Declining Militancy in Kashmir: Time to Rebuild State Institutions

It is often said that insurgency can never be completely wiped out militarily. It can only be contained. With two decades of relentless and painstaking operations and deployment, the Indian Army has been able to bring down the intensity of the Kashmir insurgency to its lowest ebb ever. The time is now ripe for a political settlement of the intractable dispute. But despite several peace processes and back channel efforts, the chasm has never been bridged. This was once again revealed by disclosures that the then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minster Manmohan Singh came close to a breakthrough in 2007 but Musharraf got mired in a political crisis and backtracked.

But the most significant factor that provides an opportunity to find a definitive solution is the steady decline of militancy since 2004.  This provides the Indian government the platform to negotiate from a position of strength. All parameters of a successful counter insurgency viz reduced violence, negligible recruitment, low civilian and security force casualties, minimal infiltration are clear pointers.

No major attack has taken place so far this year despite several infiltration attempts being made to bolster the declining number of terrorists (800-900) present in the state and give a boost to the flagging terrorist morale. At least 45 terrorist training camps are operational in Pakistan/POK and close to 600 terrorists are massed at various launch pads, and thus attempts to infiltrate before the onset of winters will continue. A total of 181 terrorists have been eliminated in counter-terrorist and counter-infiltration operations this year. (As of 12 September 2009). 55 security force personnel (including Special Police Officers) and 45 civilians laid down their lives during the same period. The ceasefire has largely held. Maintenance of a robust multi-tiered counter-infiltration grid supplemented with state of the art surveillance and observation gadgets, infiltration has been effectively neutralised between the LoC and fencing, though some militants did manage to get through in bursts of major infiltration attempts made in March and August in north Kashmir. In sheer frustration, to cause casualties on the LC itself, militants in the Jammu region have adopted a new modus-operandi. Sniper fire is opened on troops at forward Indian posts and patrols. Militants open fire from close vicinity of Pakistan Army and Ranger posts. At least four such incidents have occurred in the Poonch and Krishna Ghati sectors since July. Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor’s recent statement that the army would retaliate in the face of increasing ceasefire violations was made in this backdrop.

In the hinterland, terrorists have been forced to lie low in jungles due to effective area domination and establishment of an elaborate network of human and technical intelligence by security forces. Terrorist concentrations in Rajouri-Poonch and most areas of South Kashmir (some concentrations exist in Tral and Shopian) have been constantly eroded bringing a semblance of normalcy in these areas. The Anti-Infiltration Obstacle System (AIOS) has proved to be highly effective in areas south of the Pir Panjal, thus supplementing the cadres there has become very difficult for the terror groups.

In Srinagar and North Kashmir, the period of peace is occasionally punctuated by grenade blasts and hit and run firing incidents as on 1 and 31 August in Srinagar. Grappling with a low cadre base, terrorist tanzeems are pooling together their resources and acting jointly as in the case of the Srinagar attacks. Released and surrendered militants are also being lured back to militancy with promise of money. There are nearly 25000 surrendered and released militants in the state, most of them unemployed and unemployable, who are being tapped and the Security forces will do well to pre-empt.

Surgical operations have kept the militants on the back foot and their movement into population areas, severely curtailed. Militants are unable to launch direct attacks on security forces or lay ambushes. There has been only two IED blasts in the entire state so far this year. Stand-off fire incidents has also been negligible. However, the Car blast outside Srinagar Central jail on 12 September 2009 which killed three people and injured 10 others was clearly an effort to keep the pot boiling and a desperate effort by militants to forestall any peace-effort on part of the government. The government nevertheless should move in the direction of talks with separatists and on the same hand press ahead with surgical operations and area-domination to keep terrorists from re-grouping and launching strikes, the possibilities of which will only magnify in the closing months of the year and the inability to strike for a long time. Intelligence inputs have indicated that with the return of a hard core LeT operational commander for north Kashmir,  possibilities of vehicle borne Improvised Explosive Device (VB IED) and fidayeen attacks have increased.

In a clear sign of frustration, terrorist communications have been intercepted, directing their local commanders, over ground workers and separatist leaders to organise demonstrations and protests in their respective areas. Stone-pelting mobs are hired and often utilised in different areas. Unfortunate incidents in Shopian and Baramulla provided the fuse to let loose a reign of public backlash in order to demonstrate that anti-India feelings persist despite a high voter-turnout in the polls, though the protests have largely remained confined to a few pockets in old parts of Srinagar, Sopore and Baramulla towns along with Shopian.

People are asked to adhere to an annual calendar of protests and hartals (though it is followed mainly in downtown Srinagar). Emotive issues such as occupation of civilian land and orchards by security forces, allegations of human rights abuse are often made to engineer protests. Reduced violence in the state has created a clamour for ‘demilitarisation’ and withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in the recently concluded state legislative assembly session. The army has stabilised the situation considerably. It is now for the Government and its wings, together with the people, to remove the writ of the insurgent, once and for all by implementing a pro-active, development agenda. 

The time to make the insurgents redundant is now.  A less visible face of the army in or around population centres will allow the Prime Minister to initiate talks with the separatists, bereft of the ‘occupation force plank’.  Efforts can also be made to persuade the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) to lay down arms and integrate with the mainstream. Contact can be established with its J&K based leadership on those lines. Simultaneously, the state government should go full steam ahead with its public development schemes and maintain active contact with the local population. Industrialisation of the state should be encouraged by private players in collaboration with government agencies. Now is the time to rebuild and re-establish agencies of the state in towns and villages (such as hospitals, health-centres, schools, water and power lines, rebuilding internal roads, bridges, etc) long left neglected. Police forces have to be suitably trained and equipped and their numbers shored up, district officials must re-establish their reach in remote areas. In short, the time is ripe to regain Kashmir by way of effective governance and development and create such conditions in which the people cement their bonds with India.

This window of opportunity will not be available indefinitely and the Central and state governments have to grab it before jihadis and their masters attempt to spike the insurgency once again owing to changing dynamics in the geo-strategic environment in the South-Asian region. Possibility of a major terrorist strike in J&K or elsewhere in the country, can never be ruled out and this obviously will push any kind of settlement process on the back-burner. Therefore, with declining militancy and a sense of security, the state government has to take the lead and utilise the period in reclaiming the state in terms of betterment of infrastructure, employment generation and addressing genuine grievances of the people instead of keeping Kashmir hostage to the larger dynamics of Indo-Pak relations and geo-strategic considerations.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).