Rise above rhetoric

The killing of three stone-throwing youths at the encounter site in Kashmir’s Budgam district on Tuesday, unfortunate and avoidable as it was, comes days after the Army Chief, Gen Bipin Rawat’s warning to the civilian protesters not to hamper counter-terror operations and directions to the security forces to deal with such interventions sternly. The security forces, when engaged in operations against gun-wielding militants, by the very nature of their assigned task of rooting out terrorism, cannot be expected to be sitting ducks in the shower of bullets from one side and stones from the other.  Simultaneously, what needs to be understood that why these protesting youths rush to the gun battles. Such is the level of radicalisation in Kashmir that young motivated villagers, throwing caution to the wind, rush to the place of encounter to rescue the “mujahideen” or holy warriors. They consider it a religious obligation. 

The original movement that centred on political freedom from India has transformed into a religious movement against the PDP-BJP alliance, which is seen as representing the RSS-backed Hindu state. This expansion of Islamic radicalism  in which the identity of Kashmiris as part of the Muslim “ummah”  across the world transcending all physical and political boundaries  has led to  the ascendancy of  religion over political  issues. The peace constituency is in retreat because its stakeholders side with the radical narrative. The stone-throwers are unarmed civilians but their religious indoctrination and the spirit to overwhelm the Army makes them risk their lives. Emotions have got ingrained in this religious movement. It is a depressing scenario. 

These killings do not give the security forces the upper hand. They get “coal rolled” by political and human rights groups. Besides, these give legitimacy to the Hurriyat call for shutdown and protests. The militants' deaths stand excluded from such protests, which are also aimed at drawing global attention to the movement.  The stakeholders in peace should counter this by some real-time action on the ground to win the peace-loving masses to their side, rather than echoing the tired rhetoric of dialogue and peace.