It is heartening to know that Kashmir at last has a senior military officer who can use the idiom of the masses (Art of Peace, Sep 12). At the height of militancy in 1994, when I asked a villager in Kupwara district whether he wanted to be with India or Pakistan, his reply was: “It does not matter, I have to work hard for my rozi-roti.” They are a majority in the Valley and it is to these people that the general has to reach out. The Kashmir problem has been viewed for far too long from the blinkers of religion, security, human rights and local political equations, never from the viewpoint of the common Kashmiris. Everyone seems to know their problems and their solution better than the man on the ground. He alone has to bear the brunt of the decisions taken and the power games played.
Col Ravindranath (retd), Bangalore
I’m appalled, disgusted and extremely angry at the Outlook cover story which spews propaganda, crafts and constructs a scenario meant to make most of us comfortable. However, it tries to destroy insidiously the reality of the Valley, the gross abuse of human rights, and it paints an apparition of peace and normalcy. Your gross simplifications are extremely misleading. When you say “the army too has altered the whole tone and tenor of its engagement with Kashmiris”, how can you not mention the custodial death of Nazim Rashid? How do you explain the brutal treatment meted to the photojournalists Narciso Contreras, working with the US-based press agency Zuma, and Showkat Shafi, a local freelance photographer who often contributes to international news agencies in the wake of the aforementioned statement? What will you say about the woman who was raped in Kulgam? You say the army has employed a new tool in its arsenal of weapons—“a tool of respectful humanism”. Rightly so, a tool to legitimise an illegal occupation of a land which was coerced into mainstream India, without the will of its people. You seem to present a bigoted, communal and an absolutely fallacious point of view. Nobody will ever forget the inhumanity of the army in Kashmir, whatever this general might say or do.
Preetika Nanda, New Delhi
Please stop playing politics with the armed forces. Our soldiers have to go to various hotspots and stay there for years not because they want it, but because central and state governments want it.
C.K. Pathak, Delhi
A soldier is trained to shoot, kill and destroy.... It will be prudent on the part of the government not to expect any other role from the army. The solution lies in a strong political will and some tough decisions, to find a solution, which the army has not been able to find in the past 30 years. The soldier can shoot down militants, don’t expect him to build bridges or heal the wounds of the bullets. This peacekeeping initiative will take the killer instinct out of the Indian soldier, crucial during a war. We as a nation will pay a heavy price for training our soldiers “not to fight”.
Mahavir Jagdev, Chandigarh
I was in Kashmir from August 6 to August 12 and could easily perceive the improved environment. Informal chats with ordinary people on the streets revealed that they were all very enthusiastic about the changes brought in by Lt Gen S.A. Hasnain.
Col A.J. Bahadur, Yelahanka, Bangalore
Hasnain is doing a wonderful job and needs to be congratulated. But to say that his being a Muslim is what's working for him is grossly unfair, not just to the general and the army but to the community as well.
Deepak, Calcutta
If Gen Hasnain’s outreach can make even a modicum of a difference in the lives of the people, a turning point would have been made. Maybe his Islamic kinship is helping him win over Kashmiri youth, but attributing his success solely to this is tantamount to trivialising his laudable military-civilian endeavours. For starters, aren’t Omar Abdullah and Farooq Muslims? Fat lot of help that was!
Bichu Muttathara, Pune
Gen Hasnain is one of the best and most efficient generals in the army. Unfortunately, he will not be getting promoted to army commander because he does not have the required years of residual service. Otherwise, he is the most suitable person to head the army’s Northern Command which controls all of J&K. In fact, the government must grant him an extension and appoint him the Northern Army commander, if we really want to send the separatists into oblivion. Such extensions have been given in the past to army officers due to their political connections. Why not to someone who can make a difference?
P.S. Randhawa, Jalandhar
The army has always tried to be friendly with the locals since no army in the world likes to fight their own. Sadly, in the minds of the local people, the army will always occupy an adversarial position. The separatist minds in Kashmir were afraid of only two institutions in Kashmir: the CBI and the army. The CBI has been neutralised to a large extent thanks to political interference. It is only the army that is standing between Kashmir becoming part of Pakistan and staying with India. Hopefully, Lt Gen Hasnain will keep his velvet gloves on, on an iron fist.
Ashutosh Kaul, Toronto
Lt Gen Hasnain is not the first Muslim general to commandeer a corps but to command it—a quick dictionary check will tell you these are two diametrically opposite things.
Tathagata Bose, Ahmedabad
Clarification: Gen Hasnain is the first Muslim general to command 15 Corps in 20 years, a fact specified in the main story but inadvertently omitted in the bullet points.
If the army has made its first sensible move in appointing a Muslim general in 20 years, how about posting an Assamese Hindu general to Assam?
Charan Dewry, Guwahati
Perhaps the general can be the J&K guv after he retires.
Vinod Gangadharan, Bangalore<
Kashmiri separatist leaders get suitcase-loads of Indian currency. Which initiative by the army can ever replace that?
B.V. Gopal Rao, Warangal
