 So I coined a phrase after my experience on the ground in handling people in Assam, that the day I put on uniform, I've lost my religion and I've lost my caste. I'm neutral. Everybody is the same for me. Nobody can tell me in a crowd that I'm siding with one particular part and going against the other part. I'm neutral. I have no caste, I have no religion. So what is the problem then? It's all happened because a man from Kerala opted for Assam and landed in a state where, very frankly, there is not very much of caste. Most of the tribals have no caste. All the tribals have no caste. And this stood me in very great stead. And now I'll jump 20 odd, 30 years. I had a lot of adventures in Assam operating in Nagaland, Manipur. Then I was IG operations against the alpha for two years. Mr. Chari, who happened to be DGBSF, met me casually somewhere and said, drum on, I'm looking for somebody to go to Kashmir, will you go? I said, yes, sir, why not? He said, carefully, it's not a simple thing. Don't take any foolish decision. I said, it's all right. So I landed in Kashmir. And that was the most difficult and most valuable experience for me for two years. I'm sorry I'm going to speak a little frankly. I'm not naming anybody. When I went to Kashmir in 1993, the situation was extremely bad, much, much worse than what it is today in Kashmir. There were 40 battalions of B.S.F. devide all over the state. Can you imagine 500, 600 men on the ground in each battalion into 40? Srinagar city had 13 battalions of B.S.F. You literally tripped over them when you go from one mahala to the next mahala. And I'm going to say something which people will not like, but which I have repeated again and again. There was an unwritten order, don't take anybody alive. I was amazed and I was shocked that this was going on. And can you imagine 40 battalions doing it? And the army is there also besides. And they also had the same thing. Now I'll share something more with you. What does this criminal procedure court say? If you arrest a person, within 24 hours, he has to be taken in judicial custody. He may get bail, he may come out. And if he's given you to you in custody for three days, five days, after that again he will go back to judicial custody, we'll go to jail. Ladies and gentlemen, when I landed in Srinagar in 1993, the army was operating, the BSA was operating. Each of them had their own camp for people whom they picked up. Now how does the army and the paramilitary force pick up people? There's an Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which is operated in that particular area for a particular period. This says that the army or the paramilitary force can arrest somebody, but must hand them over to the nearest police station with the least possible delay. This is the general words. Nothing, no figures, no time, nothing, put there. I would like, for example, if you are in some deep forest and you have to walk three days. So it says, with the least possible delay, you should hand them over to the police. I'm sorry, both the army and the BSA were arresting people, keeping them in custody, and releasing them on their own after 15 days, 20 days. I was horrified to find that nobody had objected to this. The whole lot of IS officers and IPS officers are sitting there. What about the judiciary? The judges are there, magistrates are there, and you are keeping people in your custody for 20 days, 30 days, and then releasing them. There's no procedure. You have to hand them over to a police station. So I went to the governor. President's rule, you report to him directly. I explained all this to him, and I said, I'm going to take very strong action on all these things. First thing is that everybody, you have to tell the army to do what they do, but I will ensure that from our side, we will do this. 24 hours in our custody, after that, we hand over to the police station. Took time, about 15 days, 20 days, one month, and finally, it was sorted out. Now, if you operate like this in an area, why wouldn't the people go against you? You throw the law books into the waste paper basket and carry on. When you keep people in your custody and nobody is watching you, you should always, a policeman always should have somebody watching you all the time so that you don't commit excess. What happens? Excesses are committed. And it's covered up, which is worse, so that 93, for me, was a very sharing experience. It took about three months, but three months, things were sorted out, and after that, I could breathe freely and sleep peacefully at night. This is what we have to ensure everywhere. Now, I'm going to tell you something again, which also you are now going to like very much. See, I told you I went to a Sam, and the greatest gift that they gave me was that I lost my caste and I lost my religion there. My caste and my religion was a personal thing which I practiced at home. I have been reporting and writing about this issue of the Adivasis in the Chhattisgarh reserve forest for years now. And it all started with that terrible ambush in which 67 CRPF personnel were killed somewhere in Chhattisgarh site. And I was asked to go and do the inquiry. I went there, right inside, deep inside the forest, camped there for three days, studied the whole thing, and made a report and gave it to the government. Until today, none of the recommendations given that the law should be followed is being followed today. The same things are being repeated. The other day, there was again an ambush somewhere there, and I wrote about it again, spoke about it again, and I found generally that why are you speaking like this all the time? For the last several years, in every lecture I have given on this problem, I have said that the root cause should be identified, and that should be rectified. What is the root cause of this whole problem? The root cause is the fifth schedule of the Constitution of India. I am quoting verbatim from it. It says that it is the governor of the state who will administer the scheduled areas of a state. The scheduled areas are all the reserve forests of the state, which means that the deputy commissioner and the chief minister will not administer it. It is the governor who will administer it directly. And how? He will administer this scheduled areas by appointing a tribes advisory council from the tribes who are living in that scheduled area. What does it mean? What is the tribes advisory council? It's a panchayat. So the governor should appoint a panchayat, and that panchayat will administer that area. If mining is to be done there, it's a panchayat who will float the tenders and give it to a mining company, and the profits of that mining will go to that panchayat and to the tribes who are living in that area. Now, what will you tell me that I have been lecturing this in every lecture on this subject? I have been telling that this is the root cause of the problem, and I rectified it. And amazingly for me, you will find that some people from the audience will tell me, look, look, they have ambushed and killed 20 CRPF personnel. I say, why did you first of all have this ambush? What's the reason for it? Why did you have to have CRPF there? You have not followed the law of the land. You have not followed the constitution of the land. The root cause is that you don't want to do anything for your tribal. He's right down down below there, and you put your jackboots over him. And that's the end, when I'm reminded, I went to Assam and I lost my caste and I lost my religion there. I'm a neutral man. And when I come there and talk, the tribal knows that here is a man who's come who treats me as an equal. I recently have written about this and spoken about this subject two, three times. Same story has been repeated. Don't talk of the fifth schedule. Look at them. They have ambushed and killed 60 CRPF personnel. They have ambushed and killed 20 CRPF personnel. They have bloody lost their field craft, which they have been trained. Otherwise, how could they have been killed? They've got weapons. They've got numbers. They get ambushed. Whose fault is it? This is their own failure. And what about the root cause? Why are you not enforcing the fifth schedule? You won't do it, because you don't want that tribal down below to get anything. I speak very frankly. I don't know really what was the objective of asking me to talk, but I thought I'll share my ideas with you. Yes, yes, they're all absolutely on from the ground. See, in any law and order situation, when you are deployed in the particular area, the first thing you have to ensure is to see that the laws of the land are enforced. And it is seen to be enforced and the public know that it is being enforced. Once you do that, the public will be with you. When I went to Kashmir, the general rumor was a Hindu has again come as the IGBSF and he will side with the Hindus and he'll be against us Muslims. Slowly, slowly, when I started interrogating people enforcing, seeing that the laws of the land are being enforced, it changed. Now, there's a standard thing which we do in police in the state, in any law and order situation, whenever there is an insurgency or something. So many people are arrested, locked up. We are not able to find out who they are, who are their parents, where do they come from? Ordinary people have access to a police station. They'll go to a police station on top. In Kashmir, the situation is such that Kashmiris were scared to go to a police station because in every police station, there were one or two companies on force sitting there. LMG is fixed outside the police station. Naturally, because the militants were firing at the police station. So I found that my telling the BSF officers to open their units for entry to the public is not going to work. So I had to go around to meet all the head men in Srinagar city and all the other towns that I visited. I met about 30, 40, 50 head men everywhere and said that if somebody is picked up from your village or anywhere, or from all of your town, come straight to the IG's office. I will meet you and I'll find out. When my staff said that I'm going to do this, they said, no, no, no, sir, you can do it in the police. You can't do it in the BSF. I said, damn bloody well, this is a special situation. You can't go by standard rules and procedures. I'm going to do it. Now, BSF never had any women. So I had requested the CRPF to send women police because the people who come to meet somebody invariably are ladies, not the men. The men don't come. The ladies who come. So I had to get one platoon of CRPF, lady CRPF put in front of the BSF gate and I started receiving people and talking, finding out. When they found that there was an, it is not an outlet, it is an inlet. Somebody is listening and after two days I'm getting back my son or my brother. It had such an effect on the contents as in the module itself in Kashmir. This thing of allowing public to come and meet you and seeing that their boys are there inside a camp. They are there, you can go and meet them. They have not been tortured, they have not been beaten up. Half my problems are solved with that. And after that it was all straight downhill for one year. This is all I have to tell you. Thank you very much.