PM Manmohan Singh at SKICC during his two day visit to Jammu and Kashmir. Pic: Bilal Bahadur
PM Manmohan Singh at SKICC during his two day visit to Jammu and Kashmir.
Pic: Bilal Bahadur

A senior Journalist is of the opinion that New Delhi is interested to talk to militants only. “The Prime Minister again offered talks to militants with the condition to shun the gun, this is a clear message that India is interested only in talking to militants,” he said arguing “If New Delhi had any intention to talk to the separatists, Manmohan Singh would not have mentioned the word “violence” in his offer, does not he know that the separatists who are active on the political front are not yielding guns?”

Despite the fact that the situation in Kashmir Valley has been relatively calm in recent times, the militant attack on Army convoy in Srinagar last week that killed eight soldiers and wounded more than a dozen came as a nasty surprise for the security agencies.

Political Pundits took it as an “answer” from militants to New Delhi as the attack took place just twenty hours before the Prime Minister’s Kashmir visit. In the normal course, additional security measures are adopted at such times.

The attack was preceded by another incident in the heart of the city, Lal Chowk, only two days earlier killing two police personnel.

“For some years, the Kashmir militancy has been on the boundaries. The carefully-crafted attack of last week should remove any sense of self-satisfaction among a particular political class,” a Pradesh Congress leader told Kashmir Life, apparently pointing towards the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah who has been advocating the revocation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from selective parts of the state including Srinagar.

In recent years, New Deli has carried on a slow dialogue with Pakistan that included some initiatives aimed at boosting trade and travel links between the two countries. But India’s public outreach to Kashmiris themselves is very limited. Even interlocutors’ recommendations for a dialogue with separatists went nowhere.

Without any political process to look to, there is an immense sense of siege and alienation in Kashmir. The hopelessness among the youth has increased even more after they witnessed the violent response from the Indian state for throwing stones and chanting slogans as for picking up arms.

Before Arab Spring, in 2008 and 2010, Kashmiris in large numbers marched peacefully on the streets, seeking a solution to the Kashmir dispute. Not  even a single armed forces personnel was killed in those protests. “But the Indian state responded with imposing curfews, stopping the Internet service, and killing more than 170 young unarmed boys, and wounding thousands,” reads a facebook post. “But nothing happened. Other than thousands of young boys were sent to prisons for protesting and even for what they posted on facebook,” the post added.

After a substantial phase of people’s bitterness with violence and a gradual movement away from an armed struggle towards nonviolent protests and social media campaigns, the gun seems to be returning to the center stage. To many commentators, New Delhi missed an opportunity to engage with a changed environment where the focus was on nonviolence and instead started terming the absence of violence as peace and silence of guns as Kashmir’s acceptance of the Indian rule.

This year, so far has already seen the death of more than 25 armed forces personnel in Kashmir, and a much more sophisticated militancy appears to be active.

President Awaami Etihaad Party (AIP) Er Rashid alleges National Conference and PDP, the largest local unionist Parties, of failing to take up the issue of return of mortal remains of Muhammad Afzal Guru with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Rashid also took a dig at Chief Minister Omar Abdullah saying, “Why CM didn’t demand restoration of pre-1953 position before the Prime Minister and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi at Banihal?”

“Both Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah had claimed that their Papas (fathers) had written a letter to Prime Minister seeking return of mortal remains of Guru. But none of them asked the PM as to what happened to those letters,” said Rashid.

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