ramana wrote:A senior babu I know has the fondest memories of his attachment to a unit in J&K during his LBS days. So like all generalizations this is general.
A CS level person told me the antagonism harks back to Lord Kitchner and Lord Curzon spat about primacy of the branches: civil- military. Having said that a lot of water has flown down the Jamuna and things are better due to the interaction at Collector level, Staff College and NDC. Yes there are petty viewpoints but hopefully they are in a minority and dont effect major national security issues.
The insurgency in J&K was crushed down becuz all sections of the govt - Army, police, intelligence, Politicos, BSF, CRPF, IPS, IAS, MEA (recall Abdullah and ABV coming togther to fight India's case in UNHCR in geneva- all this under a INC govt) Air Force, Civil administration all came together as one to crush the insurgency. There was tremedous camaderie amongst all...a job well done. I recall an IPS officer responding on TV with a deadpan response, we will take care of it to the news that Afghanis were infitrating with heavy weapons and OBL will be comin to JK.
This was a standard psyops campaign by Islamists across the valley......."OBL aa raha hai."
Oye Porkis....Kahan hai OBL aajkal?
Same during the Khalistan insurgency. We all love to put Arjun Singh down whenever we get the opportunity, However we will do well to remember he was the home minister at the height of the insurgency in the early to mid 80s. Later on he was Governor of Punjab when KPS Gill was wiping the floor with Khalistani turds.
The handling of the Nepal crisis so far is a master stroke that has not been understood or not paid attention by the forum maharathis. Bear in mind this is primarily a administration handling, army is not involved here at all.
As I said many years ago in the Red Storm rising article, the state does get it's act toogether but only at the 11th hour. The same is happening now for the Maoist problem.
The challenge is that since we are a democracy it takes longer to generate consensus in civil society to generate awareness and get the arms of the govt to start the execution.