120 Whither Kashmir? (Part II) - Islamabad Policy Research Institute

Whither Kashmir?
DEMORALISED INDIAN FORCES IN KASHMIR
Despite the continued employment of various methods of state terrorism
on the freedom fighters and the innocent protesters in the occupied
Kashmir, Indian armed forces have been demoralised in crushing the war
of liberation.
In the Indian-held Kashmir, since 1947, Indian military troops have
been using barbaric tactics of extra-judicial killings, burning the houses,
torture etc. to suppress the genuine freedom movement of the Kashmiris.
Last year, discovery of nearly 1000 graves of the unmarked Muslims in
the Indian-held Kashmir showed another evidence of Indian military
terrorism. Recently, more such graves have been discovered. Reports
suggest that these Muslims were tortured to deaths [death] by the Indian
army during custody.
In fact, under the cover of various anti-terrorism laws of the
country, Indian armed forces have committed multiple brutal crimes such
as encounter killings, illegal custody, torture, forced confession, rape of
women, corruption, robbing the houses, kidnappings etc.
The fact of the matter is that when Kashmiri people lost faith in the
international community, which persisted in ignoring their liberation and
when it became obvious that the Indian occupying forces would not
vacate the controlled areas through political means, the peoples [people]
had no choice but to resort to armed struggle which was actually
intensified in 1989.
In fact, present different war between the Indian occupying forces
and the Kashmiri freedom fighters is simply a ‘clash of wills’ between two
entities. Military thinkers agree that although the physical force will
determine the type and scale of war, yet it is the ‘will to fight’ or ‘moral
force’ that determines the outcome of war. Clausewitz puts it this way,
“One might say that the physical force seems little more than the wooden
hilt, while moral factors are the precious metal, the real weapon”.
In his book, “Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army
Performance, 1939-1945”, Creveld identifies the elements of moral force,
whom he calls “fighting power, the willingness to fight and the readiness,
if necessary, to die.” The greater these elements, the less vulnerable an
armed force will be to demoralisation. Moral force, then, is the crucial
factor in determining the combat power of any belligerent.
The ongoing different war between the Indian state terrorists and
the Kashmiri people has proved without any doubt that such elements
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