Saturday, April 10, 2010
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: DANTEWADA
In an NDTV interview, Air Chief P. V. Naik touched Muslim hearts when he did not hesitate to express his feelings that he leaves it to ‘Allah Malik’ after completing his mission.
However, the way he kept comparing Dantewada area with J&K, as what can be done by Air force in J&K and what cannot be carried out in Naxalite area, as ‘ it is our own country, our own people’, it openly exposed that for all practical purposes, J&K is an enemy territory for the services.
It is tribute to the quick repartee of the interviewer, that he instantly questioned the repeated use of J&K, when it is not in the discussion. Air Chief agreed.
People of India, however, cannot help comparing the two insurgencies. In all of its continued entanglement with Indian forces in J&K, it has never suffered such a scale of savage and brutal elimination of such a large number of Indian forces. Naxalites are again and again being announced and being treated as Indian citizens and therefore never to be treated as enemies. Air Chief clearly ruled out any Air Force role in Indian Territory, as he felt, the collateral damage to civilians will be too great and unacceptable to be suitable for an attack from the skies. He mentioned how US forces in Afghanistan have been inflicting collateral damage on civilian population. It would appear that it was OK for US forces to resort to aerial bombings, as the area under their attack is supposedly an enemy territory. That according to Air Chief is not the case with Naxalite area. He however, added that since Air attack is too lethal and destructive of entire population of the target area, it cannot be used in Indian states. An aside takes Air Chief once again to J&K where he feels, clearing an area of civilian population, could afford the opportunity for air force to use aerial bombing.
In fact, the subject of aerial bombing after the carnage in Dantewada, seems to fall back on the supposed illegal use of fighter planes and drones Israelis and Americans, respectively in Gaza andAfghanistan to take out supposed enemy elements ensconced in thickly populated civilian areas. The very mention of the alternative of using aerial bombing would not have come up in Indian security circles, without the apparent deep penetration of Israeli and American warmongering brainwashing on Indian forces. This is an alarming situation and goes directly against the very ethos of Indian polity. India values human lives too much to indulge in the like of carnage that unfortunately had visited Europe and East Asian countries in the past. We are so thickly populated that any retaliatory attack on our territory would wipe out millions ---- more than world had ever witnessed in two world wars. India’s pacifist past as envisaged by sages from Buddha to Gandhi, cannot be allowed to be trampled over by warmongers from the US and Israel. India’s security forces should be fully sanitized about the essential defensive role that is the only spirit that should guide its motivation to engage an adversary.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
No comments:
Post a Comment