In my experience, ultimately every army reflects the ethos, culture & beliefs of a nation in a very strong manner. Its members who join up are generally very patriotic, believe in their version of history & superiority of their culture.As one moves away from the officer cadre and the special forces components, who in general are more "intelligent" & aware ( I know, I know its a large generalisation !!), the vast majority, consisting of PBI, soon develop a hostile attitude towards the population. They do not and perhaps cannot, given their cultural orientation & poor education, empathise with
the locals. Since they form the face of the military instrument, the population begins to hate them leading to a failure in the CI campaign. People from this part of the world are culturally & religiously extra sensitive else, but many aspects of their culture are in vehement contrast to that of the average american.... hence the difficulties in WHAM (Winning Hearts & Minds). In our case while the cultural, religious & ethnic divide does exist, it is not as much, and in any case India is highly multi cultural & religious country and more importantly the Army is a real reflection of that diversity. With experience of the insurgencies of Nagaland, Punjab & Sri Lanka, we adjusted to the Kashmir scenario, though the extensive support by the Pakis did complicate things initially.
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