‘A Dirty War’

Civil liberties and democratic rights organisations have for long argued that using the Indian Army to prosecute war against our own people, in the name of counter-insurgency measures, is an ignoble fight. The Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation (CDRO) as well as other civil liberties groups have been witness to and chroniclers of heinous crimes of sexual violence, custodial killings, massacres, enforced disappearances, and use of pellet guns in such wars perpetrated by India’s armed forces over several decades. Our work convinces us of the folly of using the army when enlightened self-interest beckons a democratic resolution for long-festering disputes such as the Kashmir question.

Consequently, for the Indian Army chief, General Bipin Rawat, to claim that the rules of engagement in a dirty war are “played in a dirty way” because it is a “proxy war,” is a subterfuge to displace the blame for the Kashmir insurgency on to Pakistan.