Psychological training for all Indian Army soldiers in J&K: Here's the rationale behind the move

Indian Army has introduced a compulsory psychological training module for all of the troops posted in militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir where the majority of these soldiers are engaged in anti-terror and anti-infiltration operation. As per a report by the Print, the module will be taught at the 15 Corps Battle School (CBS) in Khrew in Awantipora area of Pulwama district.

The institute is a training base for all soldiers including officers under a reorientation programme. This programme runs between 14 and 28 days for the troops. The newly introduced training will be a part of this regular programme. The programme has been designed by The Defence Institute of Psychological Research (DIPR), a lab of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). DIPT carries out research in psychology for armed forces personnel.

Training to conduct people-friendly conduct

Through this training, the Army will focus not just on people-friendly operations in the hinterland, but also on "just conduct" overall in soldiers engaging with the civilian population in the valley. One of the officers privy to the development said, "While of course the soldiers undergo an initiation process and get physically trained for dynamics in the hinterland and the LoC, the idea is to increase the cognitive memory of the subconscious mind of the rules of engagement and just conduct."

Over the years, the role of the Army has come under the scanner for using excessive force and collateral damages. Citing these issues, the Army is has planned to train its troops for people-friendly operation in the valley. The army is focussing on five tenets of training at the CBS including good faith, minimum force, impartiality, the necessity of force and just conduct.

Army avoiding collateral damage

Indian Army has been focussing on no civilian casualties during the operations especially after the abrogation of Article 370. The data is also encouraging for the Army as not even a single civilian has died in Army operation since January 1^st 2020.

Since the beginning of this year, 30 civilians have been killed in Kashmir, of which 22 were killed by terrorists. Five in ceasefire violations while and three in the crossfire during encounters with security forces.

Robust training in the US Army

US Army which has been deployed all across the globe has a robust training system for minimizing casualties in operations conducted by the U.S. military and its partners. The training especially focusses Air and ground forces. In fact, it is working to finalize a new civilian casualty policy governing U.S. military operations and defence security cooperation activities