There is a general sentiment being permeated by the over-zealous and narrow visioned Indian media that the men and women of the armed forces who defend our lands on our borders are the villains who have terrorised the local populations and they do whatever they want on a whim without fear of repercussions.

The materialistic and bohemian Indian urban youth readily buy this glib that the best of the best in the business, the business of media that is, peddle day in and day out on the airwaves and in print. Unfortunately, there are very few who stand up to rebut this dangerous propaganda purveyed by the yellow media. Television news more often than not never allows airtime to opinions that go against the picture that they are trying to draw in the minds of the viewer and the articles written in the print media simply never get the eye balls to open the peoples' eyes to to the truth. Considering that the general population of India is increasingly averse to reading real news and takes its daily dose of information, I should say infotainment, from the likes of the Tabloid of India and its posse, the space for people who actually speak for this country and for the truth shrinks even further.

Just like I find Hinduism bashing to be the past time of choice for most of the media, it is also very prevalent for them to question the integrity of the Armed Forces and other paramilitary. A single crime is enough for the media to club the entire organization in the same light, and the ignorant masses join in. Unfortunately, the Indian media currently simply does not seem to have the wherewithal to delve deeper into issues and actually try to represent some semblance of truth, which in turn is probably because the common population does not look for serious truth, they simply look for infotainment.

When the topic of Kashmir is discussed in the media, I have more often than not seen the media portray the Army there as the villain who victimize the local population in the garb of fighting terror. While Bollywood has showcased the Indian Armed Forces as the brave and honourable institutions that they are, there have been some instances where this liberal bleeding heart, Wagah candle kissing comes to the full fore, with themes such as 'bad' soldiers not wanting the peace loving people of India and Pakistan to be united, or a Hindu nationalist Army Officer posted in Kashmir killing innocents simply out of his hatred for Islam. Yes, such movies have been made too and in the name of intellectual freedom aim to harm the very moral fabric of the Armed Forces that holds them and in turn this supposedly great country together. Irony is that those in the political circles and the media who profess to be the most secular are the most divisive of all.

Irom Sharmila has been on a hunger strike for the past 11 years and was barely a blip on the national media, and has now gained prominence once the Kashmiri politicians raised their pitch to repeal the act. While the "Iron Lady of Manipur" has every right to be heard, and justice be done for the act that was committed by the jawans of the Assam Rifles in Manipur over a decade ago, and I personally do not know the details of the Act, but as a retired Colonel Athale wrote in Rediff.com, this is one of the few pieces of legislation that tries to protect the soldiers themselves without putting them at the mercy of the states' civil administration which needs no proof of its incompetence and lethargy in responding to a call for help of any kind from any citizen.

Kashmir in my opinion is a very strange conundrum in the minds of the Indian media and population. Correct information and news rarely comes out of the state without first being dipped in religious connotations or allegations or rebuttals. Thus, I believe that every Indian knows that there is a problem in Kashmir, but the way the Indian media portrays the situation, everybody is unclear of whether its really Pakistan's pathological hatred for all things Indian that's the problem or whether the problem is somewhere else. Most unfortunately, there are many ignorant youth out there who view their country as the occupier and will voraciously advocate that India should leave Kashmir and make peace with the already suffering Pakistan. Yes, the must sought after India-Pakistan partnership that will beat the rest of the world in everything.

I had written a few weeks ago about how the current Government of J&K is pushing through for the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act which they say gives too much power in the hands of the Army. I had written that the Indian media due to some strange affliction view the Army as the largest perpetrator of human rights violations in J&K while the AK-47 toting terrorists remain "alleged" militants/terrorists/rebels in the eyes of the world media. The Indian media does nothing to correct this untruth. What I am simply saying is that with the political class and the media and the watching population only too eager to hold an entire institution responsible for the act of a few, should the safety and security of the greater masses be held to ransom because of denial of justice to the ones that were wronged? I feel a major issue is that justice is denied in India to those who deserve it, and because justice is denied, the tendency is to blame the laws under which the act was committed, and instead of focusing on the specific injustice, a sweeping generalization is made that should change the laws themselves. I think that means most simply miss the target of their ire.

There is a meeting today between Omar Abdullah and the United Command of the Armed Forces in Kashmir where he will raise the issue of removing the Act in certain parts of the state. Let us see how that goes. Its quite easy for politicians to make the people believe what they think is good for them, and I believe for many people, afraid of facing up to the terrorists, find the easy target to vent their frustrations with their situation, and turn towards the group that by law can't respond - the police and the Army. I think it is similar to the sentiment among the many Muslim organizations who focus on preaching that Islam is a religion of peace but shy away from taking a stronger stand against the terrorists themselves.

Col. Athale writes in Rediff.com:

there is a clamour of late about the 2,000 odd graves in Kashmir... mostly of militants who infiltrated but no mention of the 5,000 Indian soldiers who died during the same period!

It appears that the Left-liberal dominated government may well succumb to this concerted campaign and remove the legal protection of soldiers who are engaged in fighting a guerrilla war launched by our neighbour. This is a last ditch attempt inject some sense of realism in the debate by an author who has been studying this form of war in the north-east, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Northern Ireland for the last 25 years.

The first and foremost fact that must be understood is that the armed forces have NO powers to act within the country other than in aid to civil authority. These powers are defined by Sections 129 to 131 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The CrPC sections dealing with riots empowers the local magistrate/police commissioner to call army in 'aid to civil authority'. The local military commander is under legal obligation to obey this demand. However, the quantum of force and methods to be used are at the discretion of the military commander.

The civil authority has to give this requisition in writing. Section 131 that was added in 1973, gives a power to a commissioned officer to act even when a magistrate is not present, but must contact a magistrate at the earliest. This genesis of this section was that in West Bengal the armed forces were came under criticism when in their presence mobs destroyed government property, while the army watched helplessly since a magistrate was not present. These are the only powers available to the armed forces.

The Assam Special Powers Act 1958 was promulgated when the Nagas revolted, civil authority collapsed and armed and organised Naga rebels controlled vast stretches of territory and began a guerrilla war against the state. It is not aid to civic authority but a virtual army rule because of breakdown of state or inability of the state to deal with armed challenge... this is NOT for crowd control but fighting an armed group intent on overthrowing the state.

AFSPA is merely an enabling provision and the forces act at the behest of the government and not on their own. This is meant for use in a 'disturbed area' where the writ of the state has ceased to exist and its existence is challenged by an armed group. The purpose of this act is to fight a guerrilla war.

In this war ambushes, raids, combat patrols are the tactics used by the army. These actions are not covered under the CrPc and IPC. The armed forces have no other police powers so it is not special.

Can a guerrilla war that is supported and even fought by foreign citizens on our soil be faced in any other manner, should the NSG not have been used in Mumbai attack on 26/11? In Kashmir the army faces a 26/11 situation on a daily basis.

Does the Indian Army use excessive force? Funny that countries that preach to us like the US have been using drones, helicopters, artillery, fighter aircraft etc as so also Pakistan! The Indian Army has never used heavy weapons against civilians due to fear of causing collateral damage and is yet being criticised. The Indian Army fights with one hand tied, non use of full force. Some want it to fight with both hands tied!

The third issue is can it be removed from some parts in Kashmir that are undoubtedly peaceful. The problem in this case is what if the militants commit violence somewhere else and take shelter in these areas? Knowing fully that the army cannot operate here!

What am I angry at? As much as I am angry at the politicians who are simply unable to comprehend the long term repercussions of their selfish and dangerous actions today, I am even angrier at the dumbed down population which has lost its ability to seek the truth and question what they are being force-fed. Much of the urban youth of today is lost in the land of the lotus-eaters, and they could only care about fornication and consumption. I generalize of course, but I see it as the truth. The media has succeeded in making the people feel ashamed of their heritage and their culture and replaced it with a North Atlantic pop culture where everybody is happy driving cars, hanging out with women (this works very well for the male-centric society), wearing nice clothes and sipping alcohol. I wish something would happen that made this society stop taking for granted the blood and sweat of our armed forces.

In the end, since we are a true blue democracy, the people have got to make better choices, but then again, probably nobody thought that the Fraud Gandhi's led CONgress government would take the rape of the country to such an extreme level that I shudder to think that these buggers still have 3 years left. So unfortunately, while our soldiers continue to patrol our borders and face the bullets from enemies who do not have the spine to stand up and fight face to face, we continue to be ignorant of what it takes to defend this nation, and our ignorance shows right at the top of the food chain, the Parliament of India.