“I, ……………………………………… do swear in the name in the name of GOD that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by the law established and that I will, as in duty bound, honesty and faithfully serve in the regular Army of the Union of India and go wherever ordered by land, sea or air, and that I will observe and obey all commands of the President of the Union of India and the commands of any officer set over me even to the peril of my life.”
These words, as most would be aware, are the solemn words of the oath by which, every newly commissioning officer of the Armed Forces of the Union of India, swears to lay down his or her life in the line of duty. They also underscore and reiterate the supremacy and inviolability of the Constitution of India, and through it, the supremacy of the orders of the legally elected civil leadership of the land, whose orders, remain of primacy, in the chain of command.
Our touching upon this important aspect is necessary to set in context, the agenda for this opinion piece – that of the recent tendency of the social media Influencers, wannabes, indeed, every citizen, to question the armed forces for anything and everything that is strictly in the domain of conduct of military operations which are conducted under the ‘guidance’ or, more precisely, the political directives issued by the Government of India, as laid down by the procedure, instead of directing the same, to the authority, which needs to be questioned.
No leadership of the Armed Forces likes to lose its soldiers, doing something that can be done in a way that minimizes losses of its personnel. Contrary to the perception being created, with certain motives behind them that remain beyond the scope of this piece, that the leadership of the armed forces is oblivious to the challenges that the soldiers on ground face, with suggestions of the armed forces being out of touch with ground realities, the leadership in armed forces follow a pyramidal structure where the communication is a two way street. As such, the leadership that is handling the operation in the sector, remains aware of the constraints imposed and ways and means to mitigate them.
Before proceeding further, it is necessary to briefly revisit the core principles of an insurgency. J&K started as an insurgency, and one can deduce from the works of one of the renowned pioneers of publishing thoughts on counter-insurgency, Lt. Col. David Galula, that an insurgency can be classified into a competition between a small minority of the population made up of ‘rebels’ or ‘opponents’ or ‘insurgent’ that opposes the Government, which may be opposed by an equally small minority supporting the ‘ruling dispensation’ or ‘government’ or the ‘counter-insurgent’, in a pool of an overwhelming majority that is ambivalent or disinterested. In this struggle, the target is this large majority of people who are ambivalent or disinterested, for it is from this vast majority, that either side gains the momentum to resist, and then defeat the other.
The ‘counter-insurgent’ always has the disadvantage or liability in that he/she is responsible for maintaining law and order throughout the territory/country. Thus, the insurgent’s strategy will be directed towards wresting the advantage in own favour and deny the inherent “ascendancy” in the struggle to the established political order/counterinsurgent; the counterinsurgent’s strategy at preventing his/her liability from dissipating his/her assets i.e. the resources at command - diplomatic recognition, a legitimate power in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the country/territory, a control of the administration and police (necessary for ‘civil’ control of the population as a whole), the financial resources, the industrial and agricultural resources at home or ready access to them abroad; control of the transport and communications facilities; use and control of the information and print/broadcast media; command of the armed forces and the possibility of increasing their size and scale of equipment, in short, an absolute control of all the resources of an established nation state at it’s disposal; something he/she expends a substantial portion of available resources in terms of political, diplomatic and economic capital, to ensure.
So, faced with a formidable array of resources against itself, the insurgent aims to attain a position from which (s)he can fight in a manner so as to negate the advantage of the counterinsurgent. This is where, the objective of any counterinsurgency operation becomes the population.
If the insurgent manages to dissociate the population from the counterinsurgent, to control it physically, to get its active support, he/she will win the war because the exercise of political power depends on the tacit or explicit support of the population or, at worst, on its submissiveness.
Effective political action on the population must be preceded by military and police operations against the guerrilla units and the insurgent political organisations.
Political, social, economic, and other reforms, however much they may be wanted and popular, are inoperative when offered while the insurgent still controls the population, hence, a need for a military intervention to create conducive atmosphere for a political action. Once the military intervention has created conditions conducive for effective implementation and expansion of political measures to wrest back the segments of the population away from the insurgent, the insurgency dies down. In short – a counter insurgent action is only successful when a political action both precedes and follows a military action, often in conjunction.
Having now laid out, briefly, the basics of the dynamics of a counter insurgent war, we can now proceed to the events over the past couple of decades that are relevant to the topic at hand. At the start of mid-2000s, the shrine going Barelvis constituted about 60 – 70 % of Kashmir’s population. The rise of Wahabis (and as a consequence, Takfiri ideology) to the mainstream saw elements of the younger generation in the valley get influenced by the more radical viewpoints. Coupled to the inflow of money from Mid-East, and opening of new madrassas and mosques subscribing to the philosophy, a struggle for pre-eminence over the faith of the Kashmiris, between the Barelvi and Wahabi schools of thought, unfolded. This led to, in more serious cases, elimination of either sides’ proponents by the other, even in the run up to the Panchayat elections in 2012. As such, the government and the intelligence services, saw no requirement to intervene between the two feuding groups, on the premise that the 'sufi kashmiriyat' will find 'wahabi-takfiri' ideology an abhorrence and shall be opposed. The two were happy to wait it out. And they were mistaken.
In the same period of time, the absolute corruption of the politico-bureaucratic structure, came to fore. It saw the elected Government being absent in terms of political actions needed to keep the population on it’s side. Poor infrastructure, lack of basic hygiene and sanitation services, healthcare, schools, centers for higher education and skill development, regulation of the madrassas and the content being taught there to impressionable minds etc saw organisations like Ahl-e-hadith, on backs of zakat money and doles from mid-east, step in to provide basic support and services which was the purview of the government of the day. Thus, the State authorities lost the narrative and the initiative to the forces that were increasingly orthodox and intolerant in it’s attitude, which was also challenging the predominance of Barelvis, considered moderates. This new thought process also gained traction with a higher virulence in ideological base, gaining traction from the apparent failure of the more moderates in securing an independent Kashmir/merger with Pakistan. As such, groups confirming to this new thought process started gaining new ‘recruits’ through ‘grooming of minds from a young age’ in thousands of madrassas, that sprouted up in the late 2000s - early 2010s. As a new generation again replaced the previous generation of 2000s by mid 2010s in the ‘mass movement’ phase of the ‘struggle’, in absence of good government action in 2010s, a new generation of ‘believers in the cause’ who had steadily gained the support and caught the imagination of the majority of the young, came to fore. Social media action, indoctrination at religious places, peer to peer contacts in a secured messaging set up, ensured a large ‘base’ of believers. Result? By the time Article 370 was revoked, there was a significantly larger support base for an insurgent action to rely upon, to sustain itself.
“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.” - Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
The abrogation of Article 370, was a political masterpiece, that threatened to upend this 'gain' for the insurgents, inadvertently enabled by a disinterested 'counterinsurgent' (the lack of political action on the population to ensure the support and conformity). The surge in the conversion of the ambivalents towards the insurgents, started disappearing as expectations of opening up Kashmir for increased economic activities, increased, under a backdrop of President's rule.
Abrogation of Article 370 was milked for all it’s worth by forces both pro and anti-Government. The admixture of a prevalence of Wahabi (and Takfiri) ideology in the society, the shenanigans of the main stream political parties, and the politicization of every action by the authorities while under President’s rule, compounded the situation which left the majority, the target population, confused. This subset needed a concentrated political action in the backdrop of sustained pressure by military action, to unshackle from the yoke of the separatist sentiment.
The decision to conduct assembly elections, taken by the Government, with inputs provided by forces to it raising doubts over the prudence of the move sans a sustained effort over a period of time to reverse the losses of ’population’ over the preceding decade and a half to the ’other side’, was ultimately a political decision and a marked uptake in violence, to show the symbolic ‘struggle’ as continuing, was an expected occurrence.
“Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon, and he made his web gear, He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn't care how hard it is; he only knows that he wins or he dies. He doesn't go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the cause.” - Jack Carr, True Believer
These instances are small team operations (2 to 4 men team) which target isolated troop moves/locations, often able to merge quickly in to the local population, or into the land. The small size of these teams also signify that this is composed of 'true believer', personnel who are highly motivated, identify with the objectives and are indoctrinated enough to die in the process.
These attacks are short, fierce and regular. It is neither surprising, nor something that can be dealt with in a rush or in a heavy handed manner. The collateral damage will hand them the victory they need. To meet the challenge, the political action following the abrogation of Article 370, needs to be speeded up. For that, the State authorities must be in line, for an effective political action. That needs both the Centre and the State, working in conjunction with each other. The recent events, however, do not point to that, unfortunately.
“The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.”- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
In the interim, the ‘armed component’ of the insurgent activity will take center stage to create space for continuation of political action by the insurgent elements through intermediaries and creation of political sensationalism, often abetted by the mainstream political parties – be it over reinstatement of Article 370, or by targeting of minorities to give a communal twist, in order to try and counter the government efforts. A large heavy handed approach in dealing with the population, will have the potential to have a boomerang effect on the government and the security forces too.
For the foreseeable future, there will continue to be actions by insurgents which will result in frequent but small scale casualties amongst the security forces and/or minorities, in order to try and provoke a reaction that shall allow them to again try and gain traction amongst their old ambivalent supporters. To obviate this, the Government needs to implement strategies that dissuade the population from shifting back to the insurgent. These can be by continuing to provide greater avenues for undertaking economic activities and conducting their affairs in relative safety and dissuasive measures like attachment of properties, bank accounts, revoking citizenship and benefits of the immediate family, relatives and friends of those who take part in armed conflict against the nation.
With the above in view, the calls for armed forces to explain the loss that take place, are mere calls of those who either do not understand (and appear not wanting to either) what fighting an insurgency entails, or are those whose existence is based on playing out a larger agenda. The armed forces, at the end of the day, will fight/act, according to the directives given to it, in order to work cohesively with the legally elected leadership of the country as per the broader plan in a multipronged approach that is needed to address the issue.
- with inputs from @RealIntelMonk
DISCLAIMER: This column is merely an opinion of the Opinion Poster "HELLFIRE" and as such, the site or hosts have no role in formulation of the column.
These words, as most would be aware, are the solemn words of the oath by which, every newly commissioning officer of the Armed Forces of the Union of India, swears to lay down his or her life in the line of duty. They also underscore and reiterate the supremacy and inviolability of the Constitution of India, and through it, the supremacy of the orders of the legally elected civil leadership of the land, whose orders, remain of primacy, in the chain of command.
Our touching upon this important aspect is necessary to set in context, the agenda for this opinion piece – that of the recent tendency of the social media Influencers, wannabes, indeed, every citizen, to question the armed forces for anything and everything that is strictly in the domain of conduct of military operations which are conducted under the ‘guidance’ or, more precisely, the political directives issued by the Government of India, as laid down by the procedure, instead of directing the same, to the authority, which needs to be questioned.
No leadership of the Armed Forces likes to lose its soldiers, doing something that can be done in a way that minimizes losses of its personnel. Contrary to the perception being created, with certain motives behind them that remain beyond the scope of this piece, that the leadership of the armed forces is oblivious to the challenges that the soldiers on ground face, with suggestions of the armed forces being out of touch with ground realities, the leadership in armed forces follow a pyramidal structure where the communication is a two way street. As such, the leadership that is handling the operation in the sector, remains aware of the constraints imposed and ways and means to mitigate them.
Before proceeding further, it is necessary to briefly revisit the core principles of an insurgency. J&K started as an insurgency, and one can deduce from the works of one of the renowned pioneers of publishing thoughts on counter-insurgency, Lt. Col. David Galula, that an insurgency can be classified into a competition between a small minority of the population made up of ‘rebels’ or ‘opponents’ or ‘insurgent’ that opposes the Government, which may be opposed by an equally small minority supporting the ‘ruling dispensation’ or ‘government’ or the ‘counter-insurgent’, in a pool of an overwhelming majority that is ambivalent or disinterested. In this struggle, the target is this large majority of people who are ambivalent or disinterested, for it is from this vast majority, that either side gains the momentum to resist, and then defeat the other.
The ‘counter-insurgent’ always has the disadvantage or liability in that he/she is responsible for maintaining law and order throughout the territory/country. Thus, the insurgent’s strategy will be directed towards wresting the advantage in own favour and deny the inherent “ascendancy” in the struggle to the established political order/counterinsurgent; the counterinsurgent’s strategy at preventing his/her liability from dissipating his/her assets i.e. the resources at command - diplomatic recognition, a legitimate power in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the country/territory, a control of the administration and police (necessary for ‘civil’ control of the population as a whole), the financial resources, the industrial and agricultural resources at home or ready access to them abroad; control of the transport and communications facilities; use and control of the information and print/broadcast media; command of the armed forces and the possibility of increasing their size and scale of equipment, in short, an absolute control of all the resources of an established nation state at it’s disposal; something he/she expends a substantial portion of available resources in terms of political, diplomatic and economic capital, to ensure.
So, faced with a formidable array of resources against itself, the insurgent aims to attain a position from which (s)he can fight in a manner so as to negate the advantage of the counterinsurgent. This is where, the objective of any counterinsurgency operation becomes the population.
If the insurgent manages to dissociate the population from the counterinsurgent, to control it physically, to get its active support, he/she will win the war because the exercise of political power depends on the tacit or explicit support of the population or, at worst, on its submissiveness.
Effective political action on the population must be preceded by military and police operations against the guerrilla units and the insurgent political organisations.
Political, social, economic, and other reforms, however much they may be wanted and popular, are inoperative when offered while the insurgent still controls the population, hence, a need for a military intervention to create conducive atmosphere for a political action. Once the military intervention has created conditions conducive for effective implementation and expansion of political measures to wrest back the segments of the population away from the insurgent, the insurgency dies down. In short – a counter insurgent action is only successful when a political action both precedes and follows a military action, often in conjunction.
Having now laid out, briefly, the basics of the dynamics of a counter insurgent war, we can now proceed to the events over the past couple of decades that are relevant to the topic at hand. At the start of mid-2000s, the shrine going Barelvis constituted about 60 – 70 % of Kashmir’s population. The rise of Wahabis (and as a consequence, Takfiri ideology) to the mainstream saw elements of the younger generation in the valley get influenced by the more radical viewpoints. Coupled to the inflow of money from Mid-East, and opening of new madrassas and mosques subscribing to the philosophy, a struggle for pre-eminence over the faith of the Kashmiris, between the Barelvi and Wahabi schools of thought, unfolded. This led to, in more serious cases, elimination of either sides’ proponents by the other, even in the run up to the Panchayat elections in 2012. As such, the government and the intelligence services, saw no requirement to intervene between the two feuding groups, on the premise that the 'sufi kashmiriyat' will find 'wahabi-takfiri' ideology an abhorrence and shall be opposed. The two were happy to wait it out. And they were mistaken.
In the same period of time, the absolute corruption of the politico-bureaucratic structure, came to fore. It saw the elected Government being absent in terms of political actions needed to keep the population on it’s side. Poor infrastructure, lack of basic hygiene and sanitation services, healthcare, schools, centers for higher education and skill development, regulation of the madrassas and the content being taught there to impressionable minds etc saw organisations like Ahl-e-hadith, on backs of zakat money and doles from mid-east, step in to provide basic support and services which was the purview of the government of the day. Thus, the State authorities lost the narrative and the initiative to the forces that were increasingly orthodox and intolerant in it’s attitude, which was also challenging the predominance of Barelvis, considered moderates. This new thought process also gained traction with a higher virulence in ideological base, gaining traction from the apparent failure of the more moderates in securing an independent Kashmir/merger with Pakistan. As such, groups confirming to this new thought process started gaining new ‘recruits’ through ‘grooming of minds from a young age’ in thousands of madrassas, that sprouted up in the late 2000s - early 2010s. As a new generation again replaced the previous generation of 2000s by mid 2010s in the ‘mass movement’ phase of the ‘struggle’, in absence of good government action in 2010s, a new generation of ‘believers in the cause’ who had steadily gained the support and caught the imagination of the majority of the young, came to fore. Social media action, indoctrination at religious places, peer to peer contacts in a secured messaging set up, ensured a large ‘base’ of believers. Result? By the time Article 370 was revoked, there was a significantly larger support base for an insurgent action to rely upon, to sustain itself.
“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.” - Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
The abrogation of Article 370, was a political masterpiece, that threatened to upend this 'gain' for the insurgents, inadvertently enabled by a disinterested 'counterinsurgent' (the lack of political action on the population to ensure the support and conformity). The surge in the conversion of the ambivalents towards the insurgents, started disappearing as expectations of opening up Kashmir for increased economic activities, increased, under a backdrop of President's rule.
Abrogation of Article 370 was milked for all it’s worth by forces both pro and anti-Government. The admixture of a prevalence of Wahabi (and Takfiri) ideology in the society, the shenanigans of the main stream political parties, and the politicization of every action by the authorities while under President’s rule, compounded the situation which left the majority, the target population, confused. This subset needed a concentrated political action in the backdrop of sustained pressure by military action, to unshackle from the yoke of the separatist sentiment.
The decision to conduct assembly elections, taken by the Government, with inputs provided by forces to it raising doubts over the prudence of the move sans a sustained effort over a period of time to reverse the losses of ’population’ over the preceding decade and a half to the ’other side’, was ultimately a political decision and a marked uptake in violence, to show the symbolic ‘struggle’ as continuing, was an expected occurrence.
“Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon, and he made his web gear, He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn't care how hard it is; he only knows that he wins or he dies. He doesn't go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the cause.” - Jack Carr, True Believer
These instances are small team operations (2 to 4 men team) which target isolated troop moves/locations, often able to merge quickly in to the local population, or into the land. The small size of these teams also signify that this is composed of 'true believer', personnel who are highly motivated, identify with the objectives and are indoctrinated enough to die in the process.
These attacks are short, fierce and regular. It is neither surprising, nor something that can be dealt with in a rush or in a heavy handed manner. The collateral damage will hand them the victory they need. To meet the challenge, the political action following the abrogation of Article 370, needs to be speeded up. For that, the State authorities must be in line, for an effective political action. That needs both the Centre and the State, working in conjunction with each other. The recent events, however, do not point to that, unfortunately.
“The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.”- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
In the interim, the ‘armed component’ of the insurgent activity will take center stage to create space for continuation of political action by the insurgent elements through intermediaries and creation of political sensationalism, often abetted by the mainstream political parties – be it over reinstatement of Article 370, or by targeting of minorities to give a communal twist, in order to try and counter the government efforts. A large heavy handed approach in dealing with the population, will have the potential to have a boomerang effect on the government and the security forces too.
For the foreseeable future, there will continue to be actions by insurgents which will result in frequent but small scale casualties amongst the security forces and/or minorities, in order to try and provoke a reaction that shall allow them to again try and gain traction amongst their old ambivalent supporters. To obviate this, the Government needs to implement strategies that dissuade the population from shifting back to the insurgent. These can be by continuing to provide greater avenues for undertaking economic activities and conducting their affairs in relative safety and dissuasive measures like attachment of properties, bank accounts, revoking citizenship and benefits of the immediate family, relatives and friends of those who take part in armed conflict against the nation.
With the above in view, the calls for armed forces to explain the loss that take place, are mere calls of those who either do not understand (and appear not wanting to either) what fighting an insurgency entails, or are those whose existence is based on playing out a larger agenda. The armed forces, at the end of the day, will fight/act, according to the directives given to it, in order to work cohesively with the legally elected leadership of the country as per the broader plan in a multipronged approach that is needed to address the issue.
- with inputs from @RealIntelMonk
DISCLAIMER: This column is merely an opinion of the Opinion Poster "HELLFIRE" and as such, the site or hosts have no role in formulation of the column.
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