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Kin of war heroes hold a protest in Patiala. Tribune photo: Rajesh Sachar

Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Patiala, August 14

Two war widows have been sitting on a dharna here for the past over two months. They await their “promised” land as they complete 70 days of protest on the 70th Independence Day.Bant Kaur, who is from a daily wager’s family in Daladdi village of Nabha, lost her husband Pyara Singh in the 1965 India-Pakistan war, but the successive governments, she alleges, did nothing for her and her family except giving her the pension.“The CM assured us earlier this week that a decision on our case would be taken in a month,” she says.“I was around 20 years old when my husband left for duty. Just a few months after our marriage, he was killed in the line of duty on November 3, 1965, while serving The Sikh Light Infantry,” Bant recalls. Leaders of various political parties have visited them, but their struggle continues.Bant’s son Gursewak Singh, a labourer, says he accompanies her mother when he does not get a day’s work. “I feel hurt seeing my 80-year-old mother spend days and nights under a makeshift tent.”Surjit Kaur, widow of Jangir Singh who died in the 1962 Indo-China war, is also on dharna. “The government announced 10 acres for war widows and the year 1977 was the deadline. The announcement raised some hope but since then our application has been lying at the Sainik Welfare Office, Punjab,” she claims.Patiala Deputy Commissioner Ram Vir Singh said the file pertaining to their case was being considered by the Chief Minister.

The only fragile outcome of Friday’s all-party deliberations on Kashmir seems to be that the government is to consider the Opposition suggestion for sending an all-party delegation to Kashmir, possibly after the Independence Day celebrations. For Kashmiris, it is a familiar exercise. They have seen in the past many visits by well-meaning multi-party leaders, parliamentary committee members, civil society groups and interlocutors producing hardly any worthwhile outcome. It is often a calculated response to a flare-up and once normalcy returns, all is forgotten. At the all-party meeting Prime Minister Modi toughened his stand against Pakistan, saying occupied Kashmir was part of J&K with the opposition parties generally being supportive of the government line.On the pleadings of Mehbooba Mufti, the Prime Minister had earlier broken his silence on Kashmir and Parliament too debated the issue. Modi’s borrowing of Vajpayee’s overused words — Insaniyat, Kashmiriyat and Jamhooriyat — shows he has little new to offer. His laptops vs stones talk indicated he still treats it as a development issue. Omar Abdullah reminded him that azadi the protesters talked about was from India. Delhi’s policy is still limited to conflict and status quo management. They hope to tire out the agitators. The Modi government operates within the limits imposed by its core constituency, including the RSS, which seeks integration of Kashmir with the rest of India. The latest eruption of the Valley is different. Having grown up amid killings, curfews and gun shots, the protesters today are less tolerant and less conciliatory. They carry out the fight as passionately on the streets as on social media. They are not jihadis, inspired or trained by anti-India elements. But by blaming Pakistan for the trouble in Kashmir, Delhi has handed over the situation to Islamabad to exploit. There are militants, separatists and pro-Pakistan groups and each need to be dealt with separately. The young stone-throwers should not be clubbed with them. Along with Kashmir, the Kashmiris too need to be owned up by Delhi and the rest of India, and the message must reverberate in the Valley.

India should avoid “unnecessary entanglement” in the South China Sea dispute during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Delhi to prevent it becoming yet “another factor” to impact bilateral ties, a state-run Chinese daily said on Tuesday.

“India may want to avoid unnecessary entanglement with China over the South China Sea debate during Wang’s visit if the country wishes to create a good atmosphere for economic cooperation, which would include reducing tariffs on made-in-India products exported to China amid the ongoing free trade talk known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership,” an article in the state-run Global Times said.

“India is expected to allow only moderate tariff reduction on made-in-China products under the talks in a bid to preserve its domestic industries. If India wants China to be more generous in terms of tariff reduction, it would be unwise for the country to let its relationship with China deteriorate further at this moment,” it said.

The daily said it is puzzling that India is focusing on the South China Sea issue at this moment, a move which it said might risk “unnecessary side effects” to bilateral ties and potentially create obstacles for Indian exporters hoping to increase their presence in China, the world’s second largest importer.

It noted that tensions between China and India have been increasing in recent months owing to a series of political incidents.

Protesters run as a policeman fires tear-gas shells on the outskirts of Srinagar on Friday. REUTERS

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 5

Three persons were killed and over 300 injured in fresh clashes that broke out across Kashmir after the Friday prayers even as the government imposed a curfew to prevent separatists from marching to Hazratbal.Mohammad Maqbool Wagey was killed and eight persons were injured at Nagam Chadaroo in central Kashmir’s Budgam district as security personnel allegedly opened fire at protesters, a charge refuted by the Army. With a bullet in the chest, Maqbool was brought to the Nagam sub-district hospital where he was declared “brought dead”. Eight of the injured were referred to the SMHS Hospital, Srinagar.Zahoor Ahmed was killed in the Khan Sahib area of Budgam district. He too was hit by a bullet in the chest during clashes and was declared “brought dead” by doctors. In Sopore town of Baramulla district in north Kashmir, where massive protests broke out after the Friday prayers, 50 persons were injured. Danish Rasool of Wagoora, who received several pellet injuries, died in hospital. Fifteen protesters were injured in clashes at Zurhama in Kupwara district. The police used teargas shells and pellet guns to disperse a mob.The ancestral house of minster Asia Naqash in the Habbak area of Srinagar was pelted with stones. Nobody was inside.

Symbols do matter. And an army tank, with its gun-turret pointed towards Parliament House, makes a very unhappy sight. And this symbolism decidedly gets additionally rancid with Brahmos missiles stationed at Vijay Chowk. Newspapers have published photographs of the tank and missiles positioned, all as part of an exhibition being organised by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). DRDO has rightly earned a reputation of being a vastly under-performing and grossly over-rated organisation among the pantheon of holy cows, beyond reproach and scrutiny. Still it has been allowed to display its doubtful wares at Parliament House. The members of Parliament may be our law-makers but that does not make them experts in making any knowledgeable decisions. The DRDO exhibition is a clear case of over-sale. And these photographs do convey a disquieting picture. One newspaper even felt constrained to caption its photograph: “This is not a coup!” It can only be hoped that when the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Suchitra Mahajan, allowed the parking of a tank outside Parliament House, she was totally unaware of the distressing imagery at work. With all due respect to her office, she has been a very ordinary and a very mediocre member of a political party that had always tried to make a fetish of its respect and preference for “the soldier.” The ruling BJP may have its own political agenda in injecting a heightened degree of militarism in our public discourse, but as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha she has an institutional obligation to see to it that this temple of democracy does not get slighted, even inadvertently. We live in times when the phony politician deliberately and cynically invokes patriotism to enlist the voter’s support for his unsavoury quest for power. This is a global trend. India and its politicians are no exception. But the country needs to remember that politics of nationalism invariably leads to dangerous jingoism which in turn instigates prescriptions of tests of patriotism. Nationalism is a healthy and empowering sentiment and the soldier is always worthy of respect and a salute. But in these ugly times the democratic voices need to remain vigilant against any creeping militarism.

Students pay floral tributes at Major Sandeep Sankhla War Memorial to mark the 17th anniversary of Vijay Diwas in Sector 2, Panchkula, on Sunday. Tribune Photo: Nitin Mittal

Panchkula, July 24

Army veterans from across the tricity today gathered at the Major Shankla War Memorial, Sector 2, Panchkula, paid homage to martyrs on the 17th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Divas. The commemoration ceremony was organised by the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (Panchkula and North Haryana).The ceremony saw school children and Army veterans singing patriotic songs and reciting poems. A group of students from Doon Public School, Sector 21, Panchkula, sang a patriotic song penned by a retired Brigadier. Col Mahesh Chadha (retd) recited a poem written by him. Kirti, a student of Doon Public School, presented a poem on Kargil heroes written by her.Students of St Vivekanand Millenium School, Pinjore, presented a patriotic song. Ambala MP Ratan Lal Kataria also recited a poem he had written about war heroes.Lt Gen KJ Singh, GOC-in-C, Western Command, paid homage to martyrs. Veterans and school students also paid tributes to the martyrs. — TNS

Ajay Banerjee

The Indian troops stationed along the 255 km-long Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Baig Oldie (DS-DBO) axis keep vigil amid howling winds and gurgling Shayok river in the rugged Karakoram mountain range of eastern Ladakh.Eastern Ladakh shares a 826-km frontier with China and is geographically defined as the area from Karakoram Pass in the north to Demchok in the south-east.The DS-DBO road is a key thrust area of the Ministry of Defence for this strategic northern-most corner of India — termed sub-sector north (SSN) by the military. The road will help India’s efforts to dominate the Line of Actual Control (LAC) — the de facto border — and also areas abutting Aksai Chin (under Chinese control), Jiwan Nalla, Chip-Chap river, etc. The two armies have had face-offs in 2013 and 2014 in the area over differing perception of the LAC.DBO, located at 16,700 feet, is a flat plateau. It hosts a mud-paved Indian Air Force’s advanced landing ground. It’s just 20 km short of the 18,726-foot-high Karakoram Pass that divides Ladakh and Xinjiang province of China.A northward journey commencing from Darbuk, located 110 km east of Leh across the 17,800-foot-high Chang La, is tough, tricky and runs through a treacherous terrain where oxygen is scarce and the road runs at an altitude of 14,000 feet or more.The hamlet of Shayok, comprising 25 families, is the last Indian village on this route. The remaining 210 km from Shayok to DBO has no civilian population and jagged mountains of the Karakoram range dominate the landscape.In the first week of July, a new bridge across the Shayok river was opened. However, the river, a tributary of the Indus, needs to be bridged at five more places to make the road useable 24×7.“In the winter, it’s easier. Trucks can run across the frozen Shayok. In summer, we have to time our move with the snowmelt,” says Col BS Uppal, whose battalion is based at DBO. The work on completing road is being monitored from the South Block in Delhi.The previous road — built between 2000 and 2012 at a cost of Rs 320 crore — was too close to the Shyok river and got washed away. Around 160 km of it is being re-aligned. As of now, stretch up to 105-km mark is metalled. This year’s target is to stretch it further to 156 km.The other option to reach DBO from Leh is via the 20,000-foot-high Saser La.The Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) is currently studying a way to make a road or a tunnel under the permafrost of Saser La. As of now, there is no commercial use of the DS-DBO road.The sensitivity of the Karakoram Pass was studied by Sir Francis Younghusband, a British Army officer and explorer, in the early 1900s. He feared a Russian invasion through the Karakoram Pass. But those fears are long gone — India and China have a rare settled boundary at the Karakoram Pass.

(To be concluded)

Chinese and Indian troops holding banners during a face-off along the LAC, and (right) an Indian boat patrols the Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh. Tribune photos

Ajay Banerjee

“War-gaming” is an art of predicting a future outcome of military postures. An assessment done along the sensitive and strategically vital eastern Ladakh region predicts that armies of both nations — India and China — can at best advance 10-12 km into one another’s territory in case of a war.Eastern Ladakh, part of Jammu and Kashmir, shares 826-km frontier with China and is geographically defined as the area from Karakoram Pass in the north to Demchok in the south-east.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)A “war-gamed” eastern Ladakh — a land of barren tree-less landscape dotted with high mountains and equally high passes — has been virtually militarily “tailored” to prevent a repeat of 1962 — when China, with a few exceptions, literally overran the Indian military defences.An Indian assessment says despite Chinese People Liberation Army’s (PLA) numerical superiority and military strength (20 lakh soldiers backed by long-range missiles), it can be “stopped”.This includes a method of getting real-time updates on Chinese movements; countering their patrols along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) — the de facto border — with own patrols; maintaining a minimum level of firepower and future stationing of fighter jets at Leh, the key air base in Ladakh.The Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) have been tasked with conducting joint patrols along the LAC at 65 designated points, identified by the high-power China Study Group.Key points of differing perception along the LAC include the Pangong Tso, a 135 km-wide glacial-melt lake which straddles both countries. It has boat patrols from either side.Major Abhishek Singh, in charge of boat patrols in India, says “both sides on coming face-to-face maintain a distance of 25-30 feet”. A stand-off asking each other to back off can last a few minutes to about an hour, he says.The sub-sector north (SSN) that includes the Depsang plains at 18,000 feet and also the areas abutting the Aksai Chin and Galwan are among the other flashpoints.The latest Indian stance along the LAC is not akin to Jawaharlal Nehru’s failed 1960-1961 “forward policy”, but it mandates holding claims line along the LAC.The “forward policy”, as explained by Neville Maxwell in his acclaimed book “India’s China war”, entailed taking up permanent positions along the high ridgelines of eastern Ladakh as per India’s unilaterally decided boundary of 1954. The latest Indian positions are more in line with maintaining the sanctity of the LAC.All this is backed by political agreements at the top political level to ensure that no bullet is fired. The Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) inked in October 2013 disallows night patrolling by either side.The April 2005 protocol, termed as the “protocol on modalities for implementation of Confidence building measures (CBMs) in the military field along the LAC in the India-China border areas”, mandates soldiers of either side to show a banner with a slogan painted across. The banner primarily cites the 2005 agreement and says there is a need to back off from the present positions of patrolling.Around 150 “banner drills” are conducted annually as both sides hold on to peace.

(To be concluded)

For the third straight day, newspapers have remained off the streets in the Kashmir Valley. The Tribune’s Srinagar edition was also a victim of the ban on newspapers after the killing of Hizbul militant Burhan Wani. The authorities are pulling out all the stops to contain a new trend. Locals would earlier remain behind closed doors during encounters. The security forces now encounter locals trying to disrupt anti-militancy operations. The events after Wani’s killing are a much larger reflection of the earlier localised protests. The body count may not be an accurate index of the extent of the unrest because at many places lightly armed security forces chased off the protesters without firing a shot.It was perhaps in response to the widespread nature of protests that the authorities opted to take locally printed newspapers off the streets for three days while newspapers editions from the mainland have been off limits for much longer. The authorities’ zeal may have been misplaced in equating the inflammatory potential of social media and channels with that of locally printed newspapers. Newspapers have a social contract with the state predicated on the grant of several concessions. A newspaper can take an extreme and irresponsible stand only to its own peril.   The authorities are also too well aware of the various ways in which the message of responsible reporting can be subtly transmitted to those newspapers unmindful of their civic duty during times of extreme unrest. Is it their case that this option was exercised and did not make headway? If not, perhaps it would have been a better idea to allow newspapers to be printed. At least the sight of newspapers being delivered provides some semblance of normality, however perfunctory and transient. The printed word, even if published under the watchful eye of the state, could have been a counterfoil to wild rumours that sweep the streets during such times. The ban on newspapers comes to an end on Tuesday. The situation in the Valley on the day will tell whether the printed word was an impediment or an ameliorative exercise.