 Now that you've talked at length about the Indo-Pakistan dimension of the issue, Balakot and Pulwama. The Pulwama raises two issues. One is that we use that as the reason for creating or attempting to create a new normal, which you said has reached a stalemate on that. But we did that. But there is another side to Pulwama also. So far, all the investigations that have carried out, they brought out the local links. My question is the following. That while attention has been focused on Jaish-e-Muhammad and the Pakistani link with it, this entire, the more significant thing or rather the more startling thing is that this was a local involvement which is noticed in India. There are two questions that come. One is of course strictly, how could it go unnoticed? Because an operation like a suicide bombing is not something that can be done in a jiffy. It requires a lot of preparation. And there has to be a lot of secrecy. Now Kashmir is overflowing with troops and there are five intelligence agencies operating there. None of them were able to do that. That is one part of it. The other is that it raises a question. Why is it that after 2000, when the last time we heard of a Kashmiri trying to turn himself into a weapon and they attempted to attack the Badami Bagh headquarters of the 15th Corp if you remember in 2000, it failed. But nevertheless, that was the last time we heard of any Kashmiri trying to enter the field of suicide bombing. This is 2019. After a break of nearly 19 years, you have another incident like this. This raises a question that has had things deteriorated so much where people would be willing for whatever reason, out of desperation, hopelessness or whatever to take recourse to suicide bombing. I mean, why is it that this side of it where we were talked and all the media and all the focus has been on Pakistan, the focus inside what is happening and where insurgency is actually taking place. The lesson of Pulwama, do you think we may be making a mistake in ignoring that local aspect of it? I think absolutely. Out of all the options that are available to us of resolving the Kashmir problem, winning the hearts and minds is the easiest option. It's the easiest option to be exercised but it's in the political realm. Counterinsurgency operation has got the political aspect and you do all the political strategy to win the hearts and minds of the people and convince them that it's a futile exercise that they are engaged in. The military aspect is to ensure that the rate of the state runs, development can take place so that the political will of the state can be imposed. Our focus is a mixed bag. We focus on the military aspect so that to bring the situation under control and the politic side we looked after by allowing the local governments to be elected and letting them function, beginning in 1996 and thereafter successive governments have functioned. These local politicians are themselves compromised in terms of corruption, in terms of their commitment to how to solve the various problems and they have limitations because a lot of grievances that are there which have become over the years have emerged. The key is with the centre, not with the local politicians. So the centre's initiative was lacking. By 2003, insurgency had about peaked and thereafter the decline started. It was a combined effort. The military strategy was working. There was a critical process on both with Pakistan, you know, by Mr. Bajpay it had begun and also internally the local governments were functioning as I mentioned with certain limitations and this continued under Dr. Murman Singh and there was a lot of back door diplomacy going on and track diplomacy going on and the four point formula had emerged and must the military had established its total ascendancy and by 2010 also notwithstanding the 2008 this Avanath Yatra agitation, the insurgency had come to its lowest level since 1990. I think the total number of terrorists were people were counting them in double digits at that time. There were no incidents taking place and this continued till about 2014-15. Now this was a lost period. This was a period when a political initiative would have clinked the issue. But once the four point formula didn't proceed forward with the fact from 2007 and thereafter we didn't see much activity from that point of view and internally also we did not take something. Something symbolic, something to which the people makes the people happy. It may be just a, I mean when we talk of autonomy we start comparing it to the rest of the country. How does it matter? Does giving anybody an autonomy, is it really going to affect the mighty Indian state? If the Nagar peace accord or what the little is known of it, what all has been agreed to? I mean we have agreed to so much for them and something similar gestures here and probably better. I'll come to that because that is in fact a very interesting area that we should look little closer. But before I want to raise you said that we have to win the hearts and minds of people. I just want to remind you that the doctrine of sub-conventional operation which was brought out by the Indian Army in 2006 talked about transforming and I quote from the doctrine, transforming the will and attitude of the people. Now transforming will and attitude is very different than winning hearts and minds because the doctrine goes on to say that attitude takes much longer to change and that it can take from years to decades. Now we are witness to this in India where counter incendancy and the Indian Army has been forced to and been sent to pacify people and they have continued for more than 6 decades in Nagaland more than 30 years in Kashmir, more than 50 years in Manipur, etc. and yet the disturbed area remains, Armed Forces Special Powers Act remains and we are close to, we seem to be close to an agreement on the Naga issue but we don't know whether it will take place or not. It's still in, we are in suspended animation about the real outcome of the 19 years of ceasefire and talks that we have undertaken. My question to you is that if Indian Army describes its operation and its doctrine as transforming the will and attitude of people, how do you win the hearts and minds of people where you are actually projecting and pushing for a more muscular approach? No, I think when the Army talks of this, all this is, it is not really dealing with it's more focused on the militants. I mean, this is all, this is all usable, they have semantics, you know, and jandhari of words. These things are rarely discussed. In fact, if you look at some of the doctrines that we publish, you will probably and you compare to the coin, you know, documents of the United States, you will find a lot of similarity. These are just theoretical arguments. To put it simply, what the Indian Army goes for is that our operations must be constructed, must be done as per the constitution of India, as per the law of the land. We must not violate it. We must only focus on the terrorists and the people should be looked after. In fact, that is why the Army starts the Sadbhavna Project, etc., to win their hearts and minds, telling them that our battle is not with you, our battle is with the terrorists. So, more of what is written in this book applies to the terrorists as such and not to, or to the segment of the population that is actually actively supporting the terrorists and for the rest of the people, the Army is not really following any such thing. So, it is, I would like to separate the two, the political strategy and the military strategy. Winning over the hearts and minds of the people, be it through good administration, be it through, you know, satisfying their grievances or their political grievances, education, healthcare, whatever manner you do it, is a political activity. There is nothing to do with the military. In fact, when the military does all this, it is out of compulsion, a time that works against the local governments because the military take the credit for doing a lot of things which they are not be able to do. But that is part of our political system. The military aspect, I think we have won the military battle in J&K many times and even today the situation notwithstanding Pulwama is not too bad. If you look at it in terms of violence that has taken place in 2000, the periods from 99 to 2003, at 2000, 2500 militants killed annually, our casualties 4 to 500 every year. So, those things have, there is no such violence of that level. Even the collateral damage of the casualties are much less. So, today we have won the military battle. The political battle is what we have lost. We have not been able to, and for this, it is not only this government, but the previous government are equally to blame. The wasted years which I have mentioned to you about, the years from 2000, sort of 2007 to 2014, these are the wasted years. Because this is the lowest, the insurgency was the lowest. Yet we allowed the protests to grow, multiply, and then the PDB government came to power with a coalition with the BJP. Now that was something which was not liked by the people of the valley. In particular, they did not like it. They felt betrayed by the PDP. And then, having, but they played along, the coalition government, both the partners, worked at cross purposes against each other. They did not follow the common agenda that they had agreed to. In fact, worked hard to scuttle each other's future prospects in Jammu and Kashmir. And finally, this government, the coalition government collapsed. Now this revival of the insurgency is also, it's a political failure, while it was earlier also, but this political failure in particular revived the insurgency. When the people lost all hope, they said, look, we have no future. Nobody listens to us. Nobody bothers about us. And our grievances, whatever, they have perceived grievances. They have never been addressed. And then the Vani case took place, and then the revival of the insurgency took place. And Pakistan also happy to do this because they felt that it is better to let the indigenous movement be more prominent. Otherwise, insurgency over the last 30 years has been fought both by indigenous terrorists that today predominantly represented by Hizbul Mujahideen, HM of Slavdi. And by Jashab Muhammad and Rashgri Taybar, which are Pakistan-based organizations, and most of the fighters used to come from Pakistan. And you'd be surprised that most of them are Punjabi-Muslims, notwithstanding all the halablu in the press and an odd report here and there, to the best of my knowledge, no one from Sindh, no one from Bluechistan, and no one from the frontier has ever operated in Kashmir. Let me come back to this question in a different way. You have mentioned that there have been many occasions when military had more or less defeated the militants and brought it to a point where what was needed was a political initiative. But over the years we see, I mean, if you go by the numbers, you're right. If you go by numbers, the scale of operations, the scale of infiltration, et cetera, et cetera, it's much below those levels that one saw in the 1990s or around the turn of the millennium, the early years, the 1990 to 2000, 2001, 2002 were the peak years. And that's when, after 2003, Jaish disappears from the scene, et cetera, and Lashkar becomes weaker and weaker, its presence becomes weaker. And militancy, in fact, you're right. By 2013, we were saying that there are hardly any more, less than 100 militants left. Now, you have a huge deployment which was geared to tackle a much larger number of militants in the 1990s. Those numbers have had shrunk to 100 or below. Now they have risen to about 350. Even that is nothing very significant. But what is significant is in which many defense analysts including former senior officer in law, Bala Chandran has pointed out that what is remarkable this time, which was missing in the earlier period is that you have people coming out in support of the militants, large numbers at the counter side, which was something unheard of. And it reminded him, he said, of Palestine. Given this shift in what is happening, it means that the popular anger is much widespread. I mean, the numbers of militants is much smaller and they don't pose a threat. You know, you're absolutely right. But it's the size of the and the popular support for it, which is something that one should be thinking and focusing on. To come back to your question about winning the hearts and minds, which you pointed that this is the time for it. Do you think that in the present context with the depleting numbers of militants, it's not the militants who pose a threat, it's the popular support which the militants today enjoy, which is something that needs to be addressed? I couldn't agree with you more. You know, what you have said through your question, I couldn't agree with it. Absolutely. Especially in the valley, one has not carried out a detailed survey or it's not so visible in the conditions in the other Muslim-dominated areas, I say like Doda, but it's not a total Muslim predominant area or in the areas of Poonch and Rajori, because up to Nishara again there's this little mixed population. Beyond that, it is again predominantly Muslim population. This, especially in the valley, they have, visibly, they have very few people supporting the, rather very few people against the militants, I would say, left. And this has happened because of the frustration that after the insurgency went away, it came down to a very low, as you, 2000, as I mentioned, gradual process, but 2013 it was at the lowest level. With no political initiative, with this experiment of BJP and PDP coalition having failed, the people were very frustrated. They felt that they have fought for so long, every family has lost one member or the other, as a collateral damage or as a, who had taken up arms. So yet they have, nothing has been achieved. And they are back to square A, with total frustration, one part. Second is that Pakistan wanted to indigenise the whole thing. It did not want to be seen that bulk of the terrorists who are fighting here are coming from Pakistan. In fact, it was in the reports that for, I mean, I'm not now privy to inside information, that at, there was a time when the, for the first time in recent years, the number of local militants actually went beyond the number of Pakistani militants. Pakistani citizens who fight here from Punjab. So this frustration and this no political movement forward of any kind, the failure of the local governments has totally, the people feel that well, if this is our future, then let's be part of it. And that is why this thing, in the entire insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, barring the initial years, when there was a general sort of movement, mass movement to block roads and other things, and women used to come and lay down on the streets when troops used to move out. It all stopped by about 92, 93. People realized that it is not something go to, something, they will suffer more if that happens. So they stopped that. There was a very interesting understanding in Kashmir. So long as the military did correct operations as per rule of law, as per the laid down norms of engagement, there was never a protest. Never. And when I was army commander in 2007 and early 2008, there was hardly ever a protest. In fact, the moment a protest used to take place, it was the first sign to us that something wrong has happened. Either a person has been killed as part of collateral damage or there has been some rogue action taken, which has happened. Only then the protest used to start. There was no protest took place. The protest began Amarnath Yatra. Then the 2010 machil incident, which was the rogue, clear-cut rogue incident for which the SEO and the four or five Javans had been given life imprisonment of a unit, I think. But it's been suspended. The armed forces tried to... It's a matter still pending and going to be still fought in the stream court. So my point is that that led to protests. And those protests were just a shade below the Wani protests. Again, over 120 people died in those protests. So then Pakistan also saw the advantage of the Imti Fada kind of protests, mass protests and plus the frustration that set in. So the 2010 Pulwama protests actually brought in a new dimension. They also gave the people an idea. This is what is happening. Then came Wani and then the protest became more and more. It's just symbolic. He was a Facebook... Everybody is on Facebook there and social media. So he was symbolic. So then came the protest. So this is why and plus the frustration of the people should be death wish. So the people have a death wish, the terrorists have a death wish. And back... I just want to kill that point that you asked me earlier about why this change. Kashmiris had a Sufi thing overall. But plus also they did not have... They normally do not have the means. Pakistan never gave them the best weapons. They never gave them the expertise. They used them as cannon fodder and they felt that the Punjabi terrorists would win the battle. You know who come from Pakistan. They were also kept in the background. So it's a question of as what has happened in Iraq and Syria as you are well aware what they have been up to. So all those things have been creeping in. Some flags, some propaganda online. So there has been a... What should I say? More extreme form of Islam has made inroads into this thing. And suicide bombing is certainly part of that. Can I intervene here? While we are talking about radicalization of Islam in Kashmir. In the country as a whole and in Jammu in particular which has had a much longer history. There has been Hindu radicalization that has been taking place. So why is it that we focus only on one kind of radicalization but never on the other? Because each feeds into other. Please remember. And especially Jammu and Kashmir are closely linked. And yet the army and the senior commanders have never cautioned countrymen about the threat posed by Hindu radicalism or Hindu fanaticism and growth of it. And connected with this is another question that I have. You have been a stickler for rules. And you have been known for it and even in its evident from your writings also. Especially the way in which you wrote about the major Gogoi incident. The so-called human shield incident where you say the army would never be able to live down the shame. That this is something which will haunt the army for a very, very long time. You had pointed that out in your writing. My point is that somewhere and the army chief came out in support of major Gogoi and held it out as a remarkable innovative feature of counter insurgency and commended. In fact, he was also given the army chief commendation card for this act of it. But you were very upset with this with the human shield. What has changed where from your time to now the same thing which would not have been condoned then was being held out as something remarkable, innovative and something to be. Emulated by others. You see, radicalization in any religion is I think spells ominous portents. Sick religion. It was I mean up to 1980 everybody considered probably the Sikhs are one of the most nationalist people. And then for reasons which have been written about, books have been written about it. But in my view reasons were both economic and religious and poor governance, etc. Standard religions and same reasons are there in Jammu and Kashmir. And in Jammu and Kashmir apart from other reasons there is religion because the religions affinity. And in India the Sikhs have always felt that their Sikh identity is under pressure. Always felt. And then there was some sort of things happened because of poor administration because of sponsoring of Jannal Singh Bindraval initially by the Congress and then by other people. So then suddenly the movement comes up. And it was a violent movement that lasted almost a decade. So it's when in any religion there are enough after all crusades have been fought by the Christians. They have been no less than anybody else. Islam's teachings are well known and Sikhs, LTTE. So Sikhs then having originated from, dominated from Hinduism. The Sikhs became so radicalized and it was there in almost everybody's hearts. People were wearing yellow turbans, yellow dupattas, flowing beards and never before in sort of in last 150 years after the British took over. Did we ever see this much of revival of Sikhism? So it was very bad. So something happens to, what is something similar has happened to Kashmir. So it's a combo of factors. And I would say that, what about, you have mentioned Hindu terrorism. Why about, what has happened? Why has, you know, not Hindu terrorism, Hindu fundamentalism, I would say. That I would say that, I think the background is well known. There is a background of 1000 years of subjugation which is Islamic rulers played a predominant role. You know, for a long period before the British came. No, my point is slightly different. Yes, we understand the history and what has happened in the past. What I'm talking about is right now, here and now, when we are sitting, we are witness to Hindu radicalization taking place simultaneously while we talk about only Islamic violence. I'll come to that. Because Indians are facing a big problem. Because there is overall, for ideological reasons, even fascism, they look for a common enemy. And in one form or the other, and they found it firstly to begin with the Jew, you know, then the Russian, then so on, and this, so communists and all. So you will win. I think in India, this, I won't call it fascism, but whatever ideological, for ideological reasons, that the Muslim has been painted as a common enemy. Sort of anybody who supports them, anybody who thinks this thing, and because Islam over all the world has been associated with terrorism, so we have painted him as a common enemy. And that's one. Secondly, what's happening in Jammu and Kashmir, you know, is another factor. And earlier terrorist attacks of Bombay, etc., have been other factors, and this has been exploited politically. So a common enemy is this. And then if we, and there's no question of, they said that other political parties have been cozying up to them, they have been looking after them, they have been shaperoning them. And consequently now they have to put into their place. Once you put into them, put into their place, everything will be good for us. So that is also. No, but why is it that the Indian Army, which has, and its senior officers have time and again publicly come out and talked about an express concern over spread of Islamic radicalization taking place, etc. They have never once. I think while. And I'll, I'll, I'll. And voice text, you know, It's a, you're asking me a little difficult question, but I'll answer it. Yes. I'll answer it. See, internally in the army, we have a system where we, we have what is called the counterintelligence units and which are based all over the country. They are counterintelligence units. And Colonel Pro-Hit, for example, belonged to one of them earlier before he was, when he was apprehended, he was doing a course, but earlier he belonged to one of them. These are called Lesnar units and, you know, other names. There is tracking is done. Military intelligence is meant for military purposes. You know, it doesn't pass it on to the government. That is the job of the IB. But we do have, we do comment on, we do work out, these are the organizations which are, which are fundamentalist in nature and they are likely to be causing trouble in future. We only look at it as what may happen in future. So army does keep its finger on the pulse of such activities in the country. They do it. As far as giving advice to the government is concerned, there is no reason for the army to give any advice to the government. The cautioning the public. This is a political matter. This is a political matter. Till such time the government itself receives a threat from these radicals or the threat becomes visible. Army, we are a political army. We follow the, follow the whatever the government tells us. So we have, we do not go to the government to look, this is going to cause you a problem on political issues. And then other reason is that, well India, let's face it, has got 80% of Hindu population. It's a majority population is Hindu. So everybody is a little hesitant to talk about these things. For example, I mean look at the case of Colonel Rohit. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Colonel Rohit was very much involved with the radical organizations. And he did play a major role in whatever activities that they were doing. This was very much checked by, by, within the army before he was handed over to the, to the civil police for, when they asked for it. And this is, this is something I can, I have first hand knowledge of this. That this, this is what, this is, now we didn't go into the details but this, the face of it, whatever, this is what happened. But over the period of time, there have been later enquiries which people are reproducing or citing, where they say that even the army has exonerated him. He was an undercover, he was doing undercover job to expose these organizations to all, I think all figments of imagination. And from, from a downright rogue officer who got involved with fundamentalist organizations, he was made into some sort of a hero. And then he was, once he got bail, of course, which he's entitled to. And he had been reinstated, this sort of thing. So this is, there is a, there, there is a dichotomy in the conduct of the armed forces also in this. And we have, but as I said, army doesn't get involved with, with the, with the political problems. It, it only comes in when the government tells us. Like for example, let's say the travel is brewing in Punjab. And why I'm giving this example, because this is how it always happens in the 80s. The army would start reporting in the late 70s, late 80s, from whatever it knows, that this is what is happening, this is what's happening. But army will only do it for its internal use. It'll say, okay, Northern Sebastian Command, we should be prepared. We should, you know, deal with this. We should be prepared for such eventualities. But we don't really take any action. And we don't advise the government on this unless there's a threat to the security of the state. Then we do advise. And then we probably tell them to look, this is likely to cause a security threat to the, to the, to the nation as such. But otherwise we don't get involved. Otherwise, like for that, then we'll get involved in almost everything. Why not, why not, why not say a Gurjar fundamentalist, Gurjar or a fundamentalist, you know, scheduled cast organization and so on.