Kashmir video war: Why the warmongering from 'hyper-nationalists' on social media is disturbing

The internet is a wonderful thing, a utopia where infinite knowledge about almost every realm is a few clicks away. And yet it seems to have taken us backwards to our caveman days, where we are locked in our invisible silos, modern-day counterparts of Plato’s man-in-the-cave. Social media seems to have divided us into tribes. On the internet, as in most TV studios, everything is black and white, us v/s them, an absolutist world where you have to pick sides.

This is evident over the reaction to a spate of recent videos that are doing the rounds on Kashmir. The Valley has been burning since the death of terrorist group Hizbul Mujahideen’s commander Burhan Wani and his successor Zakir Rashid Bhat has been extremely vocal about how the fight isn’t for Kashmiri nationalism but the supremacy of Islam and the establishment of Sharia.

This makes it even trickier and a dangerous situation is fomenting, which will thrill India’s enemies including groups like the Islamic State. At a time like this, how we behave as a nation becomes even more crucial and our reaction to the spate of viral videos on Kashmir is scary. The bloodlust of some of the social media warriors is in stark contrast to the reasoned argument an issue like this should have. 

One shows Kashmiris heckling a CRPF jawan while another shows jawans beating up an unarmed youngster with vengeance asking ‘Azaadi chaiye tereko?’ (You want freedom from India?). Another video, shows an unarmed man tied to an army jeep and being taken around while a voice is shouting ‘stone-pelters will meet the same fate’.

Now, the third video has received widespread support from the ‘hypernationalists’ on the internet and social media. It has also garnered praise from prime-time generals like GD Bakshi and Gaurav Arya, while others from the armed forces say it shows the army in bad light.

Now there are two versions of the story going around.

One states that the probe team received an SOS from a polling team and that it was an ‘out-of-the-box’ approach to use a stone-pelter as a human shield against other stone-pelters who were attacking the van. This, they claim saved lives on both sides, even though it went against standard procedure.

The second version has the 26-year-old Farooq Ahmad Dar claiming he was beaten up savagely by rifle butts and paraded around past several villages, while it was announced that this would be the fate of stone-pelters.

Either way, it doesn’t make the Army look good because the armed forces of a sovereign republic like India can hardly behave like terrorists or goons. 

Former head of Northern Command LG Panag, a man who ought to have an inkling or two about how members of the armed forces should behave, wrote on Twitter: “Image of a 'stone pelter' tied in front of a jeep as a 'human shield', will forever haunt the Indian Army and the nation!”

Shockingly, but not surprisingly, he was attacked by the so-called nationalists on Twitter, with businessman Mohandas Pai lecturing him on how the army should go about its business, while another one deemed that the man who had proudly served his nation was a ‘Khalistani’. Singer Abhijeet, he of infinite grace and charm, went on to brand Panag, a man who actually fought against Pakistan in the 1971 war, a 'Pak supporter'. 

LG Panag’s condemnation was echoed by other members of the Armed Forces. In an Indian Express article, LG DS Hooda, another former head of the Northern Command, worried that it had become a ‘direct fight’ between the civilians and security forces and said it went against the army's whole approach to counter insurgency. These actions, he stated would brutalise both sides.

LG Subrata Saha, who was part of the 15 Corps Commander at Srinagar till August 2015, said there was the need for a long-term solution and that in Kashmir the army was an institution and people had expectations from it.

There were calls for peace amid the bloodlust on social media from ‘patriotic’ Twitter handles. While my extent of military knowledge doesn’t go beyond studying in a Kendriya Vidyalaya, I’d trust old defence hands over Twitterati baying for blood, who’d probably faint if they saw a loaded rifle in real life.

Thankfully, the real Indian Army, has taken cognisance of the situation and Army Chief Bipin Rawat has promised Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti of timely action against the officers responsible.

Rawat’s move comes even after he said a few weeks ago that stone-pelters who disrupted the Army's real-time operations would be treated as over-ground workers of terrorists.

Even the Army’s own guidelines state: “Remember that the people you are dealing with are your own countrymen; your behaviour must be dictated by this single most consideration. Violation of Human Rights, therefore, must be avoided under all circumstances, even at the cost of operational success.”

This brings us back to Zakir Rashid Bhat’s claims that the battle was for Islamic supremacy, a war cry similar to what the Islamic State wants. Their purported aim is to get rid of the ‘Gray Zone’, which making anyone – Muslim or non-Muslim – choose a side, either that of ISIS’ Islam or the camp of Kufr (non-believers).

The last thing we can do is fall for such a trap, both as national policy and as a people. While I’ve argued in the past that Kashmiris would be better off being part of India and our ‘liberal media’ does go overboard in humanising terrorists, tying up a man to a jeep as a human shield is wrong.

Hate wins when we decide that anyone with a different POV is an enemy. It’s a heavy price, but it’s one that differentiates us from them, that we are not willing to descend to the level. The desire for vengeance, particularly when seeing soldiers being attacked on our own soil is high, but it’s the price we pay to remain civil.

Just because one argues that the Army should not tie a man to a jeep doesn’t mean that one supports stone-pelters and in this day of absolute binaries, those of us who are moderates need to be more vocal.  As former US President Eisenhower, also a decorated war general put it: “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” It’s clear from the over-enthusiasm of the warmongering denizens of social media that they don’t know what ‘war’ entails.