The latest death-by-torture of three harmless Kashmiri males fortunately invoked sufficient shock and outrage among the many well-meaning to pressure the federal government to react. Not solely has compensation been introduced, however employment has been promised to the following of kin. The Indian Army additionally has swiftly moved out a few officers, together with a brigadier, to assuage the general public sentiment whereas ordering a courtroom of enquiry.

Even if the enquiry concludes complicity of the military personnel, their punishment would be a tough ask, given the federal government and the military’s track record on human rights offences. Hence, it’s tough to withstand the sensation that had the video of torture not come out within the public area, the three lifeless males would have ended up being statistics, including to the variety of disappeared individuals in Kashmir for the reason that begin of the insurgency.

With this background, the dual feelings that I felt upon studying in regards to the incident was déjà vu. And disappointment. Not for the unlucky Kashmiris. But for the establishment known as the Indian Army, which has progressively and steadily been shedding its ethical bearings within the quicksand of counter-insurgency operations. On this climb down the ladder of navy professionalism, the Indian Army confronted a number of phases from which it might have turned again – again to its core values – but it surely selected to proceed trudging downwards. Hell does sucks you in with all types of allurements – recognition, gallantry awards, headiness of energy, glamour of media consideration and avenues of money making and so on.

Truth be informed, there was an inevitability to this. The Indian Army is the one navy pressure on this planet to fight insurgency inside its personal territory – for over 70 years within the Northeast and 30 years in Kashmir. It would have been a miracle if it remained unaffected by the vested pursuits that develop when political issues stay unresolved for an prolonged time period. Moreover, steady publicity to debilitating violence, each inflicted upon you and inflicted by you, brutalises the sufferer and the perpetrator alike, a lot in order that after a degree it’s tough to differentiate who’s who.

The key phases within the military’s descent into unprofessionalism had been dehumanisation of the adversary, whataboutery on human rights points, communalisation of the threats and political alignment for private aggrandisement. Unless we perceive this downward trajectory, we gained’t be capable to put the current incident in its appropriate context.

In the early years of my reporting on the Indian Army’s counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir, I got here throughout the story of Kunan-Poshpora. This was in 2005. Like most newcomers on the ‘army beat’, I used to be stuffed with nationalistic fervour, so my instinctive response was disbelief.

“Raping women is not one of Indian Army’s KRAs (key result areas),” a really senior Srinagar-based officer had informed me tersely in 2003 throughout my first task. We had been speaking in regards to the doable human rights violations by the Indian Army in Kashmir, and he had taken umbrage at my artless query. “We don’t get up in morning and brief our men that they have to rape two women and kill four men today,” he stated in a tone that shut me up proper and correct.

Hence, when one Kashmiri journalist talked about the Kunan-Poshpora incident to me, I dismissed it as separatists’ propaganda to malign the Indian Army. For the uninitiated, Kunan-Poshpora is a village within the Kupwara district of north Kashmir. And the ‘incident’ refers back to the horrific night time of February 23, 1991, when in the middle of a cordon and search operation by an Indian Army unit, virtually two dozen ladies reported being gangraped. There had been a number of enquiries, however the findings remained polarised. The villagers and the ladies stood by their model and the military by its denial. No one was ever prosecuted. Even immediately, the incident stays between the gray intersection of information and fiction.

Such was my confidence within the integrity of the Indian Army, that my disbelief was not sufficient. I wanted validation too. Especially, once I learnt about Kunan-Poshpora months after the Manorama Devi incident of Manipur. Manorama Devi was picked up from her dwelling by the Assam Rifles for questioning in July 2004. Later her bullet-ridden physique was found in a field, with gunshots to her genitals, apparently to take away proof of rape. Thereafter, Manipuri ladies got here out to protest in opposition to the impunity with which they thought the Indian Army operated within the state. Assam Rifles is officered by the military. The image of the bare protest by ladies holding the banner ‘Indian Army Rape Us’ refused to go away my head.

Disturbed by this consecutive shaking-up of my beliefs, I sought an appointment with the seniormost officer in Delhi accountable for public info. The two-star basic graciously acquired me in his workplace, gave me tea and biscuits, earlier than continuing to place my considerations to relaxation. By manner of breaking the ice, he requested me about my household background, my profession targets and so forth. Finally, he obtained right down to the primary concern. “People like us,” he stated, “have different moral values. Can you come out on the streets naked to protest, whatever be the provocation?” he requested rhetorically. “People like us will not do that. Their society is different from ours. Their attitude towards sex is different.”

Having tackled Manipur, he proceeded to Kashmir. “Kashmir looks like a conservative society, but they are extremely fanatic,” he stated. “Kashmiri women take great pride in having sex with the Jihadis. They regard it as their contribution to Jihad. They have no shame in saying that they have been raped to malign the Indian Army. That’s part of their psychological warfare.”

It took me a very long time to course of this dialog. I didn’t have the proper vocabulary to grasp that dehumanisation of the adversary, whether or not in Kashmir or the Northeast, was one of many technique of getting the troopers to hold out unsoldierly and unprofessional acts. This dehumanisation was essential to absolve oneself of the guilt of treating a fellow being as lower than human.

You don’t really feel any compunctions in pulling out an aged man from his automobile within the presence of his household and humiliating him, as a result of ‘Kashmiris don’t have the identical sense of dignity that we’ve got.’ You don’t flinch if you torture a younger boy as a result of ‘They are used to much worse hardships.’ You should not horrified if you ‘accidentally’ kill an harmless particular person as a result of ‘if they really cared about life would they let their children join the militancy.’ And so on.

However, dehumanisation can solely go this far. Sometimes, the human rights varieties ask too many pesky questions, which require a response. So, throw the query again. Much earlier than whataboutery grew to become the nationalist’s reflex on the social media, the Indian Army officers had perfected it in Kashmir.

At a seminar on human rights that the military had organised in a Rashtriya Rifle unit in Pattan within the early years of the final decade, I used to be invited as a speaker. A senior officer who spoke after me, politely rebuked my speak by saying ‘What about the human rights of the soldiers?’ That set the tone for the remainder of his speak. He gave examples of the brutality of the militants and the plight of the households of the killed military personnel. He spoke about watching his brother in arms bleed to demise in entrance of him, or his buddy shedding a limb. Sure sufficient, it was a whistle-worthy speech. The officer obtained a standing ovation.

Later throughout tea, I used to be accosted by many younger officers who repeated the rhetoric of their senior, with further examples. My assertion that troopers and insurgents are held to completely different ethical {and professional} requirements went unheard and unheeded. Clearly, there might be no persuasive reply to the query that begins with ‘what about.’ In any case, the particular person asking the query doesn’t need the reply. The righteousness of their query is the reply in itself.

However, the largest erosion has been of Indian Army’s secular values, which now additionally form its angle in the direction of CI Ops in Kashmir. Many retired navy officers rue the rising politicisation of the Indian Army. But the politicisation has solely been doable as a result of there was communalisation of the military first. Senior officers, particularly from the retired neighborhood, are keen on throwing the examples of widespread prayer rooms in a military unit, known as Sarva Dharm Sthal, and of unit officers training the non secular rituals of their troops no matter their private beliefs to underscore the military’s syncretism.

The reality is, it’s mere tokenism. And all officers know that. As all the things else within the military, non secular syncretism can be a parade. And it has a cute title too. It’s known as mandir parade. Syncretism or tolerance isn’t what you show. It is what you consider. And consider so deeply that it’s like respiratory to you. Religious tolerance by order isn’t any tolerance; it’s a timebound responsibility.

However, communalisation of the Indian Army isn’t its fault. With the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as the first navy risk, faith was at all times a consider its psychological preparedness, particularly within the infantry, the place pure models had non secular struggle cries. Once the insurgency in J&Okay more and more assumed an Islamist character by means of Pakistan’s interventions, the interior enemy additionally more and more began wanting and behaving like a Muslim. If the military was not concerned in CI Ops for a protracted interval, it might have been within the cantonment or coaching institutes getting ready and coaching for standard warfare. The impressionable troopers and younger officers would have been faraway from the society the place non secular polarisation was turning into an on a regular basis actuality. And they could have taken mandir parade because the lifestyle.

But that didn’t occur. The military was compelled to coach primarily for counter terrorism, particularly after the Modi authorities deemed terrorism as India’s main threat. Moreover, to isolate the Kashmir concern from its political context, the time period insurgency was changed by terrorism by the federal government. So successfully, the military was now coaching to battle Muslim and Christian terrorists. Consequently, it noticed nothing improper in issuing a young for making a simulated village in Officers’ Training Academy, Gaya in which it asked for “among other things, structures of village huts with different specifications of material and sizes, a mosque and a church.’ It also asked for ‘mannequins to be dressed in pherans, burkhas, pathani suits, skull caps, traditional clothing of women from the Northeast and robes of a Christian priest.”

Prolonged deployment of the military in CI Ops in Kashmir and the Northeast steadily turned it right into a principally Hindu military, with Hinduism being conflated with nationalism. When the Supreme Court of India also says that Hinduism is a lifestyle and never a faith, how can one blame a mere navy service for this confusion. From there to politicisation was a brief distance. After all, when faith, nation and social gathering are one, how can one distinguish!

Is there a technique to climb out of this morass?

The latest Rajouri-Poonch incident has supplied an opportunity to start out the method of restoration. Distinguish between criminality and a real mistake. Instead of incentivising prison behaviour utilizing the plea of troops’ morale, prosecute and punish the criminals in uniform. Make an instance of them. Sure, this can solely be a patchwork. But till the navy finds the muscle to face up and inform the political management that it wants to return to the barracks to resurrect its core values, patchwork should do.

Ghazala Wahab is editor FORCE journal. Her books embody Dragon On Our Doorstep: Managing China Through Military Power, Born A Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India and The Peacemakers.