For years, media has been telling us that there are 150-200 terrorists
in Kashmir. Every year the security forces kill 150-200 terrorists. Next year,
again we have a similar number joining ranks; the throughput in the system
remains the same.
We are killing terrorists, not terrorism.
I recently spent time with the Commanding Officer of 19 Rashtriya
Rifles, in South Kashmir. He is that typical breed of young infantry COs of the
Indian Army; aggressive, decisive and wise beyond their years. He said something
to me that will stay with me for a long time.
“I am responsible not just to the men under my command, but also to
their families. Death of even one of my men is simply not acceptable to me, but
I understand that defending the nation comes at a cost. So, I drive my men and
myself to train in the freezing cold, day in and day out, without respite, for
those 5 seconds of reckoning. When they come face to face with the enemies of
the nation, they must win. In this game, there is no silver medal; its either
gold, or death”.
As I travel through the breadth of South Kashmir, the hotbed of
separatism and terror, I encounter a recurring sight; young Kashmiri men
walking with their heads bowed, staring at a smartphone. Are they any different
form young men around the world? Not really, except the content that most of
them consume. Call it pure, unadulterated poison.
The Kashmir Valley is being radicalized at a furious pace. There are
more than five hundred madrasas in Anantnag alone, unmonitored and free to decide
what they will teach to the impressionable young. Thousands of such madrasas
dot the landscape across Kashmir. In many such schools of religious learning,
the teachers are no longer Kashmiris. They are from Deoband and they owe fealty
to Jamaat-i-Islami. In these madrasas, the glory of Jihad is taught to children
as young as five years old.
Smartphones in Kashmir have content that is shocking, and we have no
strategy to counter it. If we say we do, we are lying. WhatsApp groups are used
not just to gather stone pelters at the site of an encounter, but also to warn
terrorists of movement of security forces. There are young men always close by,
walking and watching. If they see an army convoy leaving the gates of an army
camp, the message is broadcast immediately – number of vehicles, direction of
movement and estimated number of troops.
Fake Twitter handles and Facebook pages are created by the thousands,
backed by Pakistan’s ISI. Blogs, Vlogs, music, videos, and literature…it is an
entire industry set up to poison the Kashmiri mind, and it is high-volume,
high-quality, professional content. ISPR (Inter Services Public Relations), the
PR wing of the Pakistani Armed Forces is the mother of this e-Jihad. And the
poisonous content they create lands up on the smartphone of the young of
Kashmir. Mass scale brainwashing is happening right under our noses.
When I was posted in Jammu & Kashmir, encounters with foreign
terrorists were common. Afghans, Sudanese and Pakistanis were some
nationalities that came to India to seek heaven. They raped Kashmiri women,
killed with impunity and roamed the streets with abandon. The Indian Army
responded by setting up anti-infiltration grids. Over a period of time, the
deluge of foreign terrorists became a trickle. An odd Pakistani still manages
to sneak in, but the majority of terrorists in Kashmir are locals.
Pakistan has ensured that it no longer need export terror to India.
Pakistan radicalizes the young of Kashmir in the name of jihad. These young men
join the ranks of terror organizations.
Just so that they don’t have second thoughts, their pictures are taken
with weapons and circulated on social media. Once security forces get these
pictures, these men are marked. Once they die in an encounter with security
forces, huge funerals are organized. These funerals are actually recruitment
rallies. Terror has been outsourced to the victim of terror.
This entire environment ensures that there is always a steady stream of
terrorists in Kashmir, home grown and able to melt into their surroundings.
This also gives Pakistan plausible deniability. They can hence rightfully claim
that the “freedom struggle” in Kashmir is indigenous.
As I said, the throughput in the system remains the same. Checkmate.
Information Warfare (IW) must be recognized as a weapon of war. It is.
Yet, it is not. IW is a halfhearted push, even in the army. We don’t seem to
realize that the enemy is in the mind, not on the ground. Killing terrorists
will not solve the problem. Getting all mushy with the locals will not solve
the problem, either.
Social media is the cause of the majority of problems we are facing in
Kashmir. We should have been able to counter it long back. We didn’t. Here is a
roadmap that will tell anyone in position of authority and willing to listen,
how this can be done.
What is urgently required is a fully secure building in NCR Delhi,
staffed by army officers at the top echelons. Lets call this building, the BLUE
BOX. The top ‘management’ of this Blue Box must be wafer thin. The rest of the
team, thousands of them, will be civilians, with the mean age not exceeding 25
years. We need content writers, videographers, special effects experts, video
editors, hackers, social media experts, research scholars, experts in Islamic
theology, linguists, songwriters and musicians, all under the same roof. In
that building, we need a recording studio, server rooms, IT hardware, software,
high speed Internet and all equipment related to content creation and social
media. We need Kashmiri Muslim men and women working for us. Yes, there are
thousands of them who put their lives on the line each day to tell India’s
story. We must mobilize them.
All these professionals should be paid well, and made to sign NDAs.
Thousands of Twitter handles, Facebook profiles, Instagram accounts, blogs,
Vlogs, websites and WhatsApp groups need to be created, a veritable firestorm
of pro-India content.
There must be action at multiple levels. Creation of content to counter
malicious propaganda, creation of content to push our own narrative and
‘managing’ local Kashmiri media are the three immediate challenges.
IW must percolate down to the Rashtriya Rifles Sector level. It is
important for the Sector Commanders to have their own IW team of professionals
(civilians included), which is directly plugged into IW of Victor Force and
Kilo Force. These must, in turn, be plugged into the IW cells of XV Corps,
Northern Command and ADGPI. It is also essential to post a qualified IW officer
at the RR battalion level. He may not generate IW content directly, but most information
will pass through him. Information Warfare is both top down and bottom up. A
simple top down approach can be detrimental because when it comes to social
media use, both information and content are mostly generated at the ground
level.
The need of the hour is to go on a massive media and social media
offensive. It is important to flood Kashmir with a counter narrative.
RR Battalion and Sector Commanders must have the independence to deal
with local and national media. The reasons are valid. It is not difficult to
imagine a Tamil journalist living and reporting from New Delhi, or a Bengali
reporting from Gujarat. The only limiting factor is language. Kashmir’s story
is different. You have to be a Kashmiri to be able to stay in and report from
the Valley. I am sure there is the possibility of a rare exception, but I am
not aware of any. Indian journalists from outside the Kashmir Valley are just
too afraid of being harmed or even killed, if they live and report from
Srinagar. That fear is not without reason. Here, I speak about the national
media, both print and electronic.
The local Kashmiri media is another kettle of fish. Hiding behind the
façade of freedom of expression, it deals in rumors, insinuation and lies.
While Indian media is known to be a little elastic with the truth, local
Kashmiri media often behaves like the propaganda wing of the Hurriyat. I
wouldn’t be surprised if individual reporters are on Pakistan’s payroll. Look
at it from the ISI’s perspective. It makes perfect sense.
Private Kashmiri TV channels are an urgent requirement. DD Kashir is a
dead duck. Private FM Channels should become a part of Kashmiri life. Both
audio and video content must be beamed live across the Valley. Much of it must
be web-based. Newspapers in Kashmiri and Urdu should be launched that tell our
story. Distribute them free of cost, if we must. And all this should be plugged
in to the Blue Box.
We simply have to find a way to communicate with Kashmiris through TV,
print, radio, web and social media. There is no other road.
Massive infusion of funds is needed in the education system in Kashmir.
Madrasas funded by Jamaat-i-Islami must be shut down and replaced with schools
with a sensible, modern curriculum. Lets not get all touchy feely about this.
The cost of our ‘liberal’ outlook is borne by soldiers.
This madness, which pervades Kashmir, is a mental illness. This madness
will not go away, unless we attack its foundation. The foundation is in the
mind.
We have been a careless nation. We have allowed this madness to spread
in Kashmir, madness seemingly without end. But end, it must. The Blue Box is no
longer a luxury. It is a question of survival.
Ministries and departments cannot run the Blue Box. It cannot be run by
intelligence agencies. They simply don’t have the capability or the
understanding. Teenagers and young adults, mavericks who don’t follow the
rules, must run the Blue Box. And the army must supervise this operation.
It is time to call in the Indian Army once more. The only difference
will be that this time, the laptop will replace the AK 47. It calls for a
mindset change, a revolution in the army’s way of thinking. But history is
witness that there is no student more willing than the Indian Army. Why involve
the army, some would ask. Well, the Indian Army is the only institution that
has men on ground and can get the job done. No excuses, no stories, no delays.
The Blue Box is what the Indian Army urgently needs in Kashmir. It has
enough weapons, bulletproof jackets and helmets. There is no dearth of such
equipment. But you cannot kill an idea, however poisonous, with an AK 47. Only
an idea can kill an idea.
If we create the Blue Box, over time the throughput in the system will
cease to exist. And Pakistan will face it biggest defeat since 1971.
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