Hawala arrests in Kashmir

The Kashmir Valley endured yet another lockdown on Tuesday. The reason this time was relatively trivial: mere arrests of seven people associated with various factions of the separatist leadership. But the Centre's narrative built up since the National Investigating Agency (NIA) raided the houses of several businessmen and pro-separatist leaders in Srinagar in May suggests that the arrests could expose the entire chain of actors behind the pelting of security forces with stones, burning of schools and damaging government properties. This is New Delhi’s second major attempt to financially garrote militancy after the spectacular disappointment with demonetisation when neither the protesters felt deterred nor did militants stop taking on the security forces.  

Turn the pages of history and we find a government of the same ideological complexion had tried to pressure the Hurriyat leadership with income-tax raids. As subsequent events show, the alleged seizure of cash at that time did not impair the separatists’ ardour to take on the Indian establishment. This time, the Centre has repeatedly stated its intention to give no quarters and instead crush militancy with brute force. The Kashmir terror funding case is part of the bouquet of measures under an unremittingly tough security line. The Modi government may even consider this a win-win approach. The BJP can potentially reap a rich electoral bounty in 2019 if the approach of unceasing confrontation is successful while failure can be conveniently hung around the necks of anti-nationalists. 

The moribund Kashmiri separatist leadership too has failed to reinvent itself or induct fresh blood in its ranks. That is why many malcontented youngsters have opted for the gun instead of politics under the Hurriyat banner. The Centre may pat itself on the back for putting the separatists on the back-foot but it must be aware that this approach alone cannot resolve the problem of alienation. This road has been travelled too many times, currently with opposition politicians in the mainland as well.  The Kashmiris will find other forms for expressing their unhappiness and some of it can be even more virulent. For now, it is for the separatists to redeem themselves.