GUEST COLUMN: ‘Narrative warfare’ and the ‘real narrative’ presented by ‘Raiders in Kashmir’

Dr. Suneem Khan

We’ve forayed into a stage of modern discourse that can be described as “narrative warfare,” where the bulk of a person’s social behaviours are meant to defend and propagate ideas that they believe. A narrative is at times composed of simple memes and sometimes of stories that are easily communicated without deeper thought and which have been derived from an overreaching ideological foundation. These memes aid the believer in understanding the world while pursuing what they think will make them happy. Humans are getting better at imitating bots, and losing their humanness in the process, and those —“narrative bots”— exist to spread a narrative do not understand where the original beliefs came from, their scientific basis, or the intent behind them. Human beings nowadays spend an increasing amount of their time living as “narrative bots” for spreading information while debilitatingly affecting their biological human shells.

Someone who is not a “narrative bot” will read the story, try to determine which side is being more truthful, and then come to proper judgment. This is what education has taught people to do, but now it is solely about creating bots that are incapable of rational thinking.

Over the last seven decades, the Pakistani state has transformed itself into a national security state because of its hostility with India and the mission, it has entrusted upon itself is the accession of Kashmir. Pakistan’s obsession with Kashmir has weakened its economy and polity and has led to this “paranoid” domination of its military in all spheres of life and governance.

The first official intervention by the Pakistani state to present its narrative to foreign intellectuals was undertaken by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto after the 1971 war. Having lost on both military and diplomatic fronts, he felt the need to counter India’s narrative in order to make the Indian government negotiate a settlement on the prisoners of war and occupied territory. Chairs and fellowships were established at the Oxford University, the Cambridge University, the Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Heidelberg University in Germany. The “alienation of India”. The constant peddling of the idea that Kashmir is not a part of India, just what Pakistan always claims, has been drilled into the narrative, the media discourse, the politics and the psychology of the valley and its residents. The Indian government is the “interfering outside force”, “Hindus are snatching away jobs from us”, “Pandits were grabbing wealth”, the central government is bringing “other people to live here” etc are all the different notes of the same music that is being played for decades, to keep the populace constantly on the edge, to create an atmosphere of edgy distrust and hatred, to keep them isolated mentally, so that Pakistan and other extremist forces find easy clays to mould into their puppets.

I remember having read a book ‘Raiders in Kashmir’ by a former Pak Army General sometime back. This book holds significance in terms of presenting the real narrative otherwise unheard of earlier. The author, a retired Maj Gen of Pakistan Army, Akbar Khan, is himself admitting the role of Pakistan in stoking the conflict in Kashmir. He minces no words to audaciously convey that Pakistan played the role of an aggressor and even justifies to his readers the pressing compulsions to adopt that military stance. All this is followed by a detailed description and minute details of the operation code-named ‘Gulmarg’ supported by the facts which remained unknown to generations, yet such a perspective does exist. Akbar has made an honest admission that the crisis that followed in Kashmir after Partition was hatched and formulated in Lahore and Pindi with the complete concurrence and tacit approval of top political leadership of the times. In 1947, Akbar Khan had served on the Armed Forces Partition Sub-Committee and in the process, he had gathered complete knowledge of the numerical strength of Maharaja Hari Singh’s army and police personnel totalling to 9,000. Later, it helped him formulate an offensive to take on the Maharaja’s forces by surprise. At the time of Partition, contrary to Pakistan’s expectations, the Maharaja acceded to India even though Pakistan was totally insistent on Kashmir becoming a part of it. It also warned that Kashmir would be annexed by force if necessary. The historical events as recorded by Akbar Khan brazenly testify to the fact that regular Pakistan army along with tribal forces actually set in motion its incursions in Kashmir and the combats that followed in different sectors subsequently are described in the book. Akbar went on to expose how the Pakistani army played a vital role for about the first eight months (1947-48) along with the tribesmen, including their ruthless behaviour to loot, rape, kill and create mayhem, to accomplish the objective with scant respect for female dignity; later it played the open role in holding the territory against the Indian army.

Akbar no longer kept it a secret that in the beginning of September 1947 he was asked to prepare a plan as to how to take over Kashmir. Serving at the time as director of weapons and equipment (DW&E) in GHQ, he was aware of the quantum of weapons and ammunition while some of it was brought from Italy after obtaining concurrence of political leadership owing to the financial implications. These weapons were secretly diverted to the people of Kashmir. Akbar subsequently wrote a plan of action based on factual position of weapons suggesting their distribution and placement in various sectors and sent 12 copies to his political and military masters. A few days later, he was called to Lahore for a conference with the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaqat Ali Khan, and the plan was adopted after due deliberations. Among others the conference was attended by Finance Minister (Ghulam Mohammad, later Governor General), Mian Iftikharruddin, Zaman Kiani, Khurshid Anwar, Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan. Khurshid Anwar was appointed commander of the northern sector, Zaman Kiani, of the southern sector while Sardar Shaukat Hayat was to be the overall commander. Sometime later, Akbar was appointed military adviser to the Prime Minister-to cover his absence from duty.

The operation formally commenced on 22 October, 1947, when the Pakistani forces crossed the border and attacked Muzaffarabad and Domel on October 24 from where the Dogra troops had to withdraw. These advancing troops moved forward in the Srinagar road the next day and again took on the Dogras at Uri. On October 26, they captured Baramulla, where out of 14,000 only 3,000 survived. It clearly indicates that these advancing forces indulged in ethnic cleansing of local Kashmiris. Thus, Pakistan has old record of ethnic cleansing in Kashmir. The troops were now only 30 miles from Srinagar and meanwhile, Maharaja sent his papers of accession to Delhi asking for help, following which the Indian government sent troops to Kashmir the next day. On the evening of October 27, the Prime Minister of Pakistan held a conference at Lahore to consider the situation arising out of Kashmir’s accession and India’s military intervention. The changed narrative in Kashmir required altering the military strategy at Pakistan’s end. Akbar Khan was recalled to Pindi. He proposed to act through military incursions to liquidate Jammu in order to block the only road along which India could send reinforcements. He recollects that how important Jammu was might be judged from the fact that the same night while the military leadership was in conference, Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself had also ordered an attack by the army upon Jammu.

According to Allan Campbell in ‘Mission with Mountbatten’ the order had been given to General Gracey, the acting C-in-C. Gracey had refused on the ground that he could not issue such an order without approval of the Supreme Commander in Delhi.

The next day, Akbar proceeded to Baramulla to supervise the progress made by the forces; while he reached them at night, they were just four miles from Srinagar and had just finished an attack. He stayed overnight and the next day carried out a thorough reconnaissance of the whole area. The forces needed help to overcome the road-block and only an armoured car could do the job. So he rushed back to Pindi and met Colonel Masud who volunteered to take a troop of armoured cars of his unit. His men, he said, would go in plain clothes without official permission and at their own risk. He also rang up Karachi with the proposal for more such help which came though reluctantly.

Week later, news came that the Indians were coming out of Srinagar and the Pakistani army and tribesmen were falling back without offering resistance. So they withdrew to the safety of Uri and refused to go back to the front. The book is full of several sensational accounts and focuses on how the wrong moves and misadventure of the Pakistani army and political leaders lead them to nowhere. Over ambition and utter desperation to take Kashmir by sheer force were the reasons for its role as an ‘aggressor’.

It seems that the Pakistani General has no remorse over the great loss of human lives and material wealth in Kashmir inflicted by Pakistan army. The book is a must-read for the young generation of Kashmir who have little or no knowledge of Kashmir’s history and politics. They are being made to believe a flawed and faulty narrative of history.

The narrative warfare has the potential to make a course correction in the history of India-Pakistan relations vis-à-vis Kashmir conflict if understood in its proper context. What other species now require of us is our attention. Otherwise, we are entering a narrative of disappearing intelligence.

The author is a decorated senior medico serving with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Srinagar.

(Views are personal)