Former Northern Army Commander Lt. Gen. Hooda on Sunday said that an empathetic approach and a clearly defined political objective were needed to address the issues in Kashmir.
“Very often we had a separate political and military strategy towards Kashmir and that is why very often we hear that military has brought the security situation under control in Kashmir but politics has not followed. We need a combined and comprehensive politico-military strategy based on a political objective… I think we have not been able to give a well-crafted narrative to the people in the valley that we care,” Lt. Gen. Hooda said, according to The Hindu.
Hooda was speaking at a seminar organised by the Observer Research Foundation on the National Security Strategy document that he made for the Congress party.
He said the internal situation in Kashmir and cross border militancy “need to be tackled with equal emphasis.”
He also termed the rise of China as the “biggest threat” to India. “We felt that we must clearly enunciate our core interests to China. And our core interests are the sanctity of our borders, our worries about terrorism, and our strategic interests in South Asia and the Indian Ocean,” he said, according to the report.