we are increasingly seeing is that the government of India is going slow on discussing the core issues; three years have passed since; the Nagas await the historic day when the final agreement will be signed,” it said.

Also Read: With J&K’s Special Status Revoked, Alarm Bells Ring in Nagaland

Though the agreement with the Centre was signed in 2015, the NSCN (I-M) had entered into a ceasefire agreement with the government in July 1997.

On August 17, speaking at a function in the state, R.N. Ravi, the present Nagaland governor and also the government’s interlocutor for the peace talks, said the prime minister had mandated him to wrap up the talks within the next three months and arrive at a Naga accord.

The NSCN (I-M) reportedly said, “When Modi tasked interlocutor R.N. Ravi to conclude the talks with the Naga negotiators within three months, it became all the more interesting as it was the third time when the Modi-led BJP government had come up with such an assuring tone.”

It, however, added, “The changing situation and other developments compel NSCN chairperson Q Tuccu and general secretary Th. Muivah to write a letter to the prime minister Narendra Modi about the doubt and confusion raised by the Naga people if an honourable solution can be arrived at.”

The outfit further said, “This is in reference to the core issues like Naga flag and Constitution which are yet to be agreed upon between the two parties. Without these two core issues solved, any solution would be far from honourable because Naga’s pride and identity is deeply entrenched here.”

Aside from NSCN (I-M), the Centre has roped in several other stakeholders into the ongoing peace talks, including the six Naga national political groups (NNPGs) and the breakaway faction of the Myanmar-based NSCN (Khaplang) comprising Indian Nagas.

R.N. Ravi takes charge as the governor of Nagaland. Photo: Rajbhavan Nagaland

The NSCN, through its information and publicity department, also flagged and “condemned” the heightened surveillance by the Assam Rifles across the state. It said the AR personnel, “for the last four months, have stationed themselves at Doyapur near the designated Hebron Camp (NSCN headquarters) and moving around in the nearby villages, frisking commuters and raising houses with cameras in hand…villagers are being harassed with uncomfortable questions. It is also doing unwarranted frisking operations across Dimapur.” Local reports quoting NSCN said, “The picture is almost back to ceasefire period with the ubiquitous AR showing up in aggressive postures.”

“Such manner of intensified operation by AR makes the whole scenario unbecoming of Ravi’s search for the earliest solution as advised by Prime Minister Modi. Conducive atmosphere without the belligerent AR is the desire of the people in general and NSCN in particular in this critical period.”

The government has, so far, not responded to the letter.

Tripura Insurgent Group Signs Peace Pact

The tripartite Memorandum of Settlement was signed by the governments of India and Tripura, and the National Liberation Front of Twipra.

New Delhi: The Centre signed on Saturday a pact with an insurgent group of Tripura under which it has agreed to lay down arms and join the mainstream.

According to a home ministry statement, the tripartite Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) was signed here by the governments of India and Tripura, and the National Liberation Front of Twipra led by Sabir Kumar Debbarma (NLFT-SD).

The NLFT-SD has agreed to abjure the path of violence, join the mainstream and abide by the Constitution of India, it said.

National Liberation Front of Tripura abjures path of violence, to join the mainstream and abide by the Constitution of India.
Surrendered cadres to get surrender benefits from Ministry of Home Affairs and Government of Tripura. @HMOIndia @PIBAgartala https://t.co/J627F3vp1Z

— Spokesperson, Ministry of Home Affairs (@PIBHomeAffairs) August 10, 2019

The group has agreed to the surrender of its 88 cadres with their weapons.

The surrendered cadres will be given benefits under the Surrender-cum-Rehabilitation Scheme, 2018 of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The Tripura government will help the surrendered cadres in housing, recruitment, education, etc, the statement said.

The Centre will consider the proposals of the Tripura government regarding economic development of tribal areas of the state.

The NLFT has been banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act since 1997 and has been involved in violence, operating from their camps across the international border. The group has been involved in violent activities, including 317 insurgency incidents, in which 28 security forces personnel and 62 civilians lost their lives between 2005 and 2015.

Peace talks with NLFT were initiated in 2015 and there has been no violence by NLFT since 2016.

The MoM was signed by Satyendra Garg, joint secretary (Northeast) of MHA; Kumar Alok, additonal chief secretary (home), Tripura; and Sabir Kumar Debbarma and Kajal Debbarma of NLFT-SD.

Later, the NLFT representatives called on Union home minister Amit Shah.

Manipur Killings: The Petition by Army Personnel Is an Act of Gross Indiscipline

Does this amount to mutiny, as the Army Act defines it, in so far as their effort “endeavours to seduce any person in the military, naval or air forces, of India from his duty or allegiance to the Union”?

Events leading up to the filing of writ petitions by hundreds of serving officers of the Indian army raise disturbing and serious questions about their refusal to be bound by the judgments of the Supreme Court of India. Do such actions amount to wilful disobedience of the judgment of the highest court of the land or do they violate the very principles underlying the Army Act 1950, or both?

The petitions appear to be ill-advised, if not politically motivated, undermining the very “discipline” that the army represents. Have these officers been permitted to file such petitions questioning the judgment of the Supreme Court by their respective commanding officers or the army headquarters? If not, should Army Headquarters have not taken swift action against them? These are searching but disturbing questions. If indeed the petitions have been filed with active or tacit support from the army higher-ups, the matter assumes even more serious significance.

The principle, “be you ever so high, the law is above you” stands firmly affirmed in this country. The Constitution of India is paramount. Fundamental rights including the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 applies to all citizens including the alleged rebels or insurgents. If the Geneva Conventions, to which India is a party, demand that prisoners of war be treated with utmost respect and that their safety be guaranteed and the Indian army has a sterling record in treating almost 90,000 POWs after the 1971 war for almost a year as per that convention, there is no reason why Indians citizens must be killed wantonly merely because any state – Manipur in the present instance – is declared a “disturbed area” to which the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 applies.

Constitution and armed forces

The constitution does not recognise the armed forces as either superior or independent of civil authorities. In fact, Article 53(2) expressly provides that,

“The supreme command of the Defence Forces of the Union shall be vested in the President and the exercise thereof shall be regulated by law”.

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) is referable through Entry 2A of List I, which empowers parliament to legislate on subjects mentioned therein and expressly provides for a legislation for “deployment of any armed force of the Union or any other force subject to the control of the Union or any contingent or unit thereof in any State in aid of the civil power…”.

Section 3 of AFSPA expressly declares that if any state, “is in such a disturbed or dangerous condition that the use of Armed Forces in aid of the civil power is necessary”, the whole or such part of the state may be declared as a disturbed area.

Section 4, which gives special powers to the armed forces, expressly requires a designated officer to form an opinion that it is necessary to do so for maintenance of the public order to fire upon or otherwise use force even to the causing of death but only after giving “due warning” and only against any person who is acting in contravention of any law or order, prohibiting the assembly of five or more persons or the carrying of weapons or of things capable of being used as weapons or as firearms, ammunition or explosive substances. He can even authorise arrest without warrant of any person who has committed a cognisable offence or against whom a reasonable suspicion exists that he has committed or is about to commit such an offence. He can also authorise entry and search without warrant any premises to make such arrests or to recover any person or property or arms, ammunition or explosive substances believed to be unlawfully kept in such premises.

Section 6 of the Act, which throws a protective umbrella around members of the armed forces acting in disturbed areas, expressly prohibits prosecution, suit or other legal proceedings except with the previous sanction of the Centre, but only against such persons “in respect of anything done or purported to be done in exercise of the powers conferred by this Act”.

The Act therefore does not give blanket powers as is generally assumed, especially amongst the members of the armed forces. The exercise of powers is seriously controlled by the checks prescribed under the Act itself. Besides the constitutional safeguards, Part III of the Constitution never stands suspended even in disturbed areas. The armed forces are not a law unto themselves, but must throughout act only in aid of civil power.

AFSPA says that armed forces must act only in aid of civil power. Representative image. Credit: Reuters

Army’s ‘ten commandments’

Realising this position, the chief of army staff has issued ‘ten commandments’, including, “remember that people you are dealing with are your own countrymen. All your conduct must be dictated by this one significant consideration”, “operations must be people friendly using minimum force and avoiding collateral damage-restraint must be the key”, “no operations without police representative. No operations against women cadres under any circumstances without mahila police. Operations against women insurgents be preferably carried out by police”, “uphold Dharma and take pride in your country and the army”, and lastly “be compassionate, help the people and win their hearts and minds”.

Army headquarters has issued a series of “dos and don’ts” while providing aid to civil authority including, “aim low and shoot for effect”, “ensure high standard of discipline”, “do not use excessive force”, “no torture”, “no communal bias while dealing with civilians”, “hand over the arrested person to the nearest police station with least possible delay”, and most importantly, “directions of the high court/Supreme Court should be promptly adhered to.”

In this backdrop, the Supreme Court heard and decided a writ petition, Extra-Judicial Execution Victim Families Association versus Union of India, over a period of four years and ultimately – by judgment and order dated July 8, 2016 – held that the petition alleging gross violations of human rights is maintainable under Article 32 and directed that 1,528 cases of killings of citizens must be enquired into.

In so doing, the Supreme Court:

Was conscious of the sensitivity of the matter and the respective rights of the citizens vis-a-vis the duties and powers of the armed forces
Appointed as amicus curiae Menaka Guruswamy, an extremely competent lawyer to assist it
Appointed a commission headed by one of the most respected former judges, justice Santosh Hedge, along with J.M. Lyngdoh, former chief election commissioner and Ajay Kumar Singh, former DGP Karnataka. The commission found that out of the six cases referred to it, all persons were killed without just cause. Similarly, NHRC had found wanton killings in 31 out of 62 cases examined by it
Accepted detailed affidavits from the Union of India and other parties.
Heard the attorney general of India, who holds the constitutional office by virtue of Article 76 and is the highest law officer of the Union including the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces

The judgment is not only reasoned, but is erudite in law, especially constitutional law and human rights law. The court has considered the matter from all perspectives, including that the public order situation in Manipur is “an internal disturbance” and not a threat to the security of the country, that the armed forces are deployed in aid of civil power and therefore do not supplant and only supplement it and that the armed forces were intended to restore normalcy, yet for 60 years, Manipur continues to be a “disturbed area”.

Subsequently, the court heard matters in 2017 and by its judgment on July 14, found that since more than a prima facie case has been made out in the killings examined by inquiry commissions, high court or NHRC as the case may be, FIRs must be registered.

In addition, the court found that the 655 cases out of 1,528 for which statement had been filed by petitioners and accepted by the amicus curia and for which “no objection was raised by the Union of India” or by the state of Manipur needed to be investigated by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) since in none of those cases was any cognisance taken by any authority, including the state and the army.

The Supreme Court found that 655 cases out of 1,528 need to be investigated by the SIT. Credit: PTI

Supreme Court cannot be faulted

The Supreme Court cannot be faulted on any count, having performed its constitutional duty after a detailed enquiry conducted in an open, fair and transparent manner. The Ministry of Defence and the army headquarters, as also the officers who have now moved the Supreme Court, were throughout aware of the proceedings and were watching from the fence. They were assisted by none other than the attorney general. They cannot now question the Supreme Court’s directions on any count since the remedy of review and a curative petition were available to the Union alone and none else.

It is doubtful if the petitioners today can even maintain an Article 32 petition because none of their fundamental rights are infringed. If at all, it’s a question of their legal rights under AFSPA, which can be resorted to by them before appropriate competent courts during trials.

Amongst the petitioners are officers of the judge advocate general (JAG) branch who are supposed to be acquainted with the law and the law does not authorise them to do what they have done. The provisions of the Army Act, 1950 militate against the present exercise by them in more than one manner. Does this amount to mutiny as defined in Section 37, in so far as their effort “endeavours to seduce any person in the military, naval or air forces, of India from his duty or allegiance to the Union”, and “begins, incites, causes, conspires with any other person to cause any mutiny in the military, naval or air forces of India or any forces cooperating therewith”?

The writ petitions militate against the highest court and therefore the Union. It is definitely a case of gross indiscipline. These acts of commission are too serious to be ignored by those in highest constitutional positions and the army headquarters. The rot has set in and must be stemmed forthwith before irreparable damage is inflicted on the rule of law and a full scale confrontation develops with the judiciary and creates avoidable dissatisfaction amongst our brave soldiers. The scars will be too deep. The chief of the army staff has himself expressed grave reservation about these actions. He must take the matter to its logical end and ensure supremacy of the law, vital to our democracy.

I have always admired and loved the armed forces. I have special affinity on account of my own brother having served the army with distinction and having seen active warfare in 1965 and 1971. I have always appeared for members of the armed forces pro bono and whenever I felt the need, supported serving officers or their families with financial aid. As president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, I even offered free legal camps with the help of the best lawyers of the country for our jawans on borders, which unfortunately was not acceded to by the army headquarters. On the One Rank, One Pension issue, the entire executive committee and myself visited Jantar Mantar and publicly supported the just cause. Yet, today I am deeply saddened by the turn of events. I hope and pray that my sadness is short lived.

Dushyant Dave is a senior advocate and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association.

‘Revenge Abductions’ of Police Kin in Kashmir Show the Risk of Playing With Fire

Immoral and evil acts are always attributed to the anti-national forces, but a look at past incidents proves that mostly, it is government forces that start the cycle of disregarding the distinction between combatant and non-combatant.

Recently, 11 relatives of police personnel in Jammu and Kashmir were abducted by militants. Of course, this is condemnable, and unfair. War must make a distinction between combatants and non-combatants. But after soundly criticising the militants for their act, further analysis is needed.

All of the relatives were released unharmed about 36 hours later. Why did this happen? Recently, the police had begun disregarding the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. Several relatives of known militants, including Asadullah Naikoo, father of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo were arrested. The abductions, sources said, were triggered by a policy shift where the security forces started putting “increased pressure on families of militants” across south Kashmir to curb militancy. Although close relatives of militants have previously been called for questioning, especially after an attack, two homes of militants – Shahjahan Mir of Amshipora Shopian and Naveed Shah of Nazneenpora Shopian – were allegedly burned down this time.

In retaliation and seemingly out of desperation, militants then kidnapped the relatives of the police, using them as bargaining chips to get their own relatives released. Left with no option, the J&K police promptly bartered with the militants.

It is indeed shocking that the side with broke the decency pact was the police and not the militants. They started a fire that they later could not control.

Immoral and evil acts are always attributed to the anti-national forces, but a look at past incidents suggests it is often the government side that start this cycle. I’ll narrate something that I witnessed in Nagaland in the early 1980s. In an area where the Naga insurgency was quite active, the insurgents were being fought by the army and Assam Rifles. At that time, there was an understanding – a ‘gentleman’s pact’, if you may – that families should not be harmed by either side. Families of Assam Rifles officers could be seen visiting bazaars and also travelled without ay escort. Around the same time, the army started targeting the families of insurgents. The insurgents warned against it, but the army did not listen. The insurgents struck a warning shot across the bows. A school bus was targeted using a mild Improvised Explosive Device inside Rangapahar camp, from where the HQ 3 Corps controlled the counter insurgency operations. The army stopped harassing the families of insurgents immediately.

What is happening across Chhattisgarh these days is the same. Families of Maoists and even those not associated with them are being targeted indiscriminately by the police. Reporters and activists who expose these acts are rounded up as ‘urban Naxals‘ to cover up police atrocities.

The police action in Punjab, prior to the 1992 elections saw the same situation. The Punjab police would pick up anyone known to be related to ‘terrorists’. The Hindi movie Haider quite eloquently establishes what took place in J&K during the ’90s.

In all these cases, you’ll find two parties playing the game: the bad men with a reputation of being anti-national and evil, and the good men of the government, led by gazetted officers of fine repute, taking orders from politicians who take the oath of serving the Indian Constitution. In such a conflict, isn’t it ironic that it is the latter that always breaks the decency pact first?

It is occasionally argued that getting rough with families of militants is the only way to put pressure on them. As a strategy, it might work. However, anyone wanting to play this game will have to accept that others too will play it. All is indeed fair in love and war, but if you treat it as war, your own too get harmed.

The root of insurgency in any area is the perception of injustice. Any act by government forces that perpetuates this sense of injustice will only push people towards heightened insurgency. Knowing this well, troops are taught to be considerate toward locals. “Winning over their hearts and minds” is a good strategy. During basic induction training, troops are taught to control their rage when insurgents fire at them provocatively from inhabited areas such as markets or university campuses. They refrain from indiscriminate retaliatory firing, knowing it would only result in civilian casualties. In such situations, officers present on the spot have a tough time controlling the emotions of their men, who may have just lost a comrade. But most army officers do a good job of it in very trying conditions.

In the face of such sacrifices by a majority of the forces, it is completely criminal on the part of some to change the game. They have no right to do so and endanger others.

Alok Asthana is a retired colonel of the Indian Army.

To Kashmiris Who Grew up During the 1990s, India Was the Army

David Devadas’s book The Generation of Rage in Kashmir describes lives of those who were born around the time of violence in Kashmir.

David Devadas, who has covered Kashmir as a journalist for 30 years, and lived there for more than a decade, has written a book on the youth of Kashmir. Titled The Generation of Rage in Kashmir, it is to be launched by Oxford University Press in the next few weeks.

Based on interactions with youth across the length and breadth of the Valley, the book gives insights into factors that have given rise to a new militancy, one that has been accompanied by mass demonstrations and stone-pelting over the past decade. It describes what life has been like for those who have been born and raised in a time of violence, who now comprise more than two-thirds of the Valley’s population. This book includes a survey of 6,000 Kashmiri students and gives fascinating insights into their thinking. It traces differences in the patterns and responses of those born around 1990, who witnessed the terrible violence of the 90s, and millennials born around the turn of the century.

In Devadas’s interviews, militant commander Burhan Wani emerges as the most prominent hero and role model of Kashmir’s youth. On the second anniversary of Wani’s death in an encounter with the forces on 8 July 2016, The Wire presents an excerpt from The Generation of Rage which attempts to explain this phenomenon.

Crackdowns, barricade checks, and bunkers became the invasive shorthand of counterinsurgency. To Kashmiris who grew up during those years, India was the army (the generic term for all counterinsurgency forces). And, in their minds, the army meant the frightening power to enter anywhere, to humiliate and to mete out horrifying punishments and torture. It was also decidedly alien—from a culture that disliked and punished one for wearing a pheran, the traditional Kashmiri dress that most Kashmiris found as comforting as Linus’s blanket, almost like a protective womb. A child might not easily understand that a soldier viewed its enveloping wrap as a perfect cover for guns, bombs, or grenades.

Although such operations had ceased by 2007, the narrative, if not the direct memory, of the ‘crackdown’ was deeply embedded in the minds of Kashmiris who grew up in those years of terrible violence.

On the one hand, young people of this generation had had to get used to violent death and destruction. On the other, they had never experienced life the way children elsewhere did—the joy of going out for an ice cream in the evening, a weekend picnic, a drive in the countryside, or even the fun and frolic of a family wedding. Life was a cage. Parents were often too paranoid to let them go out to play, at least after sunset. During the early and mid-1990s, no child in Kashmir had been out for an after-dinner stroll—or even a pre-dinner walk. They had to be indoors well before it got dark, which meant 4 pm in winter. Even then, their mothers and other family members worried ceaselessly as long as they were out of the house. They were almost never allowed to go far. Picnics, weekend excursions and evening outings were unheard of. For the most part, the only leisure activities for boys were street cricket, or possibly football or volleyball on a rocky patch. Most girls were not allowed outdoors except for school or perhaps religious instruction at a neighbourhood darasgah.

Listless, they spent the long hours at home watching television if there was electricity—until their elders made them turn off the lights, generally quite early. During most of that awful decade, the 1990s, they could not even pass the time during those lonely evenings by chatting with friends over the telephone. Telephone services were so bad during that decade that it generally took several minutes to get through to a number. To be sure, when telephone connectivity became easier towards the end of that decade, young people took to the telephone, whispering to friends for hours in the darkness of the night. Many teenagers kept extension wires at hand, so that they could take the telephone instrument into their bedroom at night, unnoticed by their parents.

Their loneliness was heightened by the ways in which the architecture of Kashmiri houses changed during that time of violence. Families began to move from rural areas to the outskirts of cities. Sprawling suburbs came up on what had been agricultural land, or wetlands, even marshes. Families began to move to these from the inner city too. To own a house in one of these suburbs was the new fashion, a sign of upward social mobility. These houses were generally large and opulent, often a dozen rooms occupied by just three or four members of a household.

Women leave a hospital in Srinagar. Credit: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton

Until the 1990s, the typical Kashmiri house was never locked but, during the time of violence, people began to lock themselves indoors for fear of both kinds of men with guns. High walls were built around new houses, until it became the norm by the beginning of the new century to build eight-foot-high walls around new houses, even in villages, by the second decade of the century. Gates too were high and covered with thick iron sheets, so that no one could see across. In upmarket suburbs, those gates were generally bolted shut.

Social cohesion was under huge stress. Largely unnoticed, Kashmiri society had changed unrecognisably during the couple of decades before 2007, and this too caused alienation—disharmony with the social environment. First-generation unitary families had often come to live in huge mansions behind high walls, not coping very well with bringing up children. Bonds in what were once closely knit extended families had strained. Education was in shambles. All this had occurred in tandem with political and geo-political ferment and tremendous, often competitive, pressure to conform to revised religious practices that were projected as pristine, original and exclusively correct.

Adolescents felt the turbulence of all these changes most intensely. Most of this generation had rejected various sorts of role models. They needed to overcome disappointments and deeply felt betrayals—in the political, familial and other dimensions of their lived realities. Bringing life to a halt, as they collectively did in 2016, was at one level also a way to stop the betrayals and disappointments. Those strutting boys were grappling for empowerment in many senses and at various levels. They needed to physically dominate their environment, their society. Lurking throughout their charged eruptions was hope for a better reality, a more responsive social, economic and political milieu.

Social changes that occurred during the time of violence plugged into this unprecedented inter-generational change. Social hierarchies were reordered chaotically, sometimes violently, in the early years of militancy. Two factors were in play. One, land reforms had already destroyed the Valley’s existing social hierarchies during the 1950s. Two, the social turbulence wrought by militancy and the eviction of Pandits took that process much further during the 1990s. There was a great deal of churning beneath the social surface, as members of the Valley’s highly status-conscious society struggled to establish precedence in a putative new social hierarchy. This too led to a great deal of societal stress and resentment.

As militancy and unaccountability generated a huge black economy, the new houses that came up behind those high walls and gates were often large opulent mansions. These reflected the urgent need to establish social status in the fast-changing milieu. So, within two generations from the time before Kashmir’s land reforms, when it was common for large extended families to sleep together in one or two rooms under a thatched roof, it became common for each child, particularly a boy, to have his own room. Too often, those rooms and those mansions were another sort of cage of isolation.

People look out from a window as they watch a protest in Srinagar on August 5, 2016. Credit: Reuters/Danish Ismail

The wealth that accompanied social transformation since the 1950s was also beginning to reshape family life, cultural norms and social milieus. Almost unnoticed, families had turned unitary. Grandparents might come to stay for a few weeks or months but, more often than not, returned to their ancestral home or to another child’s house for the next few months. In the past, Kashmiri children had traditionally grown up in the nurturing environs of extended families and neighbourhoods, with several parent figures and role models. It had been normal for children to eat at whichever house they happened to be playing, even sleep over. During the time of violence, many parents had to adjust not only to their traumatising circumstances but also to parenting in a unitary family without additional societal assistance. A very large number of mothers were hardly able to cope without support or role models amid the traumas of the violence around them. As in the past, a number of children grew up in their matamal, maternal grandparents’ home—but lifestyles were under strain there too.

Fathers found the transition particularly difficult. Growing up in large, joint families, their interactions with their own fathers had been limited. The lack of intimate interactions had made them fear, and avoid, their fathers. But with the social transformation to unitary families and the loss of bonds with extended families, their children expected more intimate interactions from them. What these fathers had not experienced from their own fathers while growing up, they found it difficult to provide to their children. Inter-generational conflict increased within homes, particularly between fathers and sons. If these young men were not willing to bow before repression by state forces, they were even less willing to be obsequious at home. Their fathers often found it tough to cope with them.

So, young people adjusted to violence, fear, and uncertainty in the isolation of their private rooms in large houses. In the seclusion of those rooms, boys could indulge themselves in all the things boys try out in order to overcome depression. Drug abuse became commonplace, smoking much more so. In fact, many nine- and ten-year-old boys smoked. Alcohol abuse too was common in the new century—in secret of course, since it was a major religious taboo.

When boys did go out, at least during the 1990s, the cage only changed its dimensions. There were barriers and checkpoints everywhere. Passengers would be forced to get off a bus or other vehicle, to walk in line to a point where they were searched and questioned. To be without an identity card was suicidal. Everyone learnt to address a soldier as ‘sir’, and to remain silent and look respectful even while being abused or roughed up during a check. Paramilitary soldiers routinely slapped and humiliated people at these checkpoints. It was common for Kashmiris to be made to stand on their hands, with their feet propped against a wall, sometimes simply because a soldier did not like the look on their face, or he was having a bad day himself, or was Islamophobic. General M.A. Zaki, who was Corps Commander in 1989–91 and then Advisor (security) to the Governor until 1995, observes that Kashmiris have a refined culture and were not used to the language and abrasive culture of many of the troops from some other states.

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Militancy crippled the education of this generation. Through the first half of the 1990s, most schools were more often closed than open. Even when they were open, teachers and students frequently could not get there. For, roads would be closed after a militant attack or for a cordon-and-search operation, or students and teachers were delayed so long at a checkpoint or by a search that they turned back home. School was missed more often than attended. If a child did reach school, teachers might not—or arson might have reduced the school building to a smouldering wreck.

Children pass a security forces personnel on their way to school in Kashmir. Credit: PTI Files

Even when they functioned, schools were no safe havens. Paramilitary forces searched educational institutions too. In the early years of the insurgency, even the vice-chancellor was forced to line up on the university grounds for identification during a cordon-and-search ‘crackdown.’ And soldiers sometimes set up camp in a part of a school or a college. What this meant was that barbed wire fences, bunkers, rude searches and mines surrounded the children near the outside perimeter. Forces only stopped using schools as camps in 2007, after a brave young student-journalist from Delhi6 wrote about it and then personally pressed the Defence Minister to ban the use of schools and colleges to billet soldiers.

In the mid-1990s, Kashmiris spoke of middle-aged, sometimes grey- bearded, men walking into examination halls, placing a pistol on the desk and writing the examination on behalf of a student. Nobody dared question the man’s identity. After things returned to a semblance of normalcy in 1997, the examination system began to be subverted in other ways. In the new century, parents and teachers sometimes collaborated to assist cheating so that their wards would pass examinations.

By the time the government pushed hard to revive and expand the education system, a large number of young teachers had been educated during the time the system had been crippled. The government needed an army of teachers for the new colleges and schools it opened in the early years of the new century, but even the education minister of the time acknowledged that the quality of teachers was a problem. Some colleges and universities were devalued into mass production degree factories. The liberal arts, which could have shaped thinkers who could rebuild society and lead its cultural and political life, were devalued the most.

The pressure of parents and society resulted in students generally pushing hard to get admission to medicine, engineering, management, media, or computer science courses—in more or less that order of preference— before finally opting for the arts, if they could not get admission to any of those other courses. Insightful analysis, rigorous research and critical questioning were casualties of the times. For, to cover up their insecurities, many teachers shouted down students’ questions, punished curious students with bad marks, or resorted to corporal punishment.

A generation left those educational institutions with degrees and with training against independent thinking … The hollowing of the education system meant that armies of men and women roamed the state with degrees. Many of them were barely employable but expected that the government owed them a job. A few months after that summer of stone-pelting in the Valley in 2010, an older man in a village observed that his school teacher had been ‘fifth pass’, but taught far better than contemporary PhDs … Despite all these infirmities, the ironic fact is that educational institutions were about the only places where students could socialise and learn to be members of society. Opportunities for entertainment were largely limited to television and, later, to phones and computers. For, militants had destroyed all of Kashmir’s cinemas, clubs, and bars in 1990. There were few restaurants in the entire Valley except on a tiny strip in Srinagar. After 1995, that strip expanded a few kilometres up to Dalgate but, until the beginning of the new century, that was more or less all.

Kashmiri weddings had traditionally involved multi-course wazwan feasts in the late evening, after which the groom’s family would take the bride home at night. During the 1990s, weddings became hurried daytime events attended by not only guests but also fear. The wazwan was served as a late lunch instead of an evening feast, and every effort was made that the bride should reach the groom’s house before dusk.

Hardly anyone was on the streets after dusk. Getting to a doctor or hospital after dark could be like running a gauntlet of cajoling, pleading, convincing and racing. For many years, Kashmiris got used to driving their vehicles right off a road or highway if they saw an army vehicle approaching from the other side. If the driver and others on the army vehicle thought the civilian vehicle had not given their vehicle enough space to pass smoothly, they would most likely stop to assault the vehicle and its passengers. For a few years, they just wielded long staffs to assault the vehicle as the army vehicle passed. One had to be very wary of tossing anything out of a car window, for a soldier might mistake it for a grenade and respond with a bullet.

For some years, Kashmiris were forced to keep the windows of their vehicles rolled up. It seemed like a thing of yesterday to Mohsin Haider Ali of Srinagar, who could recall even many years later the horror of warm blood gushing from his head after the long baton of an army man crashed on his head through the open window of the bus in which he was sitting. He was a little boy then, on a school excursion. It was the period during the second half of the 1990s when some schools were tentatively trying to revive such excursions. The child had just been for his first picnic and was delightedly feeling the breeze in his hair on the return journey when the baton blow landed. It was not meant specifically for Mohsin; it had been aimed at whoever was behind that open window. However hot it might be, open windows were not acceptable to the armed forces in that phase. They feared that a militant might shoot, or hurl a grenade, at them from a passing vehicle.