Former General HS Panag says the human shield image will haunt India for ever

[Fledgingwings]

Kashmiris are angry now like they were never before.

 

[abdulbarijan]

You don't seem to get it.

We hold Kashmir.

We do not care a fig what the world thinks.

What paper a professor 8000 miles away writes .

We hold Kashmir. It is vital to our national interests. And we shall continue to hold it whatever it takes.

Whatever ....

-Actually it's you who doesn't seem to get it. No one is denying that your an OCCUPYING force in Kashmir and that you hold a huge chunk of Kashmiri land, those are ground realities that no one denies. Heck, thats the exact argument used by the insurgents that .... India, the so called "biggest democracy on the planet" only holds their land to toe their own national interests, and will do so by any means necessary, even if it meant crimes against humanity e.g. genocide, rape and use of human shields etc.

-What you don't understand is the power of perception management, PR and marketing . There is a reason why your OWN GENERAL is talking about this incident as something that will come back haunting you. He is not some neutral observer. He is not some arm chair analyst. He's a general of your own forces stating that. He compared you guys to Viet Cong in the Vietnam conflict. A conflict which, if you want to remember by a picture, you'd go to the picture of Phan Thi Kim AKA the Napalm girl. The power of that picture was such that you had protests against the US military by US citizens following its publication. Do I need to say what happened to the the US in Vietnam?

-Lastly, I encourage you to "not care" and preach this message of "not caring" about what sort of methods you guys use on a civilian population. Use of force to subject people to your will who don't want any part of you doesn't work. It's only a matter of time. As of now, we don't know what the consequences of this picture will be in terms of the effect on the local population, the effect on international human rights organization, the effect on the narrative etc etc. but it's clear that it WILL have some effect, which remains to be seen, an effect which, as per your former general will be 'haunting'.