Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
These must indeed be the worst of times for the former Army Chief V.K. Singh. The pomp and ceremony that attended his every move those glory days, when he was the Chief, must seem a distant memory. His last few months in office had served notice that the General is in no mood to fade away. Indeed he seemed only too willing to court controversy. He took on his Government colleagues with great aplomb. So much so that in retrospect one sees him revealing his political inclinations as well. This last one brought controversy, perhaps more than he would have anticipated, when he demitted office; he made his craving for a future in the political arena abundantly clear almost immediately.
Forget his outings with Anna Hazare and Narendra Modi, the General has currently got so terribly sidetracked that even all his skills seem barely adequate to help him out. The storm over his off-the-cuff remark (was it really so?) about all Kashmiri politicians, ministers in particular, accepting money from the Army to ensure “stability” was barely over, than he invited the Supreme Court’s wrath by making, what the court believes to be contemptuous observations about the judges who had heard his dispute with the government while seeking a change of his date of birth. The General was obviously carried away by emotion and virtually taunted the court for its having accepted the matriculation certificate of a teen-aged criminal as a legal proof of date of birth and not doing so in his case. This has irked the court which took suo moto notice of implied criminal contempt.
So far as his reference to Kashmir Ministers goes as he has made has his case much weaker by his subsequent observations, even suggesting that this had been so for decades, adding as a foot-note the suggestion that such bribery was the done thing in other parts of the country as well. Eight Army Chiefs, his predecessors in office, promptly denied the charge after it was made but V.K. Singh insisted that it has been the practice. And that’s where the rub lies.
The scenes witnessed earlier this week in the J&K Assembly amply demonstrated the sense of outrage his charge against Kashmir Ministers and presumably politicians had caused. The former Chief’s remarks made the previous week had been rebutted by the political mainstream in the State immediately after it was made. The Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah and the principal Opposition, the People’s Democratic Party, condemned the outlandish accusation and demanded that the former General reveal the names of recipients of his munificence during his term as the Army Chief.
The separatist Hurriyat didn’t have much to do or say in the matter except the expected: “we have been saying it for years”.
The outburst in the Assembly on Tuesday was anticipated by most but not the intensity of the counter-attack by members, and by none as vehemently as by the leader of the Opposition, Mehbooba Mufti. The PDP President was angry and intent indeed on making her anger known. This was not the first time that Kashmiri politicians, particularly those in power, had been accused of being on New Delhi’s payroll, revealing the mindset of the rulers in New Delhi. Kashmir, she somewhat rhetorically said was being treated as a colony of India. Yes, like the British had treated undivided India. Mehbooba wondered if the Army would dare flaunt a similar charge against any other States in the country.
The truth perhaps is, she argued, that the Army did not treat Kashmir as a State of the Union. Heads would have rolled by now if a similar charge was made, say, in respect of Maharashtra, Tamilnadu and West Bengal. One tends to share Mehbooba’s agony. Obviously, Mehbooba must have been conscious of the fact that her party, led by her father and founder of PDP, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, had occupied the Chief Minister’s chair in the State not so long ago.
That’s not to minimize the gravity of the former Army Chief’s allegation – a reckless one, as a matter of fact.
While armies the world over may not have been loath to bribing their way to winning wars in the past by planting agents or financing subversive movements, it cannot be the case, as spelt out by V. K. Singh, that the forces led by him were doing just that in Kashmir. I am frankly disappointed that none of the more significant parties in the rest of the country has objected to the outrageous charge. It could be that one or the other politician, Minister or not, may have fallen for the Army’s bait in the past, but a retired Army chief is not free to brandish such an outlandish precedent, if there was one, against the duly elected government of the State unless, of course, it be his case, as the separatists have maintained, that the State government does not have popular mandate or that it rigged its way to power.
What is equally true is that the Army has on occasions gone beyond its brief in its handling of anti-militancy operations, intruding at times into areas which do not fall in its jurisdiction or in the pursuit of nefarious objectives like picking up a few medals or battle honours by staging fictitious encounters. I say this even as I know that the Indian Army is one of the most disciplined forces in the world, with an unmatched record of valour, of dedicated service in the cause of defending our land and our freedom which remains unsurpassed.
The problem is, as indeed it is in most other walks of our life as a nation, that it is the odd fish that besmirches the Army’s fair name.
This week’s ruckus in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly kicked off over an alleged encounter in which five civilians were reportedly killed on the assumption that they were terrorists. I am sure that even those who have leveled the charge are aware of the volatility of the Shopian area in the valley where the alleged killing took place. Mistaken identity could be a real possibility. Which does not mean that the Army enjoys an immunity to kill at will.
This brings one back to the old question of withdrawal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act from densely populated cities and towns and let the paramilitary forces and the local police take charge there and face the consequences as they must in cases involving misuse of power. Retired General V.K. Singh’s present discomfiture probably owes its origin to the constant conflict between successive governments in the State and the Army establishment over this issue. Even the present Chief, one knows, is not in favour of withdrawing AFSPA. Chief Minister Omar like his predecessor Mufti Sayeed, has insisted over the past two years on confining the AFSPA to conflict areas such as the LOC or the international border in Jammu but without success. The Army insists on retaining the powers conferred on it by the law.
To conclude, my fear is that if New Delhi and Srinagar do not move quickly and in concert to end the crisis it may develop into something more sinister. With the electoral battle in the country about to be joined by the combatants it is quite on the cards that the politics may take over from good commonsense.
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