TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
Nothing could be more devastating for a republic than to make a no-hold-barred political controversy out of an issue concerning nation’s security. Nothing could be more damaging for a country’s armed forces than to be dragged into a match of one-upmanship among mutually vying politicians. Nothing could be more foolhardy for a civilian administration than to abuse the army on whom it falls back in hour of desperation.
A needless, rather avoidable, controversy has been raked up over the issue of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Jammu and Kashmir. What should have been a subject of simple objective logistics has unfortunately been converted into a battle of wits and a prestige issue by some. To use the words of Late KFS Rustomji, founder Director General of BSF, “this is one of the surest ways to ruin the Army”.
A media debate on the issue involving certain media-savvy faces has projected an erroneous impression that AFSPA and the presence or absence of Army are synonymous with each other. The over-enthusiasm to appear “more loyal than the other” in appeasing the separatists has prompted Kashmir-centric political parties to tacitly suggest that once AFSPA is revoked, the Army will stand automatically withdrawn. This is not true. Army deployment can happen in the absence of AFSPA just as AFSPA, which is simply a self-protection provision for Army, can remain invoked even in the absence of Army deployment.
Those who have been in the forefront advocating partial revokation of AFSPA selectively from a few districts in the militancy infested infiltration prone State need to do their home-work better. For, as rightly pointed out, is it right for an armed troop chasing a fleeing militant to give up his chase and expose himself to the militant’s bullet the moment he steps in from an AFSPA district to a non-AFSPA district ? In other words, will a selective revocation of AFSPA not end up converting the AFSPA revoked districts into safe hide-outs for militants and miscreants?
The most dangerous phenomenon, however, is the tendency on the part of certain ruling politicians to hunt with hounds and run with hare, to have the cake and eat it too, to tacitly keep the Army at their beck and call but simultaneously denounce the Army in a bid to appease the separatist constituency.
The semblance of peace that appears in Kashmir today is primarily because of the sacrifices made by armed troops drawn from all parts of country from Tamil Nadu to Punjab, from Maharashtra to Orissa. Some of these young soldiers did not even know where Kashmir is located but simply came in responding to the call for nation’s defence and laid down their lives here without ever being able to return home. The nation owes it to the memory of these martyred soldiers not to swindle away the gains for which they laid down their lives. The common man understands this better because his mind is not maligned like that of some of the politicans. An eternally grateful Umapathy will always remember ‘….Meri Zindagi Ki Khatir, Diya Zindagi Ka Bujha Diya Usne !’’
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