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Burden of expectations PPCC non-list |
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Killing by US drones questionable
Farooq Shaikh, of things all sunny
Be wary of information detractors
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Burden of expectations Delhi
has a new government, and the feeling of change is palpable. Here was a Chief Minister who eschewed the red-light culture and rode the Metro to his swearing-in. He and has Cabinet members refused official accommodation and other “perks of office”. People turned up in tens of thousands to attend his swearing-in ceremony. Indeed, the list of firsts of the Aam Aadmi Party leader gets longer each day. People have high expectations from the party that has showed how long-held political equations could be successfully challenged and changed by someone who is rooted and focused on ending corruption that has corroded the nation. Yet there is the burden of hope of millions of residents of Delhi. They expect the new government to fix the wrongs of decades. They even expect it to help them in situations where it may not have the authority to do so. Yes, people have flocked in large numbers to party functionaries and ministers, with their list of demands. Even as Kejriwal has asked for 10 days to set up a complaint redressal mechanism, there is a sense of the new incumbents being weighed down by the sheer volume of the expectation of the voters. The new aam aadmi government has moved with commendable alacrity to address the party’s poll promises. Inevitably there are issues — the very logic of the promised 700 litres of free water has been questioned by experts over how the economics would work out. Kejriwal is right when he says that he does not have a solution to all the problems. “Don’t have a magic wand, 1.5 crore people will work together for a better Delhi,” he said. The youngest Chief Minister of Delhi has quite a task at hand. However, there is no denying that he is off to a flying start, and given his record at effecting change, this is one person who may well rise to the expectations of the people who voted him to power. |
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PPCC non-list THE Congress high command has approved a jumbo list of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee members that has left those included as miffed as those kept out. A much delayed exercise, it has achieved little more than delaying the final hard decisions — the kind that would clearly spell out who leads the party in the state in unequivocal terms. Perhaps, it will be none till the end, with a fractious party going to the polls in 2014, as it was in the last Assembly elections. The indecisiveness arises from the age-old approach to leadership nomination (not selection) which seems arbitrary to the untrained eye. Of course, the professionals understand that it is an elaborate exercise in balancing caste and loyalty factors. The fallout of this is that merit does not come into the picture. Fortunately for most political parties, this had been largely accepted by the voter because since long there was little other option. That has changed today. And Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi seemed to acknowledge that in his choice of words and body language when promising sweeping change following the rout of his party by AAP in Delhi. But he and everyone else in the party would know that the time left to the elections is too little for any major shift in the choice of leaders. To respond to the emerging post-Delhi scenario that demands visible change, the Congress will have to show some real ingenuity. An election is about convincing the voter of your unique selling proposition
(USP). For that, you need to have a USP first. SAD in Punjab is selling ‘development’ and ‘investment generation’.
AAP, which is now seriously looking at Haryana and Punjab, says it will wipe out corruption and serve the aam
aadmi. That leaves little for the Congress and, to an extent, even the
BJP, which can only call the Hindutva card its own. In Punjab, the Congress has even failed to justify the tag of an Opposition, rarely exposing any wrong by the government. The next test for its ‘high command’ is going to be the Lok Sabha ticket. Much can be forgiven if it is seen as a list of people interested in serving the public.
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Thought for the Day
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
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The Viceroy and the Calcutta police THE visit of His Excellency the Viceroy to Calcutta has proved that adopting restrictive measures for other people is not like adopting such measures for oneself. Extraordinary precautions were adopted by the police during His Excellency's visit against untoward events, and Indians as loyal and law-abiding men did not choose to object realising the responsibility of the police and the public. But it has been left to the Calcutta Englishman to devote a whole article for a description of police precautions and general inconvenience caused thereby, and for the purpose of pointing out to the Government how such precautions might be obviated by enacting more repressive laws enabling the police to march to the goal every person suspected to be a terrorist. So extensive were the police precautions, the paper complains, that people could not watch cricket, could not go to church, or see the races or even catch a glimpse of the Viceroy as he shot by a swift motor car. The “Indian spectator” THE conductors of the Indian Spectator announce in the issue of the 27th December that they have decided to discontinue the publication of that Journal. It appears that the late Mr. Malabari left no instructions about the future of his publications. His former co-adjutors did not stop the paper immediately after his death to avoid the impression of being disrespectful to his memory. During the last eighteen months the conductors have not found it possible to meet the difficulty of running the paper satisfactorily and accordingly they have decided with much reluctance "to drop the curtain on the scene altogether." They also state that the reputation which the journal has earned in Simla and in other "respectable quarters" has been embarrassing to them. Whatever this may mean the disappearance of the journal though regrettable is only natural.
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Killing by US drones questionable THE US has been conducting drone operations in a number of countries with a view to eliminating extremists and jihadi elements that are seen as the source of international terrorism. Pakistan has been one of the victims of this policy. Its north-western border, particularly the province of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, seems to bear the brunt of these attacks.
Hundreds of ‘jihadi’ elements and a number of leading persons, including Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Afghan Haqqani leaders have been killed in these attacks. Hakeemullah Mehsud, head of the TTP was killed a few days after the summit meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and US President Barack Obama, despite the issue having been raised by the former. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are multipurpose technological marvel that can neutralise minuscule ground targets as small as a human body with unmatched accuracy. These are being employed extensively by the US and some other major powers, particularly Israel, for targeted killing of their perceived enemies. While these powers may be eliminating threat to their national security to some degree, their unilateral action without the concurrence of the target country has serious international ramifications, both legal and ethical. The Americans continue to ignore Pakistan government’s protests against violation of its sovereignty and kill its citizens without any inhibition. But surprisingly, Pakistan has neither taken up the issue at any international level nor attempted to shoot down these highly air interception vulnerable drones. There is a wide suspicion that in this case the Pakistan army unable to subdue the ‘jihadi’ elements despite heavy casualties has perhaps agreed tacitly to look over the shoulder while the CIA continues with its task. Pakistan is not the only country where the US has resorted to such precise killing of unsuspecting victims from the air. It has been using the drones in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Libya with amazing effectiveness. Thousands of people have been killed in these countries in this manner. The drones were first used as a weapon of war by the Americans in the late 90s when unmanned and unarmed aircraft were employed in Afghanistan for the purpose of tracking the Al Qaida. But killing by remote control through these drones armed with missiles was only attempted after 9/11. President George Bush authorised the use of armed drones to kill Al Qaida leaders first in Afghanistan and later in Yemen and Pakistan. The first target killing was thus authorised by President Bush on September 17, 2001. Later, President Obama took up the cudgels and went on the offensive in a big way, killing hundreds of targeted people. Obama’s desire to pull out of Afghanistan by 2014 with minimum casualties led him to intensify targeted killing through drone attacks. Thus, unmanned armed drones emerged as the single-most effective weapon system with the Americans in taking on the Taliban leadership selectively. At any given time, dozens of drones loiter over Afghanistan. They spy on the Al Qaida and insurgents round the clock, and strike as soon as the target is identified. Success of drone strikes in eliminating the militants on the CIA hit list led the US to intensify these low-cost high-dividend operations in a big way. It would not be out of place to mention here that following the US example, a number of European countries, as also third world countries, have acquired the UAVs. Some countries, particularly the US and Israel, are presently investing heavily in drone projects, for that seems to be the future. The Israelis, like the Americans, have long resorted to the targeted killing of their enemy, the Palestinian insurgents. The Israelis justify their option even if it is tantamount to assassination because of the existential threat they face. The Americans too justify this type of extra-judicial killing as self defence in the war against the Al Qaida. Notwithstanding, this asymmetric warfare is tantamount to summary execution and may, in not-too-distant a future, be considered as a crime against humanity in an undeclared war situation. There is another aspect of drone operations that needs to be taken note of. The drones have the potential of being used by the so-called non-state actors and terrorists of various hues. The danger also lies in these drones being exploited by lesser nations for devious purposes. Unless some measures are taken, as in the case of weapons of mass destruction, there is a danger of these aerial platforms becoming a major security risk in the future. Besides, drone attacks raise serious legal and ethical questions. Presently, the powers that be are conducting these operations with total disregard to violation of sovereignty, territorial integrity and the legality of such operations. It’s strange that there is hardly any explicit criticism by any country. Nor for that matter have any of the international forums or the human right organisations raised their voice against such unethical practices by major powers. However desirable, the elimination of these extremists in this fashion is questionable to say the least. ‘Jihadi’ criminals must not go unpunished but targeting them like this is illegal and unethical. Technological advances outpacing the existing international laws and conventions perhaps require new set of regulations and their acceptability.
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Farooq Shaikh, of things all sunny SOME faces wear Light. Like the sunshine, sunflowers, and those trees winking to the sun. Some faces wear Feathers. While the years thunder down, they turn softer. Such faces also wear Silence. As life tosses them lessons, they speak less, listen more. So while you run into chaotic rhetoric asking them analysis and perspectives, lines on their foreheads gather and you can almost hear them sigh: “Why are you in such chaos? Why don’t you see? It’s really so simple. Simplify yourself. Simplify it all”. Maybe, because he carried a bit of the sun with him. I too remember warming under that sun… I still recall the crispness of his white kurta-pyjama… Under closed eyes, I can feel that fabric rustling to his touch, while sunlight filtered into the UT Guest House, Chandigarh, last to last year.
The white of his kurta lent me just the metaphor for the uncomplicated ease the man carried. During the conversation I extracted out of him a few hours before he delivered Tumhaari Amrita, I noticed his impatience for the irrelevant, the banal and anything that took away from the ‘present’. Because this man, of the boyish mane that belonged to his forehead and eyes that belonged to a romantic poet, was always the quiet kinds we could run into at a university’s Urdu department or maybe if there were a department of ‘the Lightness of Being’. Even decades since Garam Hawa, or Noorie or Umrao Jaan or Bazaar, that melting beam of his eyes spoke. And when he himself spoke, wit sat so easy on his words. And you were amazed at how he wouldn’t get trapped in praise or adulation. And that’s exactly why — this man who never really turned the hero Hindi cinema stoops to serve, of loud arrogance and false machismo — is so not easy to forget. To me, when I hear the chords of Pyaar mujhse jo kiya tumne or Phir chidi raat, I can see a young man, carrying no weight in his feet, strolling along a university corridor, books in hands, eyes into a distance and a smile that decorates all of that ease. A ghazal begins to dangle from the breeze, and I can fall in love, yet again. With Light. Feathers. And Silence… And the face that wore all these. And in that moment, Farooq Shaikh lives in the softest corners of my insides. I know those corners would be sunlit. Always.
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Be wary of information detractors in April 2010, the third year of street protests in Kashmir was warming when brief media reports indicated that an army unit de-inducting after spending 24 months on the Line of Control (LoC) allegedly eliminated three young innocent persons in a fake encounter in the Machil area of the North Shamshabari, pass of their bodies as those of foreign terrorists and garner the credit in the “numbers’ game”. Post this incident, a brief inquiry by the Jammu and Kashmir Police indicated that there had been a conspiracy. Identifications were done after exhumation of the bodies and news of the incident went viral, leading to a spurt in the street protests. An alleged isolated incident slurred the army’s reputation and provided an impetus for the 2010 separatist campaign which would paralyze not only Kashmir but almost the entire nation. Machil thus became a byword in the Valley and the latest symbol of alleged human rights violations by the army.
For all the alleged dastardly nature of the incident, the army had to first take stock of the situation. It had been manipulated many times in the past to put it on the back foot, although admittedly it had a history of mistakes, as is wont to happen when any army thanklessly battles a sponsored militancy where the information/disinformation struggle becomes a part of the adversial campaign. It correctly followed the legal procedure to arrive at the current juncture but the skeptics continue to doubt its credentials towards justice. On December 26, 2013, the nation woke to headlines stating that the perpetrators of the incident were to be tried by a general court martial (GCM). The perceived delay in justice (three and a half years), the apparent lack of knowledge about the military justice system and the emotions connected to the recall of the incident created enough of a potpourri to send the social media into a tizzy. Some perceived that the verdict was about to be announced as also the sentence, while others worked overtime to denigrate the army for the delay, painting it as the typical response of denial of justice by the army. A few explanations on social media put the procedural aspects and facts in the right perspective and better informed people started to change their ideas and in fact appreciate the army’s actions. Information battle The 24 year militancy and separatist campaign that the army has been fighting is not about elimination of terrorists alone. Much of the campaign has been about the information battle, something the army has never been very adept at. Its silence at the wrong times has cost it the image of a just army and it has been at the receiving end of smear campaigns even when it takes the correct decisions as it has very creditably done this time. It is all about information and timing. In November 2004, it gained much credit for the quick decision to investigate and put one of its officers through the military justice system. The officer had been accused of raping a mother and her young daughter. The GCM conducted in its wake (in precisely six weeks) found the officer guilty of attempted molestation and sentenced him to “be dismissed from service”, a verdict and sentence which was subsequently confirmed as per procedure but overturned by a higher civil court to which the accused officer appealed as per his rights. It gave enough credit to both the army and the judiciary in India, although many in Kashmir perceived the reversal as a decision of a biased Indian judicial system. The Army did not sufficiently publicise this important judgment of the higher court and that is coming back today to treat its promises of justice with much skepticism. What is it this time? Why the delay and what is the military justice system all about? The nation must be made aware of this so that it is in a better position to appreciate the difficulties of its army as also those of the innocent populace. It needs to also know that in the conflict zone there are thousands of innocents who have nothing to do with insurgency—ordinary human beings who fight daily battles for existence with dignity and pride. While there may be many who carry emotional support for separatism and may sympathise with militants or separatists, it does not make them villains. The human rights and dignity of these is as much the responsibility of the state (nation) in the overall spirit of the hugely successful democratic model that India has established. In the situation that presents itself, leaders have to perceive things in different shades of grey, much against the usual trend of judging everything in black and white.
Military justice system The army, smitten by manipulation in the past and matured by its experience, invariably examines misdemeanour by its troops first with an eye to prevent being manipulated. Failure to do so will dampen the dynamism and will of its rank and file. This is an important aspect which needs to be understood by human rights activists. It may lead to delay in initiation of disciplinary proceedings and this delay brings pressure from all quarters including the media and activists. When an act of misdemeanour by uniformed personnel occurs, procedurally the army is supposed to ascertain all facts and whether it occurred on active service, through a court of inquiry (CoI). If the army perceives culpability, it has the choice to file before the appropriate court of law to take over the case for proceedings through the military justice system under the statutory Army Act (1950) read in conjunction with Army Rules. Once the case is taken over, the army authority carries out framing and hearing of charge(s) and thereafter orders recording of the summary of evidence (SoE) which is to done by an officer who should not be related to the case. The proceedings of the SoE are processed for the final decision by the concerned superior authority as to the mode of trial. A military court is then convened by the convening authority and assembles along with an officer from the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Branch who acts as the legal adviser through the proceedings. The GCM, if ordered, comprises a presiding officer and minimum four other officers who cannot be of rank lower than the accused. The GCM can also conduct a joint trial if necessary. There are defending and prosecuting officers appointed who can be supplemented by civilian counsel if required. The proceedings are reduced to writing in each session and civilian witnesses are also called to depose. The verdict and sentence is to be confirmed by an authority higher than the one which convened the court. What has happened in this particular case? As soon as the Army’s CoI ascertained that the incident occurred at the place of the unit’s deployment on active service, the case was not one of manipulation by inimical parties and there appeared prima facie culpability, the army applied to the court of the judicial magistrate to take over the case. The same was denied on grounds of the contentious aspect whether the incident occurred on “active service” or otherwise. An appeal to the sessions court met a similar fate. The accused remained attached to a headquarters in Kupwara for disciplinary purpose. The army then went for appeal in the J&K High Court under the provisions of Section 125 of the Army Act, which lays down that in the event of concurrent jurisdiction of a criminal court and court martial the discretion lies with the commanding officer of the accused. The opposite parties took considerable time to file their response and the court had to repeatedly adjourn. Through this elongated time the army was unjustifiably accused of delaying tactics and its perception management efforts could not better the bitter campaign to smear it.
Winning the perception game Eventually, the High Court ruled in favor of the army, directing it to take over the case and try the accused through the military justice system, vindicating the army’s stance. The High Court in its judgment even observed that the counsel for the army had stated that “the petitioners are keen to see the accused…..tried by court martial at the earliest”. Since the CoI had already been completed before the army’s decision to take over the case, recording of SoE was ordered. This is a meticulous procedure which has bearing on the subsequent decisions to decide the type of court to try the accused and the evidence so recorded can be/is used during the proceedings of the court martial. The evidence so recorded would have undergone further legal scrutiny by the army’s legal officers and the procedure for a final decision would then have been initiated which led to the current position to convene a GCM. Thus the trial is only now set to begin as against the popular perception that it is over and verdict is to be announced. The army needs to be complimented on its ability to see through the entire procedure with a sense of balance and ensure that the alleged perpetrators are brought to justice but like in any such system patience has to be exercised so that justice is meted out and seen to be correctly executed. An information game is bound to ensue. The public at large is justifiably unaware of the of the military justice system. It is now up to the army to ensure that while imparting justice the perception game is not lost because of the lack of information. Perhaps, a near open court with daily briefs on the proceedings would not be a bad idea. There is precedence to this and the army needs to ensure it looks at all options when it comes to the information aspects while the GCM is in progress. There are enough detractors awaiting a slip up.
Flare up in the Valley
On April 30, 2010, the army claimed to have foiled an infiltration bid from across the Line of Control, in the Machil Sector of Kupwara by killing three armed militants from Pakistan. It was, however, subsequently established that the encounter had been staged and that the three alleged militants were in fact civilians who had been lured to the army camp by promising them jobs as porters and then shot. They were identified as Mohammed Shafi, Shehzad Ahmed and Riyaz Ahmed, residents of Nadihal in Baramulla district. On June 11, there were protests in Srinagar against these killings during which the local police used force to disperse the protesting youth resulting in the death of a 17-year old boy Tufail Ahmad Mattoo. Several protest marches were organised across the Valley in response to the killings. These resulted in clashes with police and the CRPF, in which another boy was killed. This set off a vicious cycle of violent street protests in Kashmir, causing over 120 deaths due to stone-pelting from May to September 2010. After the incident, complaints from relatives of the victims led to the police arresting three persons, Territorial Army jawan Abbas Shah, Basharat Lone and Abdul Hamid Bhat, both associated with anti-terror operations, for their alleged involvement in the case. The Jammu and Kashmir Police had in July 2010 filed a charge-sheet against an army Colonel, a Major and seven others before the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Sopore. According to reports, Indian intelligence agencies had claimed that these protests and demonstrations were part of covert operations of Pakistani intelligence agencies and were sponsored and supported by them. Media reports earlier in March had suggested that with the support of its intelligence agencies, Pakistan had been once again boosting terrorism in Kashmir. It was reported that in a meeting held in Muzaffarabad in January 2010, the United Jihad Council called for reinvigorated jihad in Kashmir. In May 2010 increased activities of terrorists was reported from across the border in Neelum valley in Pakistani-administered
Gilgit-Baltistan. The locals reported that large numbers of terrorists, who did not appear to be Kashmiri, had set up camps in the area with the intention of crossing into Kashmir.
— TNS
Cause of delay *
On establishing that the incident occurred on active service, the army moved the local courts of law to take over the case *
The same was denied on grounds of the contentious aspect whether the incident occurred on active service or otherwise. *
The army then went for appeal in the High Court. The opposite parties took considerable time to file replies and the court had to repeatedly adjourn *
Through this elongated time the army was unjustifiably accused of delaying tactics and its perception management efforts could not better the bitter campaign to smear it *
Eventually, the High Court ruled in favor of the army, directing it to take over the case and try the accused through the military justice system, vindicating the army’s stance
The writer is a former General Officer Commanding
of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps
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Farooq Shaikh had that kind of face. And if I’ve been a loyal tracker, he increasingly had that kind of face... Deepti Naval, his close friend and co-actor, confirms it: “Bade suljhe huye insaan the… And while filming our last film together, Listen Amaya, I noticed he’d turned ever more caring, seeing me through a spell of strange health. And yes he was as winsome as ever. Whichever space he entered, he’d leave a whiff of that charm… It was tough to not be affected”. Deepti had met Farooq in 1978, running into him at DD Mumbai studios and soon, he played out his part — recommending her for Ek Baar Phir. Much before the two turned a favourite romantic couple of our student years, spent drunk on ghazals and frothiness of Chashme Baddoor, Katha, Saath Saath, Rang Birangi… And for Deepti, from all those years of leg-pulling and shared passions, Farooq remained a rare man who never sought space under the spotlight. 