Suspect activities

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

There have been some disquieting revelations about the goings-on in the Indian army. To make things worse, major political parties are seizing the opportunity unabashedly to score debating points.

Last March the army sent to the government the report of a high-level inquiry which had found that Gen VK Singh, Chief of the Army Staff from March 2010 to May 2012, had set up a new unit called Technical Services Division (TSD) and funded it to destabilise the government of Jammu and Kashmir, spy on politicians and Defence ministry officials and influence the appointment of the next army chief.

The officers’ board, which conducted the inquiry, recommended that the government institute a criminal investigation in the matter. The government ordered no investigation. However, the new army chief, Gen Bikram Singh, shut TSD down.

The army inquiry board’s report was brought to light by the Indian Express last month. Responding to it, the Defence ministry said measures were in place to prevent undesirable activities. Since the matter involves national security, the government will take action after examining the report carefully, it added.

VK Singh said the newspaper report was false and motivated and seditious. However, he admitted the army had made payments to politicians in Kashmir. He claimed that this was done to ensure stability and that the army had been doing so since Independence.

Eight former army chiefs, in a joint statement, refuted his claim. They said no payments were made to any politicians, political party or NGO in their time. They asserted they would not have allowed such payments.

Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his father, Union minister Farooq Abdullah, demanded a probe into the reported activities of the TSD.

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammed Yasin Malik filed a petition in the state high court seeking a probe into the TSD’s role as well as the alleged killing of 117 civilians by the army in the state in 2010.

The newspaper report on the army inquiry board’s findings came immediately after VK Singh appeared with Bharatiya Janata Party’s presidential candidate Narendra Modi at an ex-servicemen’s rally in Haryana. Congress and BJP leaders issued public statements calculated to extract political mileage out of the development.

VK Singh’s term as army chief was marked by a series of controversies. He once said he had informed Defence Minister AK Antony about a bribe offer he had received from arms deal intermediaries but the government had not acted upon the complaint. Antony said he asked Singh to give a written report but he did not give one. Singh also dragged the government to court over a dispute relating to his age. If he had succeeded in the litigation he would have got more time in the top job.

Former J&K governor Gen SK Sinha said what VK Singh did was against the traditions of the army and he should have been sacked when he went to court. Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi said Singh, while heading the army’s eastern command, had given him some advice on counter-insurgency measures but he did not act upon it as he did not think it was in the national interest.

The army board’s report raises the question whether VK Singh’s actions were consistent with the army’s traditions. Under British rule, strong ties existed between the civil and military leadership — several Governors-General were in fact former army chiefs — but the military remained apolitical. With a view to ensuring civil supremacy over the military, India’s constitution has designated the president as the office of Commander-in-Chief of the defence forces.

Some experts have pointed out that the defence minister’s lack of interest in or knowledge of security matters has sometimes resulted in bureaucrats emerging as the effective civilian leadership, to the chagrin of the military brass.

In a book published in 2005, Gen S Padmanabhan, who was army chief during 2000-2002, says that the Defence Secretary, with his nearness to the Defence Minister, often exercised power on behalf of the minister and was regarded as the de facto minister. He adds, “The ‘supremacy of the civil over the military’ was thus effectively changed from supremacy of the political authority to that of the civilian bureaucracy.”

Two former chiefs of the Indian navy, Admirals Vishnu Bhagwat (1996-98) and Arun Prakash (2004-06), have also recorded dissatisfaction with the relationship between the ministry and the service headquarters.

The systemic problems they have pointed out need to be addressed speedily to ensure proper management of national security affairs. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 1, 2013.

Army chief’s final battle

BRP Bhaskar

India’s army chief, General VK Singh, who was a young paratroop commando in the 1971 war with Pakistan, is preparing for a battle on a different front at the fag end of his long and distinguished career. The battleground is the courtroom and the adversary his own government.

Singh has gone to court against the government’s decision that hr was born on May 10, 1950, the date mentioned in his application form for admission to the National Defence Academy, and not May 10, 1951, the date entered in the records of the army hospital where he was born and his school leaving certificate.

Singh, who was a teenaged schoolboy when he applied for the NDA course, says a member of the school staff who filled the form entered the wrong year. But some suspect the year was fudged to ensure eligibility.

The conflict in the records in the office of the Adjutant General, the army’s official records keeper, showing the year of birth as 1951, and those in the office of the Military Secretary, which handles postings and promotions, mentioning 1950, remained unresolved until last July, when the Defence Ministry, after consulting the Attorney General and the Law Ministry, decided to treat May 10, 1950 as Singh’s date of birth.

Aggrieved by the decision, he filed a statutory complaint with Defence Minister AK Antony, becoming the first service chief to invoke the Army Act provision in this regard. Antony upheld the ministry’s decision. Singh filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the decision, making him the first army chief to fight a legal battle against the state.

“It is an unhealthy precedent,” Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam Raju said last week. “It does not augur well either for the ministry or the forces.”

In the petition, Singh says the ministry’s decision is illegal and arbitrary and violates his fundamental rights. The court has to adjudicate the matter early as he is approaching the date of retirement. If it confirms the 1950 date, he has to hang his boots on May 31 this year. If it accepts the 1951 date, he can stay on for one more year.

Singh says the government’s refusal to accept his contention regarding date of birth affects his image before the public and the armed forces, and he is fighting for honour, not for tenure. He concedes that, regardless of the court’s finding, the government has the right to decide his tenure.

Going by the facts on record, Singh appears to have a good case but the honour plea is somewhat weak as he accepted the ministry’s determination of his birth date in 2008. He claims he did so on the orders of the then army chief.

There is more to the dispute than meets the eye. If Singh retires in May this year, Gen Bikram Singh, who heads the Eastern Command, will become the next army chief. If his tenure runs till 2013, Gen KT Parnaik of the Northern Command will be the successor as Bikram Singh would have retired by then. Should he leave without completing his tenure, Gen Shankar Ghosh of the Western Command, who is due to retire on the same day as him, will be in the reckoning.

The controversy has already damaged the Establishment’s image with interested parties floating stories alleging the succession issue and Singh’s principled stand on some scams involving civilian and military personnel influenced the government’s decision on the age issue.

Worse still, it has split the community of former defence personnel and possibly serving personnel too. Before Singh moved the apex court, an exservicemen’s association had filed a public interest petition pleading his case. The court dismissed it, saying it was not maintainable.

Four former Chief Justices of India have inflicted damage upon themselves by allowing the exservicemen’s association to drag them into the controversy. Infuriated by the association’s action in appending their opinion to its petition, Chief Justice SH Kapadia has asked the court’s registry not to accept any writ petitions in future if the opinions of former chief justices are annexed.

There are reports that the government is seeking an out-of-court settlement on the basis of its accepting Singh’s contention on age and his agreeing to forgo the additional year of service it will give him.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, January 23, 2012.

Uniform of whatever colour should not subdue legislative wisdom: AHRC

The following is a statement issued by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong:

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) is a subject of severe criticism by human rights activists and jurists in India and across the world. The alarming number of human rights abuses committed by the security agencies deployed in regions where AFSPA is currently put to use is depressing proof to the draconian nature of this law. Many lives lost already - estimated to be more than 4000 since the Act came into force in 1958 - to this the Act underscores the non-compatibility of this law to the notion of democracy. The statutory impunity provided in the Act and the extreme nature of force, that could be used arbitrarily on mere suspicion, empowering a soldier to shoot to kill with no fear of prosecution which is used without restraint till today, proves that this law has not only failed, but would not by any stretch of imagination be of use to curb armed secessionist militancy in the country. Yet, the Indian Army is now entangled in a browbeating debacle with the civilian government in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and the state's legislature concerning the withdrawal of this law from certain parts of the state. The army's attempt is to continue enjoying the despicable impunity this law provides therefore unbecomingly benefiting from it.

The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir has been running between the state and national capitals since the state legislature passed a resolution to authorise the partial withdrawal of this law from the state. The army since then has been claiming that its operative framework would be compromised should the law be withdrawn.

In this context, the Chief Minister of the state is right in opining that the army's role is primarily to protect the country's border, and not to maintain law and order, at the expense of superseding the legitimate writ of the government, and thus in essence of the people. The army and the Government of India should not have pushed the matter to such ridicule. For the army to instruct the government, India is not Pakistan.

The architecture of impunity in AFSPA negates the notion that this law is legitimate. Army's demand to continue with AFSPA against the decision of the state legislature is against its constitutional mandate, to be under civilian fiat, and opposes the supremacy of the people. That some officers in the army are applying unwarranted and inappropriate pressure upon the government not to withdraw the law from operation is in essence insult of legislative wisdom. It reiterates the universal truth that an army, if allowed to operate with impunity, would not prefer to return to be under the control of civilian authority.

The only force, to which the country's armed forces must surrender, unconditionally, is to its people. The Indian Army does not have a mandate beyond the constitutional premise that Indians decided to practice since 1950. To demand otherwise is nothing less than pushing a democratically elected civilian government to revolt against its own security forces.

There is no merit in the army's contention that the soldiers follow their code of conduct when operating in areas where the AFSPA is enforced. The AHRC has documented more than 300 cases so far where the army has openly violated every expected norm of operative justice and law, where AFSPA is in force. The conversation of the dead from hundreds of unmarked graves identified by the State Human Rights Commission of Jammu and Kashmir is gruesome proof to the fact that the Indian Army has 'done their job' as it suited them. That thus far there has been not a single prosecution or independent and transparent investigation concerning the unmarked graves in the state reiterates that the impunity is absolute.

The argument that AFSPA helped control secessionist or otherwise destructive activities is equally false. The brutalities committed by the armed forces under the protection of AFSPA against the people have deeply alienated the people from rest of the country. It has fuelled intolerance, breeds mistrust, generates and maintains fear. AFSPA is the iniquitous fountain of moral reasoning that supports militant and religiously fundamentalist organisations and helps them seek and receive support from at least three different neighbouring countries. The commendable move by the Jammu and Kashmir state government is to address this. It has to be supported, that similar actions could be initiated in other places, for instance in Manipur.

The army's dependence upon this draconian law can be interpreted, that the army is incapable of operating in a transparent and accountable environment, and is against the interest of the nation. It contradicts the highest morale the Indian Army is sworn to maintain. That the secessionist and militant forces require the cover of impunity to operate, the brute violence such entities commit and the nature of internal and external support they receive must not be the defining rationale of the operative framework of a disciplined force.

What happens in India will have an impact upon the region. That the Indian Army dictating the government about security policies will further encourage armed forces in countries like Sri Lanka where the present president is using his military might to subdue democratic debates in that country. It could discourage discussions about the accountability of the Nepal Army and that of the former armed Maoist cadres for the human rights abuses they are accountable for. It will foster the operative impunity enjoyed by state forces like the Rapid Action Battalion in Bangladesh and allow them remain unaccountable for human rights abuses. Whenever these issues get discussed in regional or international fora, India would have no moral voice to support calls for accountability should the Indian Army enjoy despicable impunity within India.

Indian Army is not above the parliamentary writ. That it has started exhibiting some of the despicable tendencies of the Pakistan Armed Forces that have repeatedly overridden democratic writs allowing democracy to make only cameo appearances in that country has to be reprimanded at its onset. That the country's army claiming that it requires an aura of impunity to operate could be interpreted as a warning that the army might be becoming incompatible to function within a democratic space.

At the very least, it is not for military generals of the country to decide administrative and security policies. Neither should a uniform, irrespective of its colour, subdue legislative wisdom.

People’s Tribunal report on military governance in Kashmir

The following is a statement from the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir, forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong:

The International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-Administered Kashmir (IPTK) feels morally obligated to make this statement today. Sustained alliances between local communities and IPTK have enabled us to bear witness to the escalating conditions induced by militarized governance, and the severity of psychosocial dimensions of oppression in Indian-administered Kashmir. From our work since being instituted in April 2008, from the reports and briefs we have authored, investigations we have undertaken and are in the process of completing, we find it ethically imperative to comment on the direction in which the Governments of India and Jammu and Kashmir, and the Indian Armed Forces, appear to be headed, and the consequences they will likely effect.

Conflict Resolution?

The Government of India has recently called for "creative solutions" to resolve the "Kashmir problem." If we map the events of the past six months inside Indian-administered Kashmir, the approach of the Indian state is aggressively militaristic. While commitments to political diplomacy frame relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, in Indian-administered Kashmir, there are no such engagements with civil society or with the pro-freedom leadership. There is no acknowledgement of civil society's insistent demand for the right to self-determination.

Kashmir is not a "problem" but a conflict zone

India's militarization is aimed at territorial control of Kashmir, and control over key economic and environmental resources in the region, including those of the Siachen glacier. The Government of Kashmir is unable to prevail politically or exercise control over the Indian Armed Forces. India's political dominance hinges on its ability to possess Kashmir. Institutions of democracy -- the judiciary, educational institutions, media -- are neutralized by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian Armed Forces as they function in tandem, continuing "military governance." State violence seeks to undermine people's capacity to resist and solicits collaborators.

Predominant reality is militarized governance

The pervasive presence is that of the military and paramilitary, whose xenophobic and forceful infiltration into every aspect of economic and civic life is palpable. Armed forces are present at educational institutions, hospitals, shopping complexes, cafes and hotels, sporting events, playgrounds, and bazaars. They monitor people as they enter mosques and shrines. They also collaborate with Hindu nationalists in instituting "self-defence" campaigns and militias, such as forming the 100 Village Defence Committees announced in May 2010, promoting militarized Hindu nationalism.

Zero Tolerance?

Human rights violations in Kashmir are a means of maintaining military governance. The Omar Abdullah Government has repeatedly promised "zero tolerance" for human rights violations. Zero tolerance? What we have witnessed is "zero tolerance" for nonviolent civil society dissent, as security forces brutalize people on the streets chanting "Go India, Go back," chanting "India, Quit Kashmir."

On June 24, 2010, Chief Minister Abdullah stated that separatist/pro-freedom leaders were instigating youth to violence, following which security forces ensued repression on political leaders calling for peaceful protests. Crowds marching to Sopore on June 28 to protest and mourn the death of three youth killed by the paramilitary were met with force. Police used tear gas and opened fire on the protesters and journalists, killing one person. In Delina, a nine-year boy was killed by security forces.

Condoning and rationalizing the deplorable actions of the CRPF and police, the Home Secretary of India, G. K. Pillai, characterized civilians fired upon by security personnel as people who were culpable as they violated curfew and attacked police posts. This further evidences the patronage that the security forces enjoy from highly placed government officials, and emphasizes the state's view that civil society resistance to militaristic governance is criminal behaviour.

From the actions and statements of security forces and politicians in power, it appears that all civil disobedience is being defined as anti-national, as equivalent to "terrorism." Peaceable protests are fired upon, as security personnel repress women and men participating in them. Stone pelting, a means of dissent in Kashmir, is termed violent. Stone pelting, Kashmir youth states, is an expression of rage by a subjugated people whose political means of expression and demands are systematically limited. Stone pelting, Kashmir youth say, cannot be compared to the brutish techniques of domination used by the state.

Leaders under house arrest

Even elected officials are prevented from staging public protests, such as an MLA and his with approximately 100 co-workers, who were stopped from protesting during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Srinagar. In 2008, the Prime Minister had stated that elections in Kashmir would render separatist leaders irrelevant, as elected officials would speak for the people. Ironic.

There appears to be no governmental interest in acknowledging and responding to the actions of the military and paramilitary. People, including minors, and political leaders that participate in resistance are booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA). Undeclared curfews permit security forces to operate without noting cause or prior warning. In November 2009, Lt. General, B.S. Jaswal, characterized civil disobedience in response to calls given by dissenting political leaders as "agitational terrorism" prompted by "terrorists." During the pacific resistance of 2008 and 2009, protests had also turned lethal as security personnel fired into crowds. Cyber resistance then was termed "cyber terrorism," and monitored.

Real violence in the present -- bullets, torture, landmines, injuries, arrests, human shields, molestations, sexualized violence, forced labour, detentions, disappearances, murder -- is virtually monopolized by the military and paramilitary in Kashmir. The list of perpetrators is long.

Killings Without Accountability?

Between January-June 2010, reportedly 40 civilians have been killed (25 of whom were killed by security forces), 107 persons identified as militants have been killed, and 57 soldiers have been killed (of the 57, 28 soldiers were killed by militants, 14 committed suicide, 2 died in fratricidal killings, 7 died in grenade/mine explosions, and 6 were killed by unidentified gunmen). Those killed by the Central Reserve Police Force and police were all young men, all Muslim.

Over 20 persons have been killed in "encounters" in just April and May 2010; each reported as "infiltrating" militants. Only four deaths have been investigated, all found to be fake encounter killings.

Reportedly, 335 militants were killed in 2008 and 236 militants were killed in 2009. There are no systematic investigations into alleged "encounter" killings. Promises made about inquiries and commissions are not honoured, as, for example, in Machil, where, after the three fake encounter killings, a Divisional Inquiry was promised but not authorized. In 2008, 367 Habeas Corpus Petitions were filed in the High Court at Srinagar, 272 petitions filed in 2009, and 159 petitions filed between January and mid-May 2010. International human rights law argues that a state must respect the right to life. The Indian Armed Forces repeatedly break this covenant in Kashmir.

Some fake encounter and other killings have taken place around high-profile talks. Military and state discourse use these killings to hype fear of armed militancy and infiltration, stating that militants, scattered all over, seek to target Hindus, requiring hyper-vigilance on the part of security forces. The actions of the state and the military and paramilitary are calculated to provoke and inflame. The armed struggle in Kashmir of the 1990s abated, again becoming nonviolent resistance between 2004-2007; even as cross-Line of Control (between India and Pakistan) movements, infiltrations, and insurgency into Indian-administered Kashmir are significant issues. The Indian state, however, exaggerates these realities by linking Kashmiri civilian resistance to "foreign terror," to enable Indian's administration of Kashmir to proceed with impunity.

The Government of India has stated that Pakistan does not want peace, and might encourage militant attacks. Does India want peace in Kashmir? Is India willing to recognize what "peace" will require, and take those steps?

Military Governance?

The Indian state does not define the present as a time of conflict inside Kashmir. Yet, the Armed Forces have become increasingly more powerful and entrenched in Indian-administered Kashmir. Both New Delhi and the Omar Abdullah Government appear unwilling, or unable, to control the military and paramilitary. Is the military more powerful in Kashmir than the civil administration?

Military-talk and dominant political speech state that the Indian Armed Forces are in Kashmir to protect citizens, and justify civilian suffering and killings as collateral damage in a war on terror. Akin to the George W. Bush era in the United States, this war of "good" against "evil" makes critique or dissent impossible without disagreement becoming affiliated with what is "evil," "dangerous," and "anti-national." There is no way out of the contradiction that India's military is the protector of Kashmiris who are also potential enemies, as long as military suppression of Kashmiris is understood as crucial to defending India.

Questions regarding the Indian armed forces in Kashmir, with fifty-six soldiers committing suicide in Kashmir in 2008-2009, and fifteen instances of fratricidal killing, are muffled.

The PSA, the Disturbed Areas Act, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) are security related legislation in contravention of international humanitarian laws that guarantee immunity to army and paramilitary forces. On February 26, 2009, soon after assuming office, Chief Minister Abdullah stated that AFSPA should be revoked. The armed forces challenged his authority, declaring such intent as "regressive," stating "any move to revoke AFSPA in Jammu and Kashmir would be detrimental to the security of the Valley and would provide a boost to the terrorists." Dialogue with the Indian state and Kashmiri pro-freedom leaders regarding autonomy and the revocation of AFSPA were electoral promises made by the current Chief Minister. To revoke AFSPA would be to interrupt not only legal, but political, impunity.

Kashmiris are now being told that it is better for their security to amend, not revoke, AFSPA.

International Community

Kashmir is a laboratory of violent experiments conducted by Indian military and state institutions. The sustained militarization in Kashmir is not called "military rule" by the Indian state and international community. Civil society in Indian-administered Kashmir remains "under the authority of the hostile army," whose reach and power "has been established and can be exercised," (Hague Convention, Laws and Customs of War on Land Article 42, 1907).

India's militarization is portrayed as an "internal" matter, refusing transparency, international scrutiny, and adherence to international humanitarian law of conflict and war. In the face of the Indian state's violations of international humanitarian law, of protocols and conventions, and perpetration of crimes against humanity, there is a deafening silence on the part of the international community. The Kashmir conflict, like other international conflicts, requires urgent attention and resolution. There is, at present, no monitoring, no sustained visibility, no engagement that can produce ethical and viable results.

That Kashmiris must be an integral part of any resolution repeatedly escapes the international community, and India and Pakistan. If the current situation continues, and nonviolent dissent is systemically brutalized, might the Government of India force Kashmiri civilians to perhaps take up armed militancy once again, continuing the cycle of violence? Is the international community not accountable for averting this?

The United States, the European Union, and other nations must recognize that the resolution of the Kashmir issue is directly significant to peace and security in South Asia. Institutions and states participating in military collaborations and exercises on Kashmir must yield to transparent dialogue, and address the difficult questions of conflict resolution.

Recently, the Government of India took issue with the Canadian Government's scrutiny of Indian visa applicants with military backgrounds. In the past, among such applicants, some, for example, have been perpetrators in Kashmir that have sought residency aboard. A scrutiny of certain categories of military personnel travelling aboard is perhaps necessitated by India's apathy in prosecuting perpetrators.

The Global North's desire to benefit from India as a vast/potential economic market must not continuously sideline egregious human rights violations.

Concerns

We wish to enter into public record that following the Majils-e-Mashawarat of Shopian's request that IPTK inquire into the death of Ms. Asiya Jan and Mrs. Neelofar Jan in May 2009, to deliver an accurate understanding of the matter and define a mechanism for justice, we wrote Chief Minister Abdullah in January 2010, requesting cooperation and access, which have been denied us to date.

As well, we wish to enter into public record that the Government of Jammu and Kashmir and the Government of India have not undertaken investigations into the findings of BURIED EVIDENCE, IPTK's report on unknown, unmarked, and mass graves in Indian-administered Kashmir, or acted on its recommendations. Such action may have generated constructive interventions into the continuing chain of extrajudicial executions by the Indian military and paramilitary.

Dr. Angana Chatterji, Convener, IPTK and Professor, Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies,

Advocate Parvez Imroz, Convener, IPTK and Founder, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society,

Gautam Navlakha, Convener, IPTK and Editorial Consultant, Economic and Political Weekly,

Zahir-Ud-Din, Convener, IPTK and Vice-President, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society,

Advocate Mihir Desai, Legal Counsel, IPTK and Lawyer, Mumbai High Court and Supreme Court of India,
Khurram Parvez, Liaison IPTK and Programme Coordinator, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

Queries may be directed to Khurram Parvez at kparvez@kashmirprocess.org
Phone: +91.194.2482820
Mobile: +91.9419013553