Musharraf should be tried in India for war crimes

Tarun Vijay

On February 26, 2000, Ilyas Kashmiri reportedly conducted a guerrilla operation against the Indian Army in Nakyal sector after crossing the LoC with 25 militants. He surrounded a bunker and threw grenades inside. He was able to kidnap an injured Indian officer whose throat he later slit, the report said. Ilyas came back to Pakistan with the head of the Indian officer and presented it to top army officials, including then army chief Gen Musharraf, who gave him a cash award of Rs1 lakh."

This was reported by PTI in a story from Islamabad.

That’s Pervez Musharraf, the darling of Delhi’s media and a trusted friend of India’s politicians of all hues and denominations. The butcher of Kargil has been getting too many audiences in Delhi. Now is the time to look back, salute the martyred soldiers and declare Musharraf India’s war criminal to be tried by an Indian army court. Before Kasab gets a fair justice, Musharraf needs to be brought to the question box, minus media cameras.

A state that can’t take revenge for the butchering of its soldiers and fails to assure the mothers that the life and honour of their children is the first priority of the government, no amount of advertising asking Indian youths join the forces would work. Indians don’t join the Army for the lure of the lucre. For most of our families and us, it’s a tradition and a mark of pride to wear the soldier’s uniform, fight the enemy and live and die for India. It’s the ugly politician who never sends his children to fight for the motherland that compromises and bends backwards for Washington’s money and support. Make him feel ashamed of his spineless overtures and build public pressure to demand Musharraf’s extradition so that his butchering skills can be brought to book. And by us. Our criminal must get our justice.

Ilyas, who slit the throat of our army officer was not killed by Indian government’s action but by US drones.

We depend on Washington for everything. Even the black box of the ill-fated helicopter that killed YSR was sent to the US for examination. We don’t have any sense of shame that even this much can't be done in our labs. So we hope that one day the US will teach Pakistan a lesson, it will see that Pakistan behaves and stops terrorism against India. Why can't our leaders take US passports and join electoral battles for a governorship a la Bobby Jindal and make the Indian soil a little relieved? Something that an average Indian knows that India’s battle has to be fought by India on Indian shoulders and Indian strength, can't be understood by the leaders who are supposedly responsible for protecting the Indian honour and lives.

The National Security Adviser speaks a language of a fearful person and not one who instills confidence and courage into the minds of citizens. The newspapers have reported under the headline "Fear of 26/11 attacks", his exact words like this, "Narayanan said that he lives in daily dread of a repeat of the November 26 Mumbai terror attacks, though he added that now India is better prepared.”

Fear should have been transported to Pakistan and it should have been for the ISI chief to say that he lives in daily dread of an Indian revenge. Pakistan must be made to live in constant fear of India’s justifiable punishment rather than the victim shivering in cold fear of an unrepentant aggressor.

That’s what we have been turned into.

No sense of pride in the soldiers’ bravery and achievements.

No war memorial, not a single memorial worth its name for Kargil’s heroes. Ratherm the government abandoned all celebrations for the Kargil Vijay Divas and has also forgotten to continue with the Bharat Vijay Divas commemorating the 1971 victory resulting in the creation of Bangladesh.

And then the complaint is, we are in the dire need of competent soldiers and officers for our forces. Ha!!

Defence minister A K Antony informed Parliament in July this year that the Indian Army is short of over 11,387 officers, While the Navy was short of 1,512 officers, the shortage in the Air Force was 1,400.

And then what are the measures to attract youths? He said, in a written reply that, "The implementation of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission, with substantial improvements in the pay structure of officers of the Armed Forces, will go a long way in making the services more attractive."

Does he seriously think that money without honour goes a long way to make a job in the forces more attractive? Does this mindset synchronize with the longstanding traditions and the civilizational moors of a nation where a soldier never dies but is martyred, he is a veer, the brave and having served his motherland goes to the Surya Lok, the highest exalted region of the mighty Sun? Should he be comparing the job of a soldier with that of the babus and the traders and the politicians? It is this attitude that has downgraded respectability for the soldiers’ lives and services.

The officers of the forces were forced to sit on a dharna at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and demand parity with civilian officers, and implementation of "one rank, one pension" principle. Their memorials are ignored, victory days are left uncelebrated, their families run from pillar to post to get their children admitted to good schools, and the entire structure still remains shackled to the ritualism of the pre-Independence British colonialism. Their killers and hate groups are accorded state honours, sent dinner invites and given security at the public expense and then the complaint is, we are not getting enough good stuff for soldiering the nation.

Make soldiering India a matter of honour and respectability. Ensure those who rule India send the best of their children to serve the forces and have guts to take revenge on those who have ill-intentions for our brave.

Surely, bringing Musharraf to Delhi, this time as a war criminal for a trial, will make amends for the past mistakes.