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India: Democracy Soaked In Blood Of Her Own People

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Tinu View Post
    Nor sir it is not a secret indeed. It was New York Times report.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/op...democracy.html
    That's an op-ed. This is a report. Had you started with that the reception would have been different.

    Note now Tinu is talking about Kashmir. A subtle shift from UP which is what SS was talkiing about in his previous article.

    The report, by India’s government-appointed State Human Rights Commission, marked the first official acknowledgment of the presence of mass graves. More significantly, the report found that civilians, potentially the victims of extrajudicial killings, may be buried at some of the sites.

    The inquiry, the result of three years of investigative work by senior police officers working for the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission, brings the first official acknowledgment that civilians might have been buried in mass graves in Kashmir, a region claimed by both India and Pakistan where insurgents waged a bloody battle for independence in the early 1990s.
    A state org pushing for an enquiry. Isn't that a surprise.

    From the op-ed.

    Had the graves been found under Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s compound in Libya or in the rubble of Homs in Syria, there surely would have been an uproar.
    That's because Gaddafi & Assad would not be pushing for an enquiry. DIFFERENCE!

    From the op-ed
    The Indian government has long been intransigent on the issue of Kashmir — preferring to blame Pakistan for fomenting violence rather than address Kashmiris’ legitimate aspirations for freedom or honor its own promises to resolve the issue according to the wishes of Kashmiri people and investigate the crimes of its army.
    I wonder if would there would be an insurgency if Pakistan wasn't behind it.

    From the report
    Tens of thousands of people died in the insurgency, which began in 1989 and was partly fueled by weapons, cash and training from Pakistan.
    Bingo!

    Form the report
    Zahoor Wani, an activist who works with the families of people who disappeared during the insurgency, said that the report was a welcome first step but that the government must identify the dead and allow families to bury their relatives.

    It is a very good thing that they acknowledge it,” Mr. Wani said. “These families have been living in a hope to see these people again.
    As the report states this was a GOI org initiative. Where is the cover up here ? It has been acknowledged.

    From the op-ed
    And almost a year after the human rights commission issued its report on mass graves, the Indian state continues to remain indifferent to evidence of possible crimes against humanity. As a believer in a moral universe, I expected better. But it is an all too familiar pattern.
    After just one year !! Now I get it we are too slow.

    Let me tell you that all Indians would dearly love that things move faster in our country.

    From the op-ed
    It took nearly 12 years — primarily because of the Indian government’s refusal to prosecute those involved in the murders — to reach the Supreme Court of India. On May 1, in a widely criticized decision, the court left it to the army to decide how to proceed, and the army has opted for a court-martial rather than a transparent civilian trial. In the eyes of Pervez Imroz, a Kashmiri lawyer and civil rights activist, the court’s decision “further emboldens the security forces” and strengthens “a process that has appeared to never favor the victims.”
    It took 12 years to deal with another case. If the army was in charge then as i said earlier the buck stops with them. Ofc the op-ed author does not prefer this as there is less publicity generated than with a civil trial. Tough :)

    Also if India screwed up, there would be a civil war raging there not a much calmer atmosphere as prevails currently. I had family visit Kashmir last summer, the only summer out of a number of previous ones where there were no stone throwing incidents !! It was calm.

    I could go on but i think my point is made. Tinu now do you know the difference between op-ed & report ? Op-ed has some slant, good report usually gives both sides and is more balanced.

    Well, it looks like the Kashmir baiting season has begun. A bit earlier than i expected but here we go.
    Last edited by Double Edge; 15 Jul 12,, 19:23.

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by Tinu View Post
      I didn't say that Colonel Sir, Mr Subramanian Swamy said it.
      Then, you are referencing a quack. The man accused an Indian Minister of Mass Murder but offer no proof. No copies of the order and no specific event linking to that order. Fine, this may be sensitive enough that there are no written copies but who were the men who carried out that order? They were there when SS apparently heard this order given, so why would he not identify them?

      Originally posted by Tinu View Post
      Would you consider 2000 mass graves as genocide?
      Your original NYT is an opinion piece. This one, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/wo...23kashmir.html, carries more facts.

      And the fact is that it was an insurgency and fought by an army with over 300 years of insurgency experience and 1000 years before that. I don't doubt that a lot were innocent civilians. That is the nature of insurgency but I also have absolutely no doubt that most were combatants.

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by Mihais View Post
        Dok,militants,from Pakistan or not cannot even move,let alone fight without some contacts among local population.It's not that I'm familiar with the situation in the theater,but this is a logical conclusion.IA officers can shed some light.I'm not suggesting a significant degree of support,but even if there are a few dozens up to a few thousands helping with weapons caches,safehouses,couriers,informants etc... it's still support.These guys can be caught in the middle of the action and get killed along Pakistani militants,but technically they're locals.
        Mihais, it can't be that much different then those Pals fighters behind civilians. Some are hiding them voluntarily, some not, but they are using human shields. Happened here in 2001, too. So, it's like a rule of thumb.

        However, it is in India's interest to make an investigation and to punish any individuals if they breached some rules.
        No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

        To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by Doktor View Post
          According to that NYT link, there are 2,156 bullet riddled bodies,


          It is sad state of affairs, but there is still no lasting peace in Kashmir (no int'l border there) yet and it is hard to make unbiased investigation there.
          Yes It is.

          But someone need to bury those who cross the border to kill our people or those unclaimed who pick up the arms against the state. Those who send them in very well know how many they are pushing in and what their fate is going to be. Pretending care for those and doing propaganda then is always the plan 'B'.

          These are official statistics.

          30,752 assault rifles seized since 1990

          Home Dept report puts death toll at 43,746 during militancy

          Srinagar, July 7

          The security forces have seized a huge cache of arms and ammunition, including 30,752 assault rifles, during the past two decades of militancy in the state.

          Since 1990, the security forces have also seized over 45 lakh bullets of various assault rifles, such as AK-47/56/74, pistols and revolvers, universal machine guns (UMGs), sniper and .303 rifles.

          The official figures submitted by the State Home Department to the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) have revealed that the security forces have further seized 11,431 pistols and revolvers, 1,027 UMGs, 2,262 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 2,830 rocket boosters, 391 sniper rifles, 79 carbines, 219 light machine guns and self-loading rifles, and 295 303 rifles during the two decades of militancy.

          “The arms and ammunition recovered in J&K since 1990 can suffice two divisions of the Army,” said a senior Army officer.

          The figures also disclose that over 45,000-kg explosives, including RDX, were recovered. The forces also recovered 63,335 grenades from various parts of the state.

          “The recovery of such a huge haul of weapons from the possession of terrorists is ample evidence to establish that the state has been facing nothing short of a full-scale war by terrorists at the behest of their mentors from across the border,” the report submitted to the SHRC by the Under Secretary, Home Department, says.


          The Home Department report also puts the death count during the turmoil at 43,746, including 16,901 civilians. The figures reveal that 21,449 militants, 16,901 civilians and 5,396 security personnel were killed during the turmoil.

          “Of the 5,396 security men killed, 3,866 were paramilitary troops and security forces, 922 police personnel, 477 special police officers and 131 village defence committee members,” the report revealed.

          The report added that 21,655 militants were arrested since 1990, taking the combined figure of militants active in the state to over 43,000.
          Still infiltrating in

          Comment


          • #35
            This paper from 2008 takes a critical look at the practice of regrouping which was carried out during the Naga & Mizo insurgencies during the 60s & 70s.

            This paper argues that while regrouping may or may not contribute to militarily defeating an insurgent movement, if viewed in terms of principles like democracy, citizenship, or the rule of law it is always a failure. For democracies, in particular, it is profoundly destabilizing, since the government divides its own population into enemies and collaborators, in ways that begin to weaken the fundamental edifice of citizenship.
            The central logic behind grouping is to isolate insurgents from the general population from which they derive their support, cutting off their food and other supplies. In the counterinsurgency literature, however, for example, in the writing of Sir Robert Thompson, the British counterinsurgency expert on Malaya who also advised the American government in Vietnam, this is euphemistically described as ‘protecting’ the population from the insurgents, who are portrayed as lacking legitimacy and preying on the people. By concentrating populations under government control, it is also possible to organize them into supporting the government.

            We are invariably told that the Malayan regrouping ‘succeeded’ while the Vietnam strategic hamlets ‘failed’. In the Indian context, regrouping we are told, ‘succeeded’ in Mizoram where a peace accord was signed between the Mizo National Front (MNF), which had been seeking independence and the Indian government in 1985, but it ‘failed’ in Nagaland, where the movement for selfdetermination continues.

            In its ostensibly more benign form, the ‘winning hearts and minds (WHAM or sometimes simply HAM) approach’ pioneered by General Richard Templer in Malaya as an advance over the Briggs Plan, grouping must involve improving the economic and living conditions of villagers, so that they have a reason to support the government rather than the insurgents.

            Grouping is thus something that is positively good for people. When cast in these terms, population relocation for counterinsurgency is not very different from ‘voluntary’ relocation or collectivization, as well as displacement for large hydel or industrial projects. Small, scattered hamlets are seen as breeding not just insurgency, but also social and economic ‘backwardness’. Some re-locations are required by war, and the others by modernity and ‘development’.

            In the more honest, if less palatable for public consumption, ‘cost-benefit approach’, counterinsurgency must focus on making the costs, including starvation, torture and other brutal forms of pacification, far higher than any benefit the public gains from supporting the guerillas.

            Based on interviews with civilians who endured grouping in the Indian states of Nagaland and Mizoram in the 1960s and 1970s, this paper shows how for them, there was no ‘success’, only hardship.

            What they remember is not the agricultural extension agents, the pharmacists or the administrative officers who ostensibly manned the regrouped villages/ camps as part of a supposed ‘hearts and mind approach’, but the army search operations, the starvation, the regime of curfews and the reduction of identity to a roll call and a piece of paper. Separation from their fields, their homes, and their forests filled them with a yearning which no amount of ‘improved poultry and piggery’ could compensate for.

            In Mizoram, the grouping was far more extensive than in Nagaland and lasted much longer, almost fifteen years, compared to the two-three years for Nagaland. After regrouping ended, almost all the families in Nagaland went back to their original villages, but many in Mizoram stayed on in the grouping centre or moved to Aizawl On the other hand, the conflict in Nagaland continues, so when people talk about grouping, it forms part of an ongoing continuum of perceived oppression. In both cases, the grouping was preceded by burning, so that villagers could not return home, and the insurgents could find no shelter; and was almost always accompanied by search operations.

            Most scholarly accounts of Indian democracy argue that it is strong on procedural features such as elections, independent courts, a free press and so on, even if relatively weak on substantive achievements, given the inequalities of class, ethnicity, caste and gender. Most would agree too that the Emergency of 1975-77 marked a significant watershed in Indian democracy, even if they disagree on whether it has been downhill or uphill from there, and where to begin dating the crisis, assuming there is one.

            This paper shows, from the perspective of borders populations who have suffered emergency rule since the 1950s and 1960s, much before the rest of India knew what it meant, how questions of social contract, representation and voice have been configured very differently in the outposts of the Indian state (as well, perhaps, as at its inner frontiers).

            The worrying issue is not just the gap between procedural and substantive democracy, but the ease with which democratic procedures are suspended in the name of counterinsurgency. In a sign that the borders may finally be having their revenge, these issues have now moved to the centre-stage of the debate in India and elsewhere, in the context of anti-terror laws.

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by ambidex View Post
              Yes It is.

              But someone need to bury those who cross the border to kill our people or those unclaimed who pick up the arms against the state. Those who send them in very well know how many they are pushing in and what their fate is going to be. Pretending care for those and doing propaganda then is always the plan 'B'.

              These are official statistics.



              Still infiltrating in
              Well, bury them and say you buried X terrorists. No speculations later.
              No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

              To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by Doktor View Post
                Well, bury them and say you buried X terrorists. No speculations later.
                This is what we have been saying.

                I have given statistics what else they want us to provide. Over 21000 have been Killed and buried where ever there was a place.

                Given the magnitude of hostility, asymmetrical war we are engaged in, resources given to para-military forces, at least they have been given burial unlike Shia solider left on the ice by PA during Kargil war.

                After a three years long inquiry done by J&K state govt. of ~2500 bodies 574 DNA are matched with locals, rest were not. There is a possibility that those local killed (militants) might not have been claimed within for set period of time (Bodies are always kept and photos printed in the Newspapers) then given burial as unidentified.

                Establishing identity of a killed terrorist was not done by costlier/laborious DNA profiling especially those who were killed in 90's. The procedures followed like I mentioned above were quite a formality (one can say) or protocol, even as a teenage boy I used to see photos printed in Newspappers during Punjab militancy.

                Is it a sad affair, yes it is.
                Last edited by ambidex; 16 Jul 12,, 00:43.

                Comment


                • #38
                  Thanks for explanation.

                  Well then, can we close this one?
                  No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                  To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Doktor View Post
                    Well then, can we close this one?
                    I think there is no harm as of today to bring out some harsh facts (without exaggeration), if there are any, no Indian is going to be defensive when all the states have their own elected Governments responsible for the welfare and security of their own states with voting turnouts making records (Punjab 78.57% 2012), (Jammu &Kashmir 60.50 % 2008, Rural/Panchayat elections ~80% 2011 despite boycotts, threatening and one women candidate killed in central Kashmir). Democracy is the best we can do and provide.

                    Even for such events of the past when centre took over power of states/Presidential rule (Punjab from 10 Oct, 1983 to 29 Sep, 1985 and 11 Jun, 1987 to 25 Feb, 1992; In J&K from 19 Jan,1990 to 09 Oct, 1996) because of Insurgencies and break down of Law and order and circumstances were not conducive for the election because people were too afraid to come out and vote, one must not jump directly on detailing the aftermaths of insurgencies and collateral damages without giving account of what happened first and what followed next. Strangely some across the border have habit of ignoring this even for their very own insurgencies and conflicts.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      All I know is that the reporter who brought this very biased report in NYT needs to be declared persona non-grata and escorted out of the country at the first earliest opportunity. She has clearly worn out her welcome. I don't give a shit if she's a journalist or not. She doesn't have that right as a non-Indian to be spreading lies and propaganda against India. She is clearly engaged in anti-Indian activities and that is enough to warrant at the very minimum a persona non grata status.

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
                        All I know is that the reporter who brought this very biased report in NYT needs to be declared persona non-grata and escorted out of the country at the first earliest opportunity. She has clearly worn out her welcome. I don't give a shit if she's a journalist or not. She doesn't have that right as a non-Indian to be spreading lies and propaganda against India. She is clearly engaged in anti-Indian activities and that is enough to warrant at the very minimum a persona non grata status.

                        I didn't find anything biased about the NYT report. You may be confusing the report with the op-ed piece.
                        Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                        -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Takes two to tango. If Pakistani apologists want the bloodshed to end perhaps they should urge Pakistan to stop sponsoring the other dance partner.

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Tronic View Post
                            I didn't find anything biased about the NYT report. You may be confusing the report with the op-ed piece.
                            I am referring to that lady, Gardiner Harris.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
                              I am referring to that lady, Gardiner Harris.
                              I only see two NYT links posted, and neither one is by Gardiner Harris, who by the way is not a lady. Which post are you referring to?
                              Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                              -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Tinu View Post
                                Discovery of 2000 mass graves - has anybody even talked about it. Except one gentleman who saw such things in Indian state of Punjab.
                                This is not some sudden discovery. The LOC in Kashmir has many such graves.
                                By the way, the graves are not unmarked. These are proper and identifiable individual graves, not a hole in the ground that is covered by bushes.

                                In the early 90's when JKLF militants use to to infliterate into India from POK, they did so in 50 + and 100 + strength. When these numbers got caught in ambushes, they fell in large numbers. These men were genrally buried at the site of the encounter on in a village graveyard, if there was a village closeby.

                                Deliberate and planned burning of villages in North East India.
                                In Malaya the British had followed a policy of collecting the pesants from the villages and shifting these to controlled camps. This was done with the assumption that the guerillas in the jungles relied upon the villages for food and shelter. With the villages burnt and the population shifted out, the guerillas would be straved for food and shelter.

                                This policy was copied by Gen, Raina in the Indian north-east to deny the guerillas food and logistics.

                                The policy failed and the people were sent back to their villages as the problem of employment and crime control became a headache.

                                Cheers!...on the rocks!!

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