Back to square one in Kashmir

Manoj Joshi

Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi

In Greek mythology, it is called ‘hubris’, defined in English as ‘excessive pride’, or indeed, ‘overweening arrogance’. In ancient Greek theology, those who succumbed to hubris were struck down by the goddess, Nemesis. Something like this seemed to have happened to the Union government in Kashmir.

In Kashmir, we have a policy driven by suppression of politics and a half-baked notion of nationhood.

For the past two years, the government has boasted about how its policy — the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A — had brought peace and development to the Kashmir Valley. As a result, it was at last possible to enable Kashmiri Pandit refugees to return to their homeland and jobs.

Today, as hapless Pandits seek to flee the Valley out of the all-too-human instinct of self-preservation, the government has been trying to stop them. An unofficial estimate said that over 300 Pandits had reached Jammu by Saturday. As The Tribune reported on Sunday, migrants are demanding that the government revoke the bond they were made to sign making their posting in the Valley mandatory.

Some 6,000 Pandit refugees got jobs in the Valley in the past year and more under the PM package which provided for housing and employment. The government also constructed transit accommodation in different districts of the Valley for these returnees. The authorities have now tried to invoke these bonds to prevent the frightened Pandits from leaving. The reality is that all this while all that the authorities had done was to have constructed a set of Potemkin villages to show us that everything was hunky-dory. In reality, there was no security outside the transit camps.

Government policy was based on unleashing a wave of unprecedented repression in the Valley, targeting not just the militants and terrorists, but all sections of Kashmiri public opinion and the media. This has led to an apathetic and sullen population which in turn has enabled the militancy to mutate back into terrorism. Caught in the crossfire are unarmed innocents, mainly Kashmiri Pandits but also others, especially local police personnel, who are seen as instruments of government policy, rather than hapless victims of circumstances.

From 2019 onwards, the Modi government adopted what appeared to be a scorched earth strategy in Kashmir. The fig leaf of autonomy under Article 370 was rudely thrown away and in a move of dubious constitutionality, the state was demoted to the status of a Union Territory. Valley politicians, some who had served as Union ministers and chief ministers were placed in detention. The state has been ruled directly from New Delhi since, removing the often useful space that is needed for good governance between the Union and state governments.

All this was layered upon an earlier Operation All Out aimed at finishing off militancy. And this was accompanied by loud boasts about the government’s success in breaking the back of militancy and making the resettlement of Kashmiri Pandits possible.

At the HT leadership summit in December 2021, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the de facto head of the Kashmir administration, repeated his favourite theme as to how the abrogation of Article 370 had opened the doors to peace and development of the state. In a visit to the Valley in March 2022, Shah had reeled out facts and figures pointing to the decrease in violence in the state.

Facts and data often look better on paper than in reality — the number of militants killed, arrested, the weapons seized, of Pandits rehabilitated, of MoUs signed and so on. But there is one metric difficult to judge — the mood of the people, though this has been more or less obvious to all but the government. The repression unleashed in the last six years has left sullen masses that may not be out in the streets protesting, but neither are they supportive of the government measures.

The militancy which was under considerable military pressure has reverted to outright terrorism. The battle is no longer with AK-47s and RPGs, but simply pistols and grenades, since the targets are unarmed people, and it is that much easier to conceal such weapons. Space has been created for what the authorities say are a breed of hybrid militants who live ostensibly normal lives, but on demand, carry out strikes, usually shooting unarmed targets like the Pandits and off-duty policemen. Though, as the Army itself acknowledged last June, the number of Pakistani terrorists in the Valley has declined, you can be sure that our friends in the ISI are directing the hybrid operations. But the reality is that they are working on a ground fertilised by the Modi government’s acts of omission and commission.

The Central forces and intelligence agencies have done a commendable job in ensuring that militant groups have faced steady attrition in the Valley. But this is not unusual and has been the story of the last two decades. The reality is that one leader is killed, he is replaced by another. The issue is not killing so many militants and seizing their guns, but ensuring that the gun no longer plays a role in Kashmir’s politics. This is not an impossible task, India has in the past, succeeded in doing it in Mizoram and Punjab.

And the lesson from there is well known to Indian political leaders, including those of the BJP, but they are currently ignoring it. This is the salience of politics in any counter-militancy process. In the case of Kashmir, this also requires diplomacy because of Pakistan. Instead, we have a policy driven by the suppression of politics and a half-baked notion of nationhood.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.