According to the American College Health Association (ACHA), the suicide rate among young adults ages 15 – 24 has tripled since 1950s and suicide is the second most common cause of death among college students. (“College and Teen Suicide Statistics”, by Jackie Burrell, updated November 03, 2018, verywellmind.com).

As stress is a major factor, many lack coping skills and find ways to come out of trauma. Warning signs include academic problems, depression, mood swings, withdrawal, feeling of hopelessness, disregard for personal appearance, increased substance use, increased risk-taking and/or an obsession with death.

India has one of the world’s highest suicide rates for youth aged 15 to 29 according to 2012 Lancet report. (“Every Hour one student commits suicide in India”,  Devanik Saha, updated May 08, 2017, hindustantimes.com) According to data available from National Crimes Records Bureau(NCRB) ,2015, every hour, one student commits suicide.

Student life is one of the most vulnerable phase in the life of human being. Adolescent characteristics like personal relations, swings in moods, desires and fears of future and aspirations or goals make youth react quickly to incidents which they are not prepared to face. Failures in Board Exams, competitive entrance exams, job related exams adversely affect the mental health and drive many to attempt suicide.

One of the major causes is the system of present education which gives undue weight to marks, rankings, widening differences of good and bad schools and colleges and lack of quality education to all. The rich elite pay heavily for getting their children educated in reputed institutions while poor are forced to study in ‘ government’ institutions where the basic infrastructure is woefully lacking.

The teachers in elite institutions are well- equipped with knowledge and are paid for their labor while ordinary school and college teachers are both underpaid and under-equipped in training students. Thus, when the students face competitive exams at the All India Level, elite and rich students fare better than poor rural students.

Knowledge has become ‘capital’ and teachers with higher educational achievements are recruited by corporate institutes who pay them more than most government teachers. That is why, students from corporate college like Narayana, Sri Chaitanya in Andhra and Telengana, Academies at Kota, FIITJEE and others in west and north India have good chance of cracking JEE Mains and Advanced rather than those who study in ordinary rural schools and colleges. These rustic students are denied good quality education. Hence, their desperation is more and due to chances of failures, they are more prone towards committing suicides. Opportunity for education is more for the rich.

As long as private educational institutions exist, only some students get chance of good learning skills and face competition with skill and tact.  Those who cannot afford money to spend for education will have to struggle to compete. Government should take complete responsibility to educate every child till the completion of post- graduate studies.

All the students must be given equal importance and trained well- learned teachers should be appointed in all levels of schools and college institutes. Inclusive education without any sort of discrimination must be implemented and vacancies should be filled. A student should be given the freedom to choose any career of his/her. Evaluation must be made on the interest of student to learn and marks or ranks should not be the basis of entering an institution.

Constant mental support by parents and teachers, instilling confidence, emphasizing the fact that there are number of alternatives to choose from and driving depression and hopelessness from the student will immense help to avoid the thought of committing suicide.

A healthy country thrives only when its young population is healthy and educated in every respect. Present commercialisation of education is dividing and destroying youth power. Urgent steps are needed to curb the growing instances of committing suicides in the event of failures.

Courtesy: Counter View

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Young voters take a selfie after casting votes at a polling booth in Kolkata.

How India’s young population votes will clearly be one of the deciding factors in the forthcoming 2019 general elections ending the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) five-year rule. This was also the case in the 2014 general elections when 24 million new voters had joined the country’s electorate.

After the previous general election in May 2014, IndiaSpend had analysed how states with the highest proportion of young people had voted. Youth had catapulted the BJP to power in the five states with the highest proportion of young voters, we found.

Issues relating to the youth, education and jobs, are therefore likely to take centrestage in this election. These are both areas in need of more resources and attention in India: A pre-budget analysis by IndiaSpend established the need for more funds for higher education and better implementation of skill development schemes. Since 2000, India’s spending on higher education has been 0.73%-0.87% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and this fell to 0.62% in 2015. Enrolment for the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (prime minister’s skill development programme) was found to be 64% short of the target set, FactChecker.in reported in January 2019.  

Employment will likely be the biggest issue for the young vote bank and even in the absence of latest official data on jobs, political parties cannot afford to ignore it in their manifestos. The leaked report of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) on employment data had shown that unemployment had reached a 45-year high at 6.1%. The government had countered that increased income tax returns filed and a leap in provident fund accounts showed a rise in jobs.

Who is a ‘young’ Indian?

The share of youth in India’s population had reached its maximum in 2010–35.11%, according to NSSO’s 2017 ‘Youth in India’ report. This was an estimated rise of 4.2 percentage points rise since 1971 (30.6%), from 168 million to 423 million, according to the report.
The population from adolescence to middle age is defined as ‘youth’. But definitions can vary across policy agencies. The United Nations research reports typically categorise the 15- to 24-year age group as youth. The National Youth Policy in India (2003) defined youth as those between 13 and 35 years of age.

Later, the National Youth Policy 2014 re-defined this age group as 15-29 years. The NSSO 68th round settled on 15-29 years for labour force participation statistics. In the latest NSSO report on youth released in 2017, the bracket went up to 15-34 years of age. Changing definitions of ‘youth’ in subsequent reports and policy outlays makes it difficult to compare data across years and age-groups.
Since the latest report on employment statistics is yet to be officially released, for the purposes of our analysis, we use the data from the NSSO’s 2017 ‘Youth In India’ report. Citing 2011-12 data, this report put around 55% of men and 18% women in the 15-29 age-group in rural India in the labour force. In urban areas, the figures stood at 56% for men and 13% for women.

Five states with most young voters

The five Indian states that added the highest number of new voters are also among the states with the maximum seats in the Lok Sabha and rank high in terms of population. Lok Sabha seats are assigned to states in proportion to the population of the state and states with larger population hold the key to landing a majority in it, as IndiaSpend reported here and here.
 

Source: Election Commission of India, Lok Sabha

Of all Lok Sabha members, 43% will be elected from the top five states that added the highest number of new voters: Bihar, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. In four of these five states–West Bengal voted for the Trinamool Congress–the incumbent BJP was the top party in the previous Lok Sabha elections.

Source: Election Commission of India

Note: Vote shares of parties do not add up to 100 because only seat-winning parties are included in the list.

After its big 2014 win, BJP also won the Maharashtra state elections. The alliance between Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) won the assembly elections in Bihar in 2015 but it was a short-lived partnership. The state continued to be ruled by the JD(U) led by Nitish Kumar after the RJD walked out. Bihar’s political parties have started calculating the likely permutations for the Mahagatbandhan (grand alliance of parties) for the soon-to-be-declared Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP won the 2014 Lok Sabha with a 43% vote share and 71 seats, and it won the state elections in 2017. The Samajwadi Party, under the leadership of Akhilesh Yadav, and the Bahujan Samaj Party under Mayawati have formed an alliance to fight the BJP in the state for the 2019 general elections. The BJP won all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan in 2014 but lost to the Congress in the state assembly polls in December 2018.

In West Bengal, the BJP managed to gain a 17%  vote share in the 2014 general assembly elections though the party won only two seats. It is now set for a battle with the Trinamool Congress in the 2019 national elections.

In a first-past-the-post system, where the candidate (or party) with the highest vote share wins the seat, a swing of a few hundred votes can sometimes affect election results. With a strength of 13% new voters in states such as Bihar, young voters can decide election outcomes. Here is why: The Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) has only a 7% vote share in the state, but won six seats. Whereas JD(U) and RJD won fewer seats in the Lok Sabha (2 and 4 seats, respectively), their vote shares were much higher than LJP’s. JD(U) had 16% and RJD 21% vote share which they managed to convert to seat-share in the state assembly polls, as IndiaSpend reported November 2015.

Why states that added most young voters are critical for parties

Our analysis shows that political parties can, by concentrating on the top five states that have added the highest number of new voters, potentially increase their chances to win more seats in the Lok Sabha. These states are also among the most populous in India and any party or coalition winning more seats here can form the government at the Centre, as IndiaSpend reported in May 2016.

Of the total Lok Sabha seats, 211 (37%) come from the top ten states that have added the highest proportion of new voters to the electoral roll since the last general election of 2014.
 

Source: Election Commission of India, Lok Sabha

Note: Union territories and smaller states that send one or two members to the Lok Sabha have not been considered for this analysis.

Skill development, higher education opportunities and jobs are going to be priority issues from states with highest shares of young population. Parties have started working out vote share-seat share calculations in their alliances as the youth wait for parties to declare their complete manifestos.

(Tewari is a PhD Scholar at the School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and an IndiaSpend contributor.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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Businessman Alamgir Hossain from the capital’s Kazipara handed over his two sons to police after he became suspicious that they had been indoctrinated in religious extremism.

The man was hoping that the police would help with the rehabilitation of his sons. However, police produced the two boys in court on April 11, 16 days after their detainment on March 25, although they are legally required to bring detainees before court within 24 hours.

The frustrated father is now saying that law enforcement agencies were too busy collecting information from his sons instead of helping them rehabilitate to a normal life.

“Our finding is that about 82% of the arrested militants were radicalised by online writings and conversations. They were misled by militant outfits when they were out trying to sate their curiosity about their own religion:” Dhaka police

On January 14, authorities of Mymensingh Ishwarganj Girls High School and Women College found leaflets containing anti-state speeches and false misguiding information about Islam in the hands of students. They later saw a person clad in burka distributing the leaflets on their CCTV footage.

Since the Holey Artisan and Sholakia attacks in 2016, law enforcement has cracked down on radical militants. Almost 50 militants have been killed in confrontations with law enforcement and the army, and more than 100 militants have been nabbed.

The government, however, appears to be giving far less priority to protecting young boys and girls from getting easily drawn to violent radical ideologies.
Most of steps to prevent radical ideologies from spreading among the public have gone unnoticed or been ineffective.
 

The government has taken many initiatives to fight radicalisation, key among them is engaging imams of mosques to preach against extremism. However, experts say massive educational reform and social initiative is required. Photo Credit: Dhaka Tribune

Bangladesh police’s Counter-Terrorism Focal Point and police headquarters assistant inspector general Md Moniruzzaman said: “Our finding is that about 82% of the arrested militants were radicalised by online writings and conversations. They were misled by militant outfits when they were out trying to sate their curiosity about their own religion.”

Experts are blaming a lack of coordination amongst the concerned ministries, lack of initiatives from different national and regional socio-cultural organisations and lack of unity amongst the country’s political parties.

Dhaka University’s History Professor Dr Muntassir Mamoon said: “Psychological change among the people is necessary to combat extremism.

“The government took many initiatives to counter radicalisation and militancy, which were praiseworthy and partially successful.  But this is not enough. Nationwide socio-cultural movement and effective changes in the education system is necessary.”
 

A radical change in the country’s education system is must, the academic said.

“We need to synchronise the syllabi of Qawmi and Alia madrasas with mainstream education. Besides, social values and cultural movements must be strengthened in order to get rid of the problem permanently,” he said.

Ali Riaz, a professor of politics at Illinois State University, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Bangladesh has to dissolve the conditions favourable to radicalisation, like limitations to practice democratic rights, hindrance to expressing opinions, extremist speeches in politics, political imbalance and violence.
 

“The native socio-political crisis when mixed with the global trend of militancy and extremism creates a hazardous situation for the whole country,” he said.
Home Ministry sources said there is no budget for nationwide anti-militancy campaigns.

A Home Ministry official seeking anonymity said people still think that the responsibility of de-radicalisation lies with the government, so they are not taking up any initiatives themselves.

Social scientist Dr Anupam Sen said: “People are not involved with cultural activities that much anymore. The cultural field has been captured by small groups. This is a cause behind radicalisation among youths.”

Islamic Foundation Director General Shamim Afzal Khan, however, claimed the foundation was almost successful with its anti-militancy campaign.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last week assured that militants and extremists wanting to get back to normal life would be given support so that they can reintegrate into society.

This story, first published on Dhaka Tribune, is being republished with permission.
 

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Around the world experiments in universal basic income are taking place. The question of affordability has dominated much of the debate but the focus on young people, as proposed by French presidential candidate Benoit Hamon, is important to examine.

It is not so easy being young

The International Labour Office estimates that the unemployment rate for young people was 13% in 2016, a new high representing 71 million people, with little prospect of improvement in 2017. As outsiders looking for jobs with limited professional experience, young people are at a serious disadvantage.
 

In recent years, the Great Recession has exacerbated the consequences of young people’s weak position on the labour market in terms of joblessness and the quality of work. Recent European-funded research has shown that policy responses towards young people have been inconsistent, and at times incoherent, demonstrating an ongoing reliance on reducing employment protection and limiting income protection.
 

The impact of basic income on youth

Based on a number of pilot studies around the world, there is some evidence on how basic-income schemes can impact the lives of young people. The effects on participation in education are particularly important – young people are more likely to complete their secondary school education when the pressure to earn is eased.

An experiment in Manitoba, Canada, in which everyone qualified for the scheme, found that basic income can influence young people’s attitudes towards education. The researcher, Evelyn Forget, noted that each student’s decision around whether or not to stay in school was influenced by norms regarding education – whether or not their peers also favoured education over low-paying work.

The effects regarding employment and entrepreneurship specific to young people, however, have not yet been studied.

The Finnish universal basic income experiment.

According to a preliminary report, two subsets of young people were excluded from the experiment in Finland: students, because the trial is intended to study short-term effects on employment; and economically inactive young people, because their existing benefits are lower than those of adults over the age of 25.

There are two lessons for the policy makers interested in young people, in France and elsewhere. First, the fact that other countries have not focused on young people or have excluded young people suggests any policies aimed only at this group must be developed carefully. Second, there is a lack of evidence of the benefits of basic income for young people not because those benefits are unlikely, but because the results of basic income studies for young people remain thin on the ground and because these results are likely to vary across groups. For young people, especially, these impacts may also emerge over a longer time period.
 

The challenges for youth in France and elsewhere

The characteristics of the French and some other European labour markets create a number of challenges for young people. For those who drop out of school without an adequate qualification, access to work is difficult. While it is predicted that a universal basic income scheme might support young people’s decisions to forgo greater earnings in the short-term, whether through third-level education or internships, apprenticeships and voluntary work, there are multiple reasons why people drop out. Furthermore, in countries with well-protected permanent contracts, like France but also Spain and Italy, the segmentation between permanent and temporary contracts is perhaps the greater challenge facing young people.

Churning between short-term jobs is certainly a source of insecurity and precariousness. A 2016 study shows that 53% of French workers under the age of 25 participate in such “independent work”, meaning its disadvantages are particularly felt by the young. Young people more likely to cycle through different work situations quite rapidly (from education to summer jobs or unemployment, from internships to short-term contracts and gig work) with many gaps in between in which they are not supported and thereby left vulnerable. This is a point highlighted in a French Senate report on basic income, which notes that only 44% of job transitions are direct, involving no period of unemployment between the two, and that vulnerable indirect transitions are concentrated among the young.
 

Being young is also about finding one’s way in life and this group’s tendency towards short-term positions might be attributable, in part, to their exploratory approach to employment, whereby low-paying or “gig economy” jobs are taken to meet short-term needs, to gain experience or to get a taste of a given industry. However, we can also see it as part of a wider trend whereby job security is experienced by fewer and fewer workers, risking more frequent retraining and periods without work.
 

A universal or conditional income for young people?

In France, the scoping for an experiment in the Aquitaine region is already underway but so far little has been said about young people. Meanwhile, presidential candidate Hamon has proposed an amount equivalent to the full RSA (income support) to be paid unconditionally and automatically to all people between the ages of 18 and 25 as a first step in his introduction of a universal basic income scheme. Due to means testing based on parental income, most un- and underemployed young people do not now qualify for the RSA, so this move could make a difference to those excluded, as well as to their families.

A common worry is that providing a basic income for young people would, perhaps more than for other demographic groups, encourage worklessness and dissuade integration into the labour force, with severe long-term effects. In this light, a “participation income” may seem more palatable.
 

This would involve imposing conditions on the receipt of a basic income – for instance, that the young person would have to commit to perform voluntary work in their community, pursue training, take steps to establish a business, etc. An immediate difficulty is that the definition of such participation could be problematic. Furthermore, administration of such a conditional scheme would involve expenses that may outweigh any increase in participation relative to an unconditional scheme.
For instance, a similar European-wide conditional scheme, the Youth Guarantee, has run into difficulties in expanding its reach to all young people in long-term unemployment due, in part, to the expense of career counselling and monitoring.

A Dutch experiment, known as Know What Works, is planned for later in 2017 and will go some way towards answering this question by investigating the relative expense of various conditional and unconditional benefits.
 

A 21st-century solution for 21st-century youth?

As the nature of working life changes, it seems fair to say that workers will need to be agile and ready for retraining and new opportunities. Those people entering the labour market with limited experience bear the brunt of this new reality and the associated risks. Addressing these risks is one core argument for basic income – a secure floor that does not require form-filling and applications each time one falls below an income threshold. Such an approach could make sense for young people in a world of job uncertainty and flexibility.

Furthermore, it is argued that freeing people from the stress and bureaucratic entanglement of income support, as well as from the work disincentives that plague conditional benefits, could allow people to focus their attention more productively. Young people should be focused on education, training, discovering their unique contribution to society, and ultimately on creating work opportunities for themselves and others. Whether a universal basic income achieves that for young people will depend on how the French people vote in May 2017 and the results of the experiments in France and elsewhere.

Mark Smith is Dean of Faculty & Professor of Human Resource Management, Grenoble École de Management (GEM). Genevieve Shanahan is Research assistant, Grenoble École de Management (GEM)

This story was first published on The Conversation. Read the original.

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“India, with the second largest population in the world, will face a major challenge in the coming years. Half of its population will be below 25 years of age. Our young workforce will be an asset if they have jobs. But, if the country is unable to provide jobs, there will be unrest and frustration,” Mukherjee said while addressing the annual day function of CII Skill Training Centre here.

He said to get jobs, paper qualifications alone will not suffice, skills are essential.

“Our universities and colleges produce a large number of graduates every year but most of them are unemployable. Our youth need jobs,” he stressed.

Referring to the shortage of skilled hands, he said, “Our industry has problems finding adequate skilled manpower. The economic growth in the advanced countries of the world, most of whom have ageing populations, is low.
 

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Official unemployment rate does not fully capture the levels of unemployment, as it does not consider those who have given up looking for work, to be unemployed. The consequence is that the actual unemployment among graduate would be even higher than 35%.

Courtesy: Newsclick
 

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Psychiatrists at top health institutions in Delhi also say that in most cases people don’t even understand they may be actually affected by it, which is a “cause for worry”.

“Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are like double-edge swords, on the one hand they may have brought a greater sense of democratisation, but on the other, there is the dark side to it too, and many youth are either being harassed on it or becoming addicted to it, leading to psychological problems,” Senior Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Sandeep Vohra told PTI.

Vohra, who practices at Indraprastha Apollo in south Delhi, says the hospital’s Psychiatry Department gets 80-100 case per week, which includes people who are suffering from common psychological disorders like depression and anxiety or severe ones like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

“But we are also getting what is called the Internet addiction disorder and cases where people’s life has been affected because of some issue over the social media.

“Besides, social media has also made the youth more conscious about how they look and there is a constant sense of validation or approval from other around them, affecting their self-esteem and mental well-being,” he says.

Dr Roma Kumar, Child and Adolescent Psychologist at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital cautions that with excessive social media, people, especially the youth are “allowing others to take control of their lives”.

“We had a case in which a 30-year-old man became so obsessed with a girl that he lost 15 kg of weight running after her. He also stalked her on Facebook and Instagram. The family of the man then brought him to us. The girl and her family were stressed out because of this episode,” she says.

Kumar says with celebrities posting on Facebook and tweeting 24×7, youths have become more “misguided into this ‘like-comment-share’ and ‘instant reaction’ culture, where many times people become upset if their friends do not like a post or a picture.

“Besides, many of them are spending inordinate time over Internet and social media, sleeping late night and not communicating with people in real life. This is a dangerous trend. The worry is that many of these youth, do not know that they are exhibiting changed psychological behaviour.”

Doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health experts globally will join hands tomorrow to mark the World Mental Health Day.

Professor of Psychiatry at AIIMS, Dr Rajesh Sagar says, “It is no doubt that social media is affecting the emotional and psychological well-being of people. But that holds for excessive use of anything. What is needed is proper training for students at school level in judicious use of social media, as we cannot part with technological changes.”

Sharing a case study at Apollo, Vohra says, “Social media is also triggering relationship breakdown in many cases. A 17- year-old girl came to us after she was harassed by her ex- boyfriend over Facebook. So much so that the girl’s family had to file a police complaint against the boy, who has become obsessed with her.”

He says besides triggering anxiety, depression and self- destructing tendencies, social media platforms have also led to people suffering from “body dysmorphic disorder”.

“So we had a 21-year-old girl who was brought to us, who insisted that her nose was imperfect and tried rhinoplasty despite the fact it was alright. Constant bombardment of images on social media, peer pressure and ‘selfie-culture’ has engendered this narcissistic behaviour that borders on psychological disorders,” Vohra says.

Ganga Ram Hospital’s Kumar says she gets “cases where young people especially adolescents come to me complaining they have suicidal tendencies and ask what they should do.

After going through their history, one realises that many of them had some sort of harassment or bullying on social media.”

A 24-year-old Delhi-based professional, who did not wish to be identified, says, “There is this culture of unwanted tagging with nasty posts on Facebook and trolling on Twitter that the social media culture has spawned. I myself have been its victim, so I know.
“Though I think social media is a tool to network and be in touch with people who are far off, but excessive use of it is affecting people in a bad way.”

Vohra says “social media also has become a platform for catharsis for the youth.

“It is an open and free forum, and many of them see this virtual place where they can let out their pent-up emotions or rent anger. Many also post suicide notes on Facebook before claiming their lives, so, it has both pros and cons. And one has to use it judiciously.”

Sagar at AIIMS says, the only way forward is to educate the youth when they are in school. “Just like we do it for cigarettes and alcohol use, I think there should be an education and counselling programme in schools for social media too. Since, we are living in a digital era, we cannot say we should divorce ourselves from social media, but we can learn to adapt it the right way.”

The World Mental Health Day theme by the UN this year is –‘Dignity in Mental Health — Psychological & Mental Health First Aid for All’.

“Social media has taken over real socialisation.

Playgrounds are shrinking and children are more into internet gaming then outdoor sports which is a cause of concern…

Majority of mental health patients don’t seek treatment, just about 10-15 per cent do. That is mostly because of the stigma attached to it,” Sagar says.

(With inputs from PTI)

Courtesy: Janta ka Reporter
 

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This is a story to prove, if such proof is necessary, that our gallant men in uniform facing untold hardships in J&K against a faceless, professional, armed and highly motivated foe have a very human side as well. It happened in Mumbai recently, was generally ignored by our media and so passed unnoticed.

The battalion concerned, now serving in the Uri sector, belongs to the Maratha Light Infantry, one of the oldest regiments of the Indian Army, raised in Bombay Fort in 1768. Its jawans were/are drawn from the erstwhile Bombay Presidency and now from the state of Maharashtra. By a quirk of fate there have always been two battalions of this regiment located in this extremely sensitive sector of the Valley. This writer had the experience of serving in this very sector in 1948 with the then J&K militia (95 per cent Kashmiri Muslims), and again in 1969–72 (he was the commanding general in the Valley during the 1971 War). Post retirement, he has visited the area on four occasions. As a result, most of the villages in and around Uri are etched firmly in his mind.

Understandably, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that a group of 30 Kashmiri Muslim children from Uri, boys and girls, between the ages of 6 and 16, were visiting Mumbai and would this old Kashmir hand make it convenient to meet with them? The visit was being sponsored by the battalion of his very own regiment located in the Uri sector duly supported by the formation he once commanded, the ‘Dagger’ Division.

Arrangements had been made for the group to visit Delhi, the Taj at Agra, Mumbai and Pune. The group was to be accompanied by Mohd Hussain, an elderly teacher from the area and Asai Begum, a very youthful and attractive young lady teacher from Lagamma village en route to Uri, major R Chowdhury whose wife joined him en route, a subedar and three jawans from the sponsoring battalion. Each child was provided with a very attractive tracksuit sporting the unit’s crest of the hunting horn, and baseball caps with the divisional sign of the Dagger.

The regimental network worked throughout providing transport, accommodation, and food. In Mumbai, for instance, there is no unit from the regiment located here, but Lt Col Balwan Singh who belongs to the same battalion happens to be posted in the local HQ in Mumbai. And it was through his initiative that the very excellent arrangements were made for the Mumbai and Pune legs of the10-day tour, exclusive of travel time.

While in Mumbai, the group was able to tour South Mumbai, see a ‘real’ submarine, visit the aircraft carrier INS Viraat, spend a delightful afternoon at Essel World and, the high point of the Mumbai visit, to meet and interact with our Bollywood film star, Hrithik Roshan. For the Pune leg, the group, inter alia, visited the National Defence Academy, the Bombay Engineering Group at Khadki and the Snake Park.

I met the group at the small office of the Leslie Sawhney Programme in Army and Navy Building. In they trooped, looking very smart in their tracksuits. They were all beaming as they gathered in the tightly packed office. They were introduced to Ms Sheila Masani who, fortunately was present in the office, Mr SV Raju of Freedom First and Mr Arvind Deshpande of the programme. The staff of the office and curious onlookers were thrilled to meet this group.

After welcoming them, ‘Chacha General’ recalled his days in Uri and rattled off names of some of the villages that he still remembered — like Lagamma, Chandanwari, Mandir Buniyar, Silicot, Chamkot, Kamalkot among others — much to the joy of these young people who were happy to know that their villages were remembered by this Old General, in downtown Mumbai.

Mohd Hussain, the venerable teacher, recalled that he too knew Rajah Muzaffar, the MLA from Chandanwari. Asai Begum was asked whether ‘akroot giri’ (walnut kernels) were still sold in the small Lagamma wayside bazaar. Yes, was her response. Had the Bailey Bridge launched not too long ago across the Jhelum by our engineers made a difference to their lives? Certainly, they responded, as it cut short a 10–mile walk along the north bank from their villages across the Jhelum to Uri and Baramulla.

Even their produce of the succulent ‘bagooghoshas’ (Bartlett pears) and walnut kernels could now get to Baramulla and beyond in a better condition. And what about the Markhor (Ovis Ammon) and Baloo (Himalayan Brown Bear)? Were they still found on the Chotta Kazinag Range? Yes, was the response.

And how did they like Mumbai? Many of them had never seen the sea before; in fact very few of them had even been beyond Baramulla. They expressed their joy at being able to see a ‘live’ submarine and visit the aircraft carrier INS Viraat. And what about Essel World? Oh, they had such fun there, never having experienced anything like it in the Valley.

And what was their most memorable experience of Mumbai? They were struck at its size, the thousands of people going about their business without a care in the world, the friendly smiles that they received, and the total absence of any tension. They enjoyed their visit to Haji Ali and realised how secular India is. But the high point was their interaction with their favourite actor Hrithik Roshan, as never ever did they think that they would meet India’s heart–throb in person.

I asked some of the older boys whether they would like to join the armed forces of India and the response was a loud affirmative. I advised them to have a careful look when they visited the NDA in Pune.

And would they like to ask me any questions? The spokesperson was a lively young girl, very confident, who said yes she did. "Uncle, why don’t you come and live in Kashmir?" asked this vivacious girl. This is perhaps the most effective rebuttal of the allegations of the armed forces being human rights violators.

I mentioned this incident to Dr Farooq Abdullah during his recent visit to Mumbai and he was immensely pleased to hear about it. There were repeated requests for a group photograph to be taken in which the staff of the office insisted that it be included.

While bidding farewell to Mrs Masani, they expressed a desire to see the famous Hindi movie Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. Unfortunately, there was not enough time in Mumbai to do so. But this did not deter Mrs Masani from calling up a contact in Pune and arranging complimentary passes for the whole party. She insisted that though they had left the building, a message was sent across to Pune that the mission had been accomplished and please would they collect the tickets from the designated individual.

Later reports confirmed that they were able to see the film, a fitting finale to this memorable tour. The feedback from Uri is that they are now looking forward to the promised visit of Chacha General to his old haunts in the Valley. Hopefully, this promise will be executed when the weather improves.

To conclude this tale two points need to be stressed. The first is, would the parents of these 30 children, especially their daughters, have permitted them to undertake such a yatra all the way to Pune and back under the arrangements of this "hated" Indian Army?

And with war clouds looming dark in the Kashmir skies, of parting with their children? Most unlikely.

The local impression that this visit made can best be judged from a telephone call received from a simple peon of the Leslie Sawhney Programme who enquired when could he expect to receive a copy of the group photograph taken with the children. Need more be said?

The moral of this tale is clear. Whereas there is bound to be the odd rotten banana in a bunch, jawans of our armed forces have a very human side to their character. Full marks to those units and formations of our armed forces in J&K for sponsoring such visits of impressionable minds without gaining any brownie points for doing so. May this good work continue.

The commonly held view for which our ‘security forces’ are constantly sniped at is that they are violators of human rights in J&K. It is unfortunate that this generic term willy- nilly includes the regular army deployed in that state since October 1947. These sanctimonious ‘snipers’ seem to forget the frustrations our troops are subjected to in the thankless and frustrating task of dealing with terrorists. In the bargain, many innocent Muslim, Hindu and Sikh lives are lost for which, invariably, the security forces are blamed.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2002 Year 8  No. 79, Breaking Barriers

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