Some thoughts on two sets of coffins

By chhotebhai

Kanpur, Dec 10, 2921: I am deeply distressed by the tragic events of the past week. My anguish increases when I see the mortal remains in two sets of coffins at two different parts of India.

One set of 14 coffins was draped with flags marked with red crosses. The person laying the wreaths was the chief minister of Nagaland. The other set was one short of 14, as there is one survivor. The second set was draped with the Indian tricolour, with the meticulously dressed and well-rehearsed Prime Minister paying floral tributes while TV cameras remained firmly focussed on him, not the victims nor their distraught loved ones left behind.

All of us join in paying tribute to the officers and other ranks of the Army and Air Force who died in a tragic helicopter crash on the slopes of a tea estate in Conoor district of Tamil Nadu on December 8. This happened four days after the 14 deaths in Mon district of Nagaland and eclipsed the previous deaths from public memory. However, not all of us have forgotten the 14 innocent men of Nagaland’s Oting village.

It is worth comparing and contrasting these two sets of coffins.

I unequivocally state that the untimely death of General Bipin Rawat, Chief of Defense Staff, his wife, and entourage is a great loss to the nation. Undoubtedly General Rawat had rendered yeoman service to the nation, especially in trying to integrate and coordinate the three wings of the armed forces.

But I cannot also forget that General Rawat leapfrogged over two of his seniors to be appointed Chief of Army Staff by the present government. What was the role of his fellow Garwhali, National Security Advisor, Ajit Singh Doval, in this appointment?

The Doval Doctrine, as it has now come to be known, places the State above the People, forgetting that it is the people that constitute the State and elect its government. Doval, the former master spy, is known to be the brain and strategist for the “surgical strikes,” of which Rawat was very much a part.

The first was when lethally armed helicopter gunships crossed into Myanmar to ruthlessly gun down so-called militants sleeping in their tents at 3 am. This was hailed by then former Minister and Olympian, Harshvardhan Rathore, as an indication of the 56-inch chest of the prime minister.

A similar operation was later conducted in Uri in Pak Occupied Kashmir (POK), using well-armed commandos. Both these operations, as also Balakot, claimed to have ended terrorism and insurgency. We know that they have not. It is now an unfortunate quirk of fate that the one who oversaw crack commandos from the Agra basted paratroopers use helicopter gunships, should now be the victim of a helicopter crash.

I am reminded of what the Prophet Hosea said 2,700 years ago. “Those who sow the wind, reap the whirlwind” (Hos 8:7). Two Prime Ministers, Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv, had also succumbed to the whirlwind. Indira first encouraged Bhindranwala and then sent the army into the Golden Temple to finish him off. In turn her own Sikh body guards assassinated her.

Rajiv did not learn that lesson. He first trained the LTTE (Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelam) cadres in a secret base in Chakarata (again in Garwhal), and then sent the euphemistically called Indian Peace Keeping Force to neutralize them. He in turn was assassinated by the same LTTE. Bullet for bullet. Even the “Almighty Americans” have not yet learnt this lesson, from the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the World Trade Towers inferno notwithstanding.

Taking a cue from Jesus’ rejection of the Mosaic law “an eye for an eye” Mahatma Gandhi had quipped that if we all followed that doctrine then the whole world would be blind. I am inclined to believe that in our lust for power we have all become blind to truth.

Yet, the truth must be told. Writing in the Hindustan Times on December 9 Alke Yhoshu describes the tragic loss of lives of the villages of Oting in Mon district. One of the victims Hokup was married to Monglong just nine days before he was killed. Langtun left his wive Ngamlem with their first born, just two months old. Cancer patient Chemwang lost his only caregiver son Shanwang. Awan Konyak lost her two sons Langwang and Thapwang. All of them were killed in cold blood by the Army’s 12 Para special forces unit, says Alke.

History repeating itself, déjà vu because we fail to learn its lessons. The Nagaland police have filed an FIR for murder against the Army unit. The tragic incident took place in broad daylight at 3:30 pm. The villagers, coal miners not insurgents, were in a Bolero pick-up. Such a vehicle has no place to hide. So how can the army now lamely claim that it was a case of “mistaken identity,” and a botched operation? Try telling that to the villagers in Mon? That sounds so much like the Hindi words “maun” and “mauth” that mean silence and death. Indeed a deathly pall of silence now envelops Oting village in Mon.

That did not stop our portly Home Minister from shedding tears in Parliament for the victims of the “botched operation.” Was this out of love for the Nagas, or their votes, as Manipur that is due to go the polls very shortly, has a 50 percent ethnic Naga population.

This “botched operation” has again thrown into sharp relief the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), that shields the army from prosecution for any action in so-called “disturbed areas.” Veteran Assam journalist Sanjoy Hazarika wrote in the Hindustan Times on December 8 that if the Centre could repeal the farm laws, then why not the AFSPA that ironically was enacted by the British to suppress Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India movement on August 15, 1942. Five years later, on that very day the British did have to quit India.

The next day the Hindustan had another article by Utkarsh Anand. He referred to the 1,528 cases of alleged fake encounters in Manipur over 20 years under the shadowy cloak of AFSPA. Iron Sharmila had fasted for 16 years for its repeal, but cut no ice with successive governments. She had begun her fast after 10 civilians were gunned down at a bus stop in Malom, Manipur. In the same issue of the Hindustan Times Delhi based Advocate Gautam Bhatia argued that AFSPA had no place in a constitutional democracy.

M G Devasahayam IAS (Retd) and earlier in the Madras Regiment is even more scathing in his article in The Print on December 7. He had served in Nagaland in the 1960’s when there was no AFSPA there. He recalls that they were “ordered to capture hostiles and weapons, not to kill.”

The doctrine of the Indian Army was primarily to protect its territorial integrity he said. Its secondary role was to assist the civil administration when requisitioned. This does not mean replacing or subverting the civil administration, or even the judiciary, as AFSPA does. Unfortunately, as long as AFSPA remains there will continue to be “maun” and “mauth” in Mon.

On December 28 this year, the Christian world will commemorate the feast of the Holy Innocents. Mathew quotes the Prophet Jeremiah to say “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and weeping bitterly; it is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” (Mat 2:18). Ramah, Conoor, Mon, are they now all equal in death?

(The writer is the Vice President of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, Kanpur.)