It is difficult to shrug off the horrifying images from Poonch, of men detained at an Army camp being thrashed, stripped and sprayed with chilli powder over their wounds till they become unconscious and three of them succumb to their injuries. It is equally difficult to bury the questions these images evoke.
What provides the soldiers extra-constitutional powers to pick up random civilians, torture and kill them on any pretext? While three bodies were returned, rest of the detainees were released after they were almost half dead. They were let off. So, obviously they had no connection to militancy. Even if they had, was the action legal and justified? Were they picked up on suspicion of involvement in the militant ambush in which four soldiers were killed or were they killed in retaliation of the deaths of soldiers or to teach a lesson to the tribals, who are mobilising against the legislation of granting Schedule Tribe status to the ethno-linguist Paharis of Jammu and Kashmir, as is being alleged by some tribal activists?
Also by Anuradha Bhasin: Poonch Incident Has Dangerously Opened The Wounds Of The Past
What gave the army personnel the confidence of video-graphing their own brutality? In any law book, if those videos are authentic, they evidence the criminality of the actions. Certainly, the egregious abuse of human rights violations was not filmed with the intention of putting this out as a piece of evidence in the public domain. Then why would they do it? Two plausible reasons come to mind – either to satisfy their sadistic pleasure or to instill fear and panic among the public. That it was filmed and leaked out in the public suggests the latter. In any case, the perpetrators were confident that they would get away.
While the videos have partly served their purpose of instilling fear, they have also inspired outrage. The authorities who earlier tried to bury the incident under denials have now made belated efforts of addressing the public anger with announcement of compensation, ordering an army court of enquiry, taking disciplinary action against some soldiers including a Brigadier, and filing a formal police complaint. The incident has merited attention at the highest echelons of power. The union defence minister and the Army Chief have visited Poonch and made attempts to de-escalate tensions. This may not simply be tied to the public outrage but also to a belated understanding at the higher level of the dangerous ethno-religious complexities and historical baggage of the twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch. Accentuating any conflagration in the region could perilously set the Pir Panjal region on fire – an eventuality that would make it difficult for the Indian state to navigate. At least, some within the administration and the army apparatus are aware of that.
The affirmative actions by the Indian authorities are welcome but not enough because they bear familiarity with similar cosmetic engagements promised in the past in the face of acts of omission by the armed forces. But, to no end.
For decades, accountability has been torpedoed by laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act that grant immunity to the armed personnel from being tried in civil courts, or by lopsided army court trials which lack transparency, and which are later overturned by the Army Tribunals if they result in rare convictions as happened in Amshipora and Macchil fake encounter killings. As long as impunity remains the norm and accountability a cosmetic exception, the Indian state can neither achieve the goal of casting off the slurred image of the security forces, nor of addressing people’s anger and despair which accumulates with every act of humiliation, harassment and abuse.
The Poonch incident offers lessons of caution not just in the Pir Panjal region but also elsewhere in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in Kashmir Valley where the wounds of excessive abuse have concretized in the memory of the public. They continue to pile up, even though they are not publicly spoken about. Since 2019, outrage and anger over alleged human rights abuse has been stomped out under an intimidating mechanism of threats, criminalizing whistle blowers, raiding and jailing human rights activists. The father of the slain teenager in the alleged Lawaypora fake encounter in January 2021 was slapped with a case under UAPA for seeking justice and demanding his son’s body. The families of victims in the alleged Hyderpora encounter in November 2021 were intimidated till they stopped seeking justice. Are there more cases than those in the public domain? When there is an all-pervasive silence, it is difficult to tell.
The constant continuum of tyranny maintained through such invisible methods like co-opting media, manipulating political voices, coercion and intimidation shows that abuse has taken newer and more invisible forms which have effectively silenced the public for now. But they have also instilled a sense of acute powerlessness and excessive humiliation that is as traumatizing as gory bloodshed. Once the trauma and anguish reach a tipping point, beyond the fear instilled to maintain the hubris of silence, the anger it evokes could spill over in multiple volcanic ways.
The government is wrong in mistaking the silence that shrouds the pain of the people with normalcy and peace. When the silence is broken only by mere whispers of consent the government wrongly proclaims it as victory. It mistakes public passivity for contentment. In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, the women in the Republic of Gilead must watch what they say and be mindful of not straying away from the norms laid down by an oppressive regime. Its main protagonist, Offred visits the market with another handmaid, Ofglen, when they encounter tourists who ask them if they are happy. Offred notes that “Ofglen says nothing. There is a silence. But sometimes it’s as dangerous not to speak. ‘Yes, we are happy,’ I murmur. I have to say something. What else can I say?” Like Gilead, the people of Kashmir either murmur happy syllables or remain silent.
There is nothing more dangerous than the silence of the society because it also silences the impending danger. Jammu and Kashmir complex diversity and its past is soaked in blood, gore and pain is deeply etched in the psyche of the public. A casual approach comes at great risk. The silence cannot be taken for granted.
The anger erupting in Rajouri and Poonch serves a warning. Rather than continue to trample people’s rights and voices and falsely believe that this can sustain till eternity, the government should think about reaching out to the public and heeding their voices.
—–
