Art Of Peace

• Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain is the first Muslim general to commandeer 15 Corps
• Soon after taking over in Dec 2010, he declared 2011 to be the `Year of the Kashmiri Awam’
• The general began Awami Sunwais all across to assess and address people’s grievances
• He has also organised seminars where college students, youth and citizens were invited
• This summer, the army held 300 matches between 193 teams of the first Kashmir Premier League T20 tournament.

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It was in December 2010 that Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain, an old Kashmir hand, took charge of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps which controls all military operations in the Valley. Almost immediately, he declared 2011 to be the ‘Year of the Kashmiri Awam (People)’ during which the army would devote itself to the welfare of the people and be more humane. The first indication of getting his priorities right lay in Hasnain’s change of the army slogan: from ‘Jawan aur awam, aman hai muqam (for the jawan and the people, peace is the goal)’ to one that put ‘awam’ before ‘jawan’ to become ‘Awam aur jawan, aman hai muqam’.

Game changer A KPL practice match in Srinagar. (Photograph by Waseem Andrabi)

He was meticulous in putting the doctrine into action: initiation into ‘Ji Janaab’ begins at the 15 Corps Battle School at Khrew itself, where army units coming into Kashmir are administered basic familiarisation capsules. Hasnain makes it a point to interact with jawans of each incoming unit and stress on the importance of being courteous with locals. Some of the instructions are simple but fundamental:

• Troops must adopt an ‘aap over tum’ policy.
• If you are ordering people to get down from a vehicle for a security check, or searching their houses for terrorists, the form of address is a polite ‘janaab’ or ‘begum’ or ‘mohtarma’ and not unprintable abuses.
• Army drivers must avoid racing over puddles to avoid splashing water on pedestrians.

The change is evident. As Sheikh Javed, a shopkeeper in Srinagar, observed, “They don’t shout at us any more. We don’t fear the army now.” However, Hasnain’s foremost strategy has been to initiate a dialogue with the people. In the series of ‘awami sunwais’ he has held across the Valley, Hasnain has been meeting ordinary Kashmiris in some of the most volatile districts of Kashmir: Bandipore, old Baramulla town, Handwara, Shopian, Sopore and Gurez. Attended by officers of the civil administration, these have become a forum for ordinary Kashmiris to voice their grievances, and have them attended to forthwith, sometimes at the sunwai itself. So, when he visited Handwara tehsil in north Kashmir in April, one complaint was about the local army unit closing a road leading to Rajwar area at night for security reasons. The road services some 200 villages. Hasnain ordered that the barrier be lifted immediately.

Hasnain’s charms have worked and his town hall meeting-style sunwais have become an instant hit. He is unlike any general the Kashmiris have seen before. Wading into crowds, holding hands, hugging people and urging them to forget the past, he asks them tell him what he can do to alleviate their problems. The fact that he speaks flawless Urdu helps. Hasnain tells the Kashmiri that the army is not there to suppress them into submission but to protect them from militant violence. Says Professor Gul Ahmed, who teaches political science at Kashmir University, “It was unusual that he said things at these meetings which generals usually do not talk about. For the first time, the army came into the public domain to show a civilian face, opening channels of communication. People were asking him for roads, drinking water and help in other civic problems.”

Breaking bread Hasnain sharing meals at an Iftaar. (Photograph by Imran Ali)

“He encourages us to voice our complaints, our gila-shikvas,” says Abdur Rashid of the Handwara Traders Association. “He listens and acts. The people of Handwara have greatly appreciated that a general like him has come to our level and talked to us. He even hugged me!” A simple gesture in the end, but one that generations of Kashmir experts haven’t managed.

More difficult than that was to confront and face up to the army’s past conduct. The general held a series of seminars inside the Badami Bagh cantonment where civilians, students, academics and NGOs were invited to speak out. A seminar on ‘Youth and Security Forces’ saw students getting up to ask uncomfortable questions on the army’s atrocities. The Chinar auditorium resounded with shouts of “shame, shame”; army officers squirmed in their seats. But the general had the boys and girls eating out of his hand when he congratulated them on speaking their mind. “Today, we want to talk and he is providing us a platform to voice our anger,” said Quarratal Ain, one of the student participants. The very boys who might have been tempted to pelt stones at armymen last summer now thronged Hasnain for autographs after the event, posed for pictures with him and asked him for help to get into the army!

“It’s odd,” says Rabia Baji, who heads the Kashmir chapter of the NGO All India Centre for Urban and Rural Development, “though he heads the army in Kashmir, people see him more as a compassionate friend than an army officer.” Peace activist Dilafroze Qazi, whose husband and son have suffered at the hands of the army, came away with a similar sentiment. “It was odd to hear an army officer talk of human rights violations at that seminar,” she told Outlook. “I felt that the army too was introspecting, and it was laudable.”

Voicing concern The general addresses locals at his Iftaar bash. (Photograph by Waseem Andrabi)

The army is also facilitating seminars by other organisations in the districts, just to enable people to give vent to their anger. “Local army officers were sceptical of offering me the promised support when they learnt that I had invited some separatists and stone-pelters to my seminar in Bandipore,” says an activist, requesting anonymity. “But the general stepped in and waved away the misgivings.”

Change is happening in other areas as well. Rabia points one out: “Benefits under Operation Sadbhavana (goodwill scheme launched in 1998 under which there are several welfare schemes, including running schools, medical camps and Bharat darshan tours) are now reaching ordinary Kashmiris. In the past, they were generally cornered by Ikhwanis (surrendered militants). Since the (Ikhwanis) and the army are seen as being hand-in-glove, there was much cynicism about Sadbhavana and who the army really wanted to help.” The Bharat darshan tours, conducted earlier just for students, now include maulvis and the elderly. The emphasis is on people who have never been out of Kashmir and show them the “real face of India”. The army pays all the expenses and takes them to places like Mumbai, Delhi, Agra, Chennai. Already more than 2,000 people have gone on such excursions this year and almost 4-5 such trips head out of Kashmir every month. The next major excursion out of Kashmir will be for newly elected panches and sarpanches to states like Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh to show them how panchayats work there.

This summer also saw the first Kashmir Premier League (KPL) T20 cricket tournament being held across all 10 districts of the Valley. Around 300 matches were held between 193 teams—weaning local youth away from the idea that violence is seasonal, imminent and inevitable through the feelgood alternative of sport is another of Hasnain’s radical ideas.

Jadu ki jhappi Hugging a local at a sunwai in Badgam district. (Photograph by Waseem Andrabi)

The Udhampur-based Northern Command is also understood to be unhappy at the attention Kashmir is getting as against its formations in other parts of the state like Jammu and Ladakh. “This emphasis on Kashmir is giving a handle to separatists to delink the Valley from the rest of the state. Jammu and Kashmir is one state and the army’s activities are the same across the state,” explains an officer at Udhampur. This is perhaps why Hasnain’s awami sunwais have been put on hold for over a month now. His interactions with the media, which were being used extensively to spread the message, are also limited to spot events. But it is hard to put a determined man down. This Ramzan, on instructions from Hasnain, army formations across the Valley began organising Iftaar parties for locals.

If all this means that the army is becoming a friend of the Kashmiri, it still has a long way to go. But a beginning has been made and it’s showing results. “We have no heroes to look up to in Kashmir today,” says Ajaz Ahmed, a young college lecturer from downtown Srinagar. “Not Omar Abdullah, nor the separatists. Not even the militants. We would like the army to truly change its colours and become the heroes we do not have.” In the treacherous, strife-ridden turf that is Kashmiri politics, where even positive initiatives like Hasnain’s can run into a wall, people’s expectations, hopefully, will reflect in more affirmative action.