Defusing The Kashmir crisis
By Praful Bidwai
19 July, 2010
Kashmir Times
The wave of protests that gripped the Kashmir Valley for a month has abated with the calling in of the Army. But the public's anger against the targeted killing of Kashmiris-in daily confrontations between stone-pelting youth and armed police-isn't likely to vanish soon. The restoration of order has claimed a high political price: the Army had to be called into Kashmir for crowd control for the first time since the azaadi movement erupted in 1989.
This has severely damaged the credibility not just of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, but of the Indian state itself. The state showed itself at its inept worst and failed to handle turmoil by political means. Instead of diplomacy and dialogue, the Home Ministry promoted crude militarism, which further inflamed the situation. This loss of credibility could prove extremely costly. Unless remedial measures are taken, Kashmir could again pass into pervasive unrest bordering on mass insurgency driven by popular alienation and anti-India sentiment. This time around, India won't be able to lay the blame at Pakistan's door.
To understand how we reached this dangerous point, it's necessary to recapitulate the roots of Kashmiri discontent and the succession of recent events beginning with the disclosure in May of the Machil fake encounter. During this, an Army major ordered the cold-blooded killing of three innocent men, and falsely claimed they were terrorists. About the same time, the J&K government admitted, for the first time ever, that the Army had drafted civilians in Handwara in North Kashmir into forced labour, night patrolling and other operations, without paying them wages.
According to well-regarded Independent MLA Engineer Rashid, the entire male population of 24 villages was conscripted into "humiliating and terrifying forced labour" for 13 years. The International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-Administered Kashmir recently claimed there are 2,700 unmarked graves in north Kashmir, containing 2,943 bodies.
Inflamed by the disclosures, public sentiment erupted into an Intifadah-like movement. Youth pelted stones at police and Central Reserve Police Force troops. These retaliated deplorably, by slinging stones, and worse, by firing bullets at the protesters. With this shocking "one bullet for every stone" strategy, the police stooped to illegal and impermissible methods: a civilised police does not seek revenge against civilians.
A turning point came on June 11, with the death of a 17-year-old student. The police found Tufail Ahmad Mattoo alone in a football stadium and fired a teargas shell at him from close range, drilling a hole into his skull and killing him instantly. As protests snowballed, the CRPF became more brutal. On June 13, it beat up a 25 year-old man to death. It vengefully targeted teenagers in Srinagar, Sopore and Baramulla, often shooting not to disperse mobs, but to kill. On July 6, the police hit a 17 year-old student in the head with rifle butts. They denied having arrested him. His body was found the next day. Among the 15 dead were a 9-year-old boy, and a young woman who opened her window during curfew.
As azaadi songs started being belted from loudspeakers in mosques, Chief Minister Abdullah panicked and called in the Army, bowing to the Union Home Ministry's pressure. Harsh censorship was imposed on the media. Even Facebook messages were criminalised as "waging war" on the state. Yet, until July 12, no initiative was taken to soothe hurt sentiments or inquire into police excesses. The response of the eight National Conference MLAs from Srinagar was supine.
Mr Abdullah did nothing to mobilise them or eminent citizens. His call for a meeting of all the mainstream parties came too late. The People's Democratic Party boycotted it. Meanwhile, the Home Ministry accused separatists and the Lashkar-e-Toiba of orchestrating the protests.
This was a red herring. The protests may not have all been spontaneous. But they undoubtedly reflected widespread resentment with state repression. Unsurprisingly, the separatists and the PDP tried to exploit the crisis politically. But they didn't manufacture it. What triggered it was CRPF-police brutality and the government's cynical attempt to cover up its mistakes. Mr Abdullah was holidaying in Gulmarg as the protests gathered momentum. He only took a one-day break.
Mr Abdullah has very little experience of Kashmir politics and is impervious to advice. He hasn't fulfilled his promise to set up elected local bodies. (Kashmir has no district- or bloc-level government.) Nor has the NC-Congress alliance tried to close the gaping divide between itself and the people. Young protesters have filled the vacuum. The situation has presented the two factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, both in a shambles, an opportunity to revive themselves.
In the final analysis, the responsibility for the bruising violence and deterioration of the Kashmir situation lies less with Mr Abdullah than with the Centre. It's the Centre which has deployed 4 million security personnel in J&K. The Centre furnishes the context and defines the security starategy within which the state government operates. Its strategic blunder lies in its incomprehension of some fundamental realities.
Consider three: the persistence of widespread popular disaffection in the Valley; the emergence of a new generation of youth who grew up in the shadow of militancy and violent counter-insurgency; and the futility of violent crowd-control methods.
Many in the Indian establishment deluded themselves that the 60 percent turnout in the 2008 J&K Assembly elections and the recent decline in cross-border infiltration signify popular approval of Kashmir's integration with India. True, the elections were largely free and fair. But people probably saw them as a means of voting in a potentially less public-unfriendly government, which would buffer them from the Centre-not as approval of the status quo. People even under military occupation vote for limited purposes, without endorsing the occupation.
Disaffection with India persists in J&K-although there's growing disenchantment with militancy. A first-of-its-kind survey of 3,700 people conducted in September-October 2009 by the London-based Chatham House think-tank shows that less than 1 per cent of the people of J&K endorse the status quo. While only 2 per cent of J&K's people want the state to accede to Pakistan, support for integration with India is also limited (28 percent).
However, as many as 43 percent of J&K's people prefer independence. The proportion is a high 75 to 95 percent in the Valley. There is all-round opposition to militancy (84 to 96 percent in the Valley) and good support for the India-Pakistan dialogue process: 55 percent believe that dialogue improved their security. The survey may not be perfect, but it's a good pointer.
This situation offered India a unique opportunity to build peace in J&K while launching a dialogue with Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue. We know considerable progress was made in 2008 towards resolution-until the Mumbai attacks happened. It's imperative to explore a solution, even the second-best solution, acceptable to India, Pakistan, and the people of J&K and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Instead, the government lulled itself into complacency and lost the precious opportunity offered by the successful elections and Pakistan's recent withdrawal of large-scale support to the militancy.
Second, recent violence has a pattern, exhibited during the 2008 Amarnath imbroglio, and the Shopian "rape" and "murder" of two women last year. Tactical errors and failure to communicate with the public, coupled with a ham-handed approach to protests, created large-scale turmoil over the yatra within a climate of distrust. The distrust also inflamed feelings in the Shopian case-although it now turns out that the women were neither raped nor murdered.
The new generation of youth harbours suspicion and hatred towards Indian security forces. It grew up in a climate of militancy and savage repression. Many young people have suffered deaths in the family or seen their mothers and sisters humiliated. Unemployment is rampant in the Valley. Most educated youth have no future. But many are Internet-savvy. The government failed to create conditions for a better life for them. For them, pelting stones means defying the Indian state-necessary for self-esteem.
Even more deplorable is the state's resort to colonial-style crowd control, with troops firing on protesters armed with nothing but stones. There is no excuse for not using non-lethal means of crowd management, including water cannons, stun-guns, stink-bombs and tasers (which deliver a stunning, largely harmless, electric shock). As a rule, these must be the principal methods; firing can only be the last resort, in self-defence. The revenge targeting of individuals "to teach them a lesson" must be explicitly illegalised and exemplarily punished.
What Kashmir needs is healing-and restoration of the citizen rights and freedoms that its people have long been denied. This demands a bold political initiative, including the scrapping of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and other draconian laws, release of political prisoners, thinning out of security forces, and retraining of the long-marginalised state police. No less important is dialogue with Pakistan.
The Indian state must not fool itself that its writ will run unquestioned in the Valley. It must address the popular aspiration for autonomy within a soft-borders formula. With vision, the present crisis can be turned into an opportunity.
