Creating Sympathy for Militancy

This is a shocking video from Indian Kashmir which demonstrates once again what the mentality of a frustrated and unpopular military force becomes against 'natives' it believes are all enemies... One could add that these sort of abuses are common wherever there are military forces considered outsiders or occupiers (Abu Ghraib, Gaza, East Pakistan anyone?) but that's neither here nor there. This is a video specifically from Kashmir and should give pause to those of our readers who were quick to claim that my characterizations of the situation in Indian administered Kashmir were exaggerated.

Keep in mind that we do not know the background here or the exact date this was recorded, seemingly on a mobile phone (it was uploaded only two days ago on this site). But a couple of things are quite clear:

1. that the perpetrators of these human rights abuses are Indian security forces and
2. the interest of these security forces here has nothing to do with security but rather with humiliating these boys (just listen to the instructions to them not to dare cover their private parts).

I have always wondered at the mentality of such people wielding power. After such an experience, why wouldn't these boys - even if completely peaceful before - have more empathy for militancy?


Viewer discretion is advised.

(It seems there is something wrong with the embed code since the video does not show up on the blog. So you will just have to go to the site linked above to see the video.)