If at all there is an element of surprise in  Lt. General’s Jaiswal’s unrealistic  statement  relating  the Armed Force’s Special Power Act to a Holy book, it is the criminal silence of political authority both in Srinagar & New-Delhi and the  otherwise hypersensitive national media over the issue. Their silence speaks volumes about the mindset developed by them over years   in the methodology to be applied in solving the Kashmir issue.
No major newspaper or broadcast network has made any attempt to carry the story forward. No background pieces have been published analyzing the statement of the Lt. General in proper perspective. The media blackout cannot be explained by any objective standard of the newsworthiness of this statement. It is solely guided by broader national interests, which we have been observing & witnessing since times immemorial.
In any democratic society worth its salt, the army General would have been summoned by the political executive, reprimanded and told in no uncertain terms that he is not the authority to propound such functional doctrines. Alas that has not happened and since under normal circumstances, silence means acquiescence, the people of the State are justified in concluding that the “Holy Act” justification of their  unabated Killing by security forces without any  accountability   has due concurrence of all of them. So next time when another innocent Kashmiri will be martyred, we may be provided with an “Ashlok” or “verse” from a holy scripture as justification for killing  instead of  following  a proper  procedure as mandated by law. That should leave no person in doubt about the  unmanageable damage & impending disaster  for  the  Indian nation itself.
While the sorrow-free  attitude  of New-Delhi, out to retain Kashmir by force, is visible to one and all, the behaviour  of State Govt. headed by Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, is intriguing. It must be remembered that besides being Chief Minister of State, he is also the head of  unified Command, a forum in which he has the opportunity & authority to question the Security forces for their errors of omission & Commission. Having   abdicated his authority, political as well as administrative, he has committed a grave mistake with serious repercussions. He appears to be totally disconnected  with what is happening to the ordinary citizens of his state. Following an emotional speech in Parliament over the Amarnath land row, the people of Kashmir had tied high  hopes & reposed a  trust in his leadership. As on today  those  hopes stand belied & the trust irreversibly breached.
A similar incident which happened when G.M.Sadiq was chief Minister of the State is worth recalling here. A boy in Batmaloo area had been seriously injured  by Army firing  on the pretext that he was  pelting stones on the moving  convoy. Sadiq summoned the Concerned Army General, Lt. General Cadith, to his office and reprimanded him. He was told that such incidents do not behove of a professional army but give it an appearance of an occupational force. It is said that with astute handling of the incident,  Lt. General was
made to realize his mistake and  apologized for the incident with an assurance that such incidents will not be repeated in future.
Tifl-i-shawad Khandar-Khana Shawad Vairan –This  is a Persian proverb which when literally translated means that “ a child at helm heralds the destruction of  the household”. Having compared the contrasting approaches to a similar & identical incident by two chief Ministers of the State, I am inclined  to vouch for the correctness of the above oft-quoted Persian proverb. But if Omar Abdullah wants to prove it wrong, he has a herculean task ahead and the first among those tasks in not only to act as Chief Minister but appear to be seen as acting  like a Chief Minister, a few words of praise showered by  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh & planning Commission Chairman, Montek Singh notwithstanding.

(The author is a practicing chartered Accountant & can be contacted for feed back at amzargar1@indiatimes.com)

Lastupdate on : Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:00:00 IST