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| AFSPA: Lt Gen Husnain a changed person | | STARK REALITY | |
RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 18: The attitude of the Srinagar-based 15 corps commander, Lt Gen S A Hasnain, to Jammu and Kashmir has, it seems, undergone a change. When he became Commander of the 15 corps a couple of months ago, his attitude was different. Take, for example, what he had said on January 31. He had said: "Kashmir is a political issue and army has no role to play in the decision with regard to the revocation of Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA)…Kashmir is a political issue and needs to be resolved politically." He had said so on the sidelines of a function organized by the Army at 2 sector headquarters, Khanabal, Kashmir, while talking to media persons.
Remember, what Husnain had said was what the Kashmiri leaders, both separatists and the “mainstream”, had been saying since decades. They had been demanding a “political” solution to the “Kashmir problem.” Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had repeatedly said so. PDP leaders Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti had been consistently singing the same monotonous, irritating and provocative song and urging New Delhi to tackle the Kashmir issue politically. Separatists of all hues, Geelani, Mirwaiz and Malik included, had also been expressing similar views. Not only this, the supporters of Kashmiri leaders in and outside Delhi, too, had been describing Kashmir as a “political” problem and asking New Delhi to resolve it accordingly so that peace was restored in the restive Kashmir. They continue to describe the so-called Kashmir problem as “political” problem even today, notwithstanding the fact that the problem in Kashmir is fundamentally communal.
It bears recalling that what Lt Gen Hasnain had said had only contradicted what the Chief of Army Staff General V K Singh had said on January 29 at New Delhi during an interview to a news channel. He had said: "Jammu and Kashmir is a complicated set of things. There has to be a holistic view on what we do there. We have to take a very different view for the long term. Don’t take decisions for the sake of expediency for a certain purpose. You have to have focus and resolve, and the Government should put some people on the job…Troop withdrawal is not an option at this time…The day the 42 camps on the other side are wound up, and Pakistan stops its proxy war, that would be the time to withdraw our troops. Until that time, it is not possible. J&K is not about mathematics. We have to be pragmatic about troop reductions…The prevalent undercurrents in the border State are ideology focused…Ignoring the ideology being preached in the Kashmir valley would be at one’s own peril...We must look very closely at the ideology being preached. What are we doing to counter this ideology? Are the mainstream political parties doing anything about it?"
What General Singh said was not only a blistering attack on certain elements in the political establishment in New Delhi and on those in Kashmir who had been misrepresenting everything and condemning Army and paramilitary forces, it was also a blistering attack on the ideology as preached in the Valley by Kashmiri leaders. Obviously, he was referring to the regressive and exclusivist ideology Kashmiri leaders of all hues, including the so-called mainstream leaders and separatists, had been preaching.
It would not be out of place to mention here that what Lt Gen Husnain had said on January 31 had alarmed many an Indian. But what he said yesterday in Srinagar while talking to reporters indicates that his approach to the issues confronting Kashmir has undergone an appreciable change. A reference here to what he said regarding the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) would be enough to determine the extent of change his attitude has undergone in less than two months. He said: “Revoking AFSPA and Disturbed Areas Act (DAA) in J&K would mean ‘compromising’ Army’s operational capabilities.” “We feel that by revoking special legal provisions, which are in place here, definitely our operational capabilities will be compromised…The Army’s ‘line of thinking’ about the revocation of AFSPA has already been conveyed many times to the government. Army’s line of thinking has already been conveyed many times by the Chief of the Army Staff, Commander of the Northern Command and even I have conveyed it a couple of times. We are going through a process of interaction with the state government and there are two committees which have been set-up for this purpose,” he, in fact, said.
It is indeed good that Lt Gen Husnain has started speaking the language of General V K Singh. This is what the country requires. Army and Judiciary are the two institutions the nation respects from the core of its heart. The reasons are obvious.
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