Coming down heavily on section of media for what he called irresponsible reporting on the Indian army, Major General (retd) GD Bakshi has said that they intend to sabotage the army.

The decorated, former army officer said that when he was serving in the army, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) investigated 1,756 cases of alleged human rights abuses against the army. “96.4% of these cases were found to be false by judges of high courts and supreme courts,” said Bakshi.

The noted defence expert was talking in a live webcast with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now, as part of the Visionary Talk Series held by the public policy and governance analysis platform.

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Bakshi said that some NGOs and Bollywood were spinning a false narrative around the Indian army and criticised them. “Many NGOs with foreign funding are working with the primary purpose to demonise and demoralise the Indian armed forces, specially the armies fighting in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East to make sure operations were hobbled and  people were stunned by the neck for human rights abuses,” he said.

Bakshi said that unlike the American, Chinese, Sri Lankan, Russian, Pakistani and other armies, Indian army is the only army that does not use tankers, bombers, jet fighters, cannons and heavier guns against insurgents and terrorist. “Ours is the only army that was forced to fight only with small arms so that there would be no collateral damage. Yet we had the maximum HR violence accusations against us.”

While speaking on Bollywood, the senior Indian army officer added that unlike earlier, now with corporatisation of Bollywood, finance has been coming from proper places. “Yet, this has not changed the perception among people who still feel that it is being financed by ISI. One of the largest film industries in the world has surrendered itself to ISI manipulation... and we have to take charge of…”

He gave the example of ‘Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl’, a biographical drama film on one of the first female air Force pilots in combat, and said , “Gunjan Saxena is the  most despicable, misogynist attempt to arm wrestle women... Have you seen an organisation which is more gallant and chivalrous towards women than the armed forces?” he asked.

Bakshi said that some sections in Bollywood are out to tarnish the image of armed forces deliberately. “This makes us sometimes wonder if there is an agenda to demonise the Indian armed forces when you make an entire film on human rights violations by army. Projects are being financed from outside to run agendas and run down and humiliate army to breed hatred. I am afraid we are not going to allow that,” he said.