Nothing like a narrow mountain road in a remote district of Jammu and Kashmir to test India’s civil-military relations. Reams have been written on why the supremacy of civilian institutions in India makes it so different from – and need it be said, so much better than – Pakistan. But allegations from a recent episode suggest that all it takes is asking a soldier to give way to a convoy of civilian officials for it all to come unravelling.
On June 25, a convoy of about 40 vehicles transporting Kishtwar district administration officials was snaking its way up through the hilly region to Padder for a “block diwas” or public “durbar”. The practice, in vogue in J&K for a few years, takes officials to citizens at the block level instead of citizens making the rounds of district offices, enabling spot redressal of grievances. In the convoy were the deputy commissioner of Kishtwar, the district additional superintendent of police, the assistant regional transport officer, and a host of other officials from all departments of the administration. What happened next has been detailed in several reports like this, this and this.
