Ground realities should guide decision making in Kashmir

An All Party Delegation (APD) visited Jammu & Kashmir on 21 September to assess the security and political scenario in the wake of violent agitations for more than three months. They received a cold response from the separatists who refused to come forward for discussions. Nevertheless, the members of the delegation met the separatist leaders at their homes. During the discussions the hardline leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani termed the status of Kashmir as one of “illegal occupation” by India. The Mirwaiz proposed that Kashmiri’s want a solution to the dispute, azadi or independence being the way to go. Yaseen Malik stated his inhibitions on initiating a dialogue process within the purview of the Indian Constitution. The delegates, in turn, made no bones about the non-viability of the concept of azadi and holding talks outside the purview of the Constitution. Beyond this they assured their hosts that the Indian nation would be forthcoming in understanding and facilitating the justified aspirations of Kashmiris.

The Centre announced a slew of confidence building measures on 25 September that reflected the recommendations of the APD. These included additional grant of funds to the tune of Rs 100 crore to Kashmir, unconditional release of youth detained for stone pelting and appointment of interlocutors amongst others.

The panel of interlocutors appointed in the aftermath of the commitment of the Centre is presently on its maiden visit to the Kashmir Valley. The response to the panel is predictably not encouraging. The separatists and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have rejected the panel due to different reasons. Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Yasin Malik feel that a Parliamentary panel would have been more appropriate. Geelani has, as usual, termed this as a "futile exercise" and the PDP is sulking. The separatists have already declared their unwillingness to interact with the interlocutors while the PDP may do so, but without much enthusiasm.

This negative attitude is not without reason. These elements are well aware that now a can of worms could be unearthed which will clearly establish their complicity in orchestrating the violence that engulfed the Valley over the last three months.

There is ample reason to believe that the protests were manipulated by the separatists and their partners with considerable financial and other support from across the line of control. There is also reason to believe that a new and more aggressive fundamentalist leadership is emerging in Kashmir. It is this leadership which has spearheaded the agitation even while in jail. It is being said that Muhammad Qasim alias Aashiq Husain Faktoo, an erstwhile commander of Jamait-ul-Muhajideen and the husband of Asiya Andrabi, who leads the ultra-Islamic Kashmiri women’s organisation Dukhtaran-e-Millat, has managed to create a vicious network from within the confines of jail, where he has been lodged for the last 17 years. He is said to be one of the spearheads of this spiral of violence. In close support are people like Masarrat Alam Butt, the Hurriyat leader and the Vice Chairman of Jammu & Kashmir Muslim League. Butt, who is also the architect of the “Quit Kashmir” movement, has been arrested by the J&K Police on 18 October, and is presently under interrogation.

After the fateful incident on 11 June, which led to the death of Tufail Matto, the protests slowly but surely proliferated across the Valley, and gained momentum as the cycle of violence set-in. The agitations blossomed outwards from Srinagar and engulfed Kupwara in North Kashmir and Anantnag, Bijbehara and Pampore in South Kashmir. They concentrated largely along the national highway and in major population centre’s which provided the ring leaders an opportunity of melting into the crowds.

The average size of crowds ranged between100-150 and rarely touched the ‘thousand’ mark as has been reported by the media. The approximate strength of the populace supporting the agitation mostly varied between 20 to 25 per cent. A majority of the people (70 to 80 per cent) participating were the youth, with about one/two per cent women, mostly confined to Srinagar. There were no incidents of mass agitations simultaneously across North, Central and South Kashmir thus raising doubts about the separatist claim of the agitation being a mass movement for azadi. Apparently, it was powered by fundamentalist, secessionist leaders assisted by a group of young workers who moved from one location to another.

The losses which the Valley incurred due to shutdowns/protests are estimated to be around Rs 160 crores per day. Education of children, the livelihood of daily wage earners, horticulture, the tourist and connected industries like transport, handicraft were severely curtailed. A very large number of cases of post traumatic stress disorder were reported, especially among  school children and their parents. All this led to pent up frustration and further aggravated the situation. The sense of despondency and frustration, on many occasions, boiled over and came out in the form of more protests.

These disturbances were, by and large, concentrated in urban areas with very limited impact in the hinterland.  There have been reports that people from villages who visited towns for day to day requirements, were targeted and told to show solidarity with the ‘Tehrik’. There are also reports indicative of the populace in villages refusing to listen to the edicts of the separatists. The long term ramification of this is that the Valley may be moving towards a rural-urban split which will add yet another security dimension to the already tense situation.

Much is being made out about innocent stone pelters who face bullets of security forces to espouse their cause. The fact is that, in the Valley, stone pelting has become a lucrative ‘business’ with the unemployed youth offering their ‘service’ for a price. Organisations like the Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar- e-Taiba, in concert with the separatists, have reportedly formed groups comprising of about a dozen committed cadre who are paid Rs 5 to 8 lakhs as overall expenditure for orchestrating agitations. Part of the money is paid to another group called the ‘initiators’ who pick-up stones and start throwing them at the police/para-military forces. The “crowd” comprises of professionals who get paid for the job and misguided youth in their teens who are paid for the job. The professionals mask their faces and usually manage to escape leaving behind the largely innocent but misguided youth to face the baton and bullets.

It is the aforementioned ground realities that should guide decision making in Kashmir. Decisions need to be based on a clear understanding of the pattern being followed by vested interests to manipulate people and events in a manner which suits them and their masters across the border. A just and righteous approach that facilitates swift decisive action against anti-national activities while making disbursement of development package conditional to political stability and civic responsibility may pay handsome dividends.

Jaibans Singh is a Defence Analyst specialising in matters relating to Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan

(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).