Is Kashmir poised for a fresh cycle of militancy? Some sections would like us to believe so, some fear so. And if so, who will benefit from its recurrence. Certainly, not Kashmiris. Ahmad Riyaz reports.
What has lent impetus to the apprehensions of another cycle of armed militancy engulfing Kashmir is not the marked increase in the militancy related incidents, which stand at their lowest in years but the fast shifting geopolitical situation in the region. Even though, Valley has witnessed some high profile militant attacks in the recent past, most of these have been concentrated in the north Kashmir town of Sopore. However, the rest of the Valley, chiefly Srinagar and the downtown Baramulla have seen an increase in the stone-throwing protests over the past three years. And there is hardly any apparent tendency in the new generation to get back to armed militancy.
Security establishment in Valley, however, would want us to believe there is.
In fact, in their explanations of the growing incidence of the stone throwing in the Valley in recent years, police have been prompt to “trace” it to a “nexus” between militant outfits and the stone throwers. In fact, police has said that many a youth who participated in stone throwing had militant connections.
But in the Valley nobody is ready to buy the police explanation of the events of the past three years. Not even the mainstream political class. “The worst disservice done by the present coalition to Kashmir is to project the stone pelters as terrorists. Attaching tags of LeT, paid agents and anti-nationals to the Kashmiris is a completely wrong picture of the situation,” People’s Democractic President Mehbooba Mufti says. “This stereotyping of Kashmiris by their own government is condemnable”.
Separatist leaders, on the other hand, – even those espousing a hardline – want a peaceful struggle for the resolution of Kashmir. Hurriyat (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani makes no bones about the fact that a recourse to armed militancy is not in the interest of Kashmir. He says that it is New Delhi which wants Kashmiri youth to pick up the gun again as it would suit the country more than a peaceful struggle. “India wants militancy to return to Valley as it would provide it an excuse to put down the freedom struggle with a heavy hand with nobody in the world complaining,” Geelani says.
He, however, says that New Delhi’s “repressive methods were pushing the Kashmiri youth to the wall and narrowing the scope for a peaceful struggle.” He says he has turned back several groups of desperate youth who, being held back from peaceful protests by the government, wanted to return to armed resistance.
“But I told them that by doing so you would be only doing what New Delhi wants you to do. New Delhi wants Kashmiris to turn militants so that it could label the freedom movement as terrorist (one),” Geelani says.
”A militant movement will deprive Kashmiris of global sympathy and also give India an excuse to use full force against the people of the state. An armed resistance will make things easy for the government as they wouldn’t have to explain their actions to anybody”.
On the other hand, army in the Valley does not think that Kashmir is free from militancy despite the fact that the militant attacks have substantially gone down over the years.
“Normalcy is a big word and the problem of militancy is there since past 20 years. Although last year witnessed lesser militancy related incidents, it cannot be said that normalcy has returned,” Gen Syed Ata Hasnain, GOC of Srinagar based 15 Corps, recently told reporters at Watergam, Rafiabad in north Kashmir. He said that the militants were still present in the Valley and have the potential to increase the violence levels anytime. “The statistics of 20-year-old militancy shows strange predictability”.
Situation in Kashmir over the past two decades has shown a certain pattern, which makes it both predictable and unpredictable. It doesn’t take time for a normal situation to plunge right back into turmoil and then regain fast some semblance of normalcy. Even though 2010 had started with some high-profile militancy related incidents including even a fidayeen attack in Lal Chowk triggering dark prophecies of a “hot year” ahead, the subsequent summer instead witnessed a massive public groundswell instead of the resurgence of militant violence. And the winter this year has seen Sopore turning hot again. This has brought back a sense of de javu. There are again predictions of a violent year ahead. Police has created an impression that the stone throwers are either exploited by militants or joining militancy themselves.
Security projections for this year sound familiar. Violence is expected to further spiral in the coming months as the militants are understood to have successfully regrouped themselves and are determined to assert their presence through a qualitative shift in their approach and strategy. However, there is other opinion also. And this sees a replication of the 2010 mass unrest in the offing. Now that the valley is heading out of winter, the spring and summer ahead is seen prone to a fresh turbulence. And many observers see in the successful Tunisian and Egypt unrest and its spillover across other Arab countries a fresh impetus for the protests in the Valley.
Arab uprisings, it is said, can act as source of inspiration at a time when the local sources of anger in Valley have become predictable and the leadership of the last year’s uprising feels defensive about the way they have led it. “Egypt has shown the way for a leaderless struggle,” says Naseer Ahmad, author of the book Kashmir Ending. Naseer has keenly followed the huge amount of interest exhibited in the developments in Egypt across social networking sites in Valley. Youth in the Valley, he says, are hooked to the protests in Mideast. “They are almost cheering the people there on. This does create a possibility that they would like to replicate the experiment in Kashmir”.
Recourse to militancy, on the other hand, comes a distant second as a possible scenario for this year. However, what gives this possibility a degree of inevitability is the shifting geopolitical paradigm in the region. To figure this out, it is useful to understand the geo-political context that framed the situation in Kashmir in recent years and which led to the decline in the violence in the first place. In a post 9/11 world, Kashmir, for the most part, has been relegated to a footnote. Besides, violent nature of the political conflict in the state easily lent itself to the new terror description which fundamentally shifted the US perception of the situation in the state.
This in turn even impacted the positions of India and Pakistan on the state, with Islamabad losing the credibility of its ‘’moral and diplomatic support’’ to Kashmir cause. India, on the other hand, suddenly found takers for its secular standing on the state which went a long way in depriving the armed campaign in the state of its essentially Azadi credentials. The drop in Kashmir violence, which kind of coincided with this process owed itself to these geopolitical factors, besides, of course, Pakistan’s pre-occupation with the war in Afghanistan and the peace process between India and Pakistan during the second half of the former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf’s tenure that many believe had brought Kashmir closer to settlement.
With the US now increasingly looking to exit Afghanistan, the region looks set for a fierce tug of war not only between India and Pakistan but also between China and India. Will this shift make militancy once again relevant to Kashmir plot after running out of favour for some years. More so, at a time, when Kashmir has become important in US president Barack Obama’s Af-Pak scheme as a key factor in establishing peace in the region.
There is one more explanation, and a scary one. Will Kashmir now become an inextricable part of the Great Game being played out in Afghanistan? Will a seamless axis of violence stretching from Kabul to Srinagar be a future possibility. And if it does, to whose benefit will such a scenario be? Will Kashmir dispute get a renewed world attention prompting calls for its settlement or will the separatist struggle already seen in some sections of global opinion as an extension of Islamist jihad further lose the sympathy. In Kashmir the opinion seems to veer to the latter outcome. Kashmir will be worse off for the violence.
This opinion is interestingly pioneered by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, the former militant outfit which founded the militancy in the state in 1989. “Kashmiris are the only people in the world who transitioned from violence to non-violence. And the world needs to appreciate it,” says JKLF supremo Yasin Malik whose outfit was the first to renounce armed resistance in 1994.
However, does militancy still have any chance of coming back to Valley? PDP, the Valley’s major mainstream party, believes that it cannot. “No, I don’t think militancy will stage a return in Valley. Kashmiris have made a conscious of decision to transition to peaceful means of struggle,” Chief Spokesman of PDP Naeem Akhter told Kashmir Life. “The past three years have seen Kashmiris taking to roads with a reason. There is now a collective stake in protecting the non-violent nature of the movement”.
Kashmir University academician Prof Sheikh Showkat, however, says that the sustained harassment of the youth in Kashmir was once again creating conditions for militancy in the state. “The way the youth are being hounded all across the Valley, not being allowed to visit their homes, government seems deliberately trying to push them back to the militancy,” Sheikh Showkat told Kashmir Life. He, however, said that a return to gun would harm Kashmir cause. “Kashmiris do not want militancy back. If it does, it will certainly not be in Kashmir’s interest”.
On the other hand, will Pakistan stand to gain from a new cycle of armed resistance in Kashmir? In fact, Islamabad’s role is one of the most debated part of the separatist struggle in the state. Pakistan has always been blamed for stoking the fires in the state. According to New Delhi, Islamabad stands most to gain from a troubled Kashmir. And this line partly finds some resonance in the West also where Pakistan is now routinely accused of sending the militants across this side of the state.
However, Valley looks differently at Pakistan’s role in the state. A predominant section of the opinion in the state – and this includes a section of the mainstream political opinion – sees nothing wrong in Islamabad’s meddling. “Islamabad is a party to the dispute over Kashmir. It has an inalienable right to make diplomatic and political efforts for the settlement of Kashmir,” says spokesman for Hurriyat (G) Ayaz Akber. However, Hurriyat (G) doesn’t think that Islamabad is responsible for the violence in the state. “The responsibility for the armed resistance in Kashmir lies squarely with India. It is New Delhi which has denied Kashmiris their right to self-determination for the past 63 years. And it is fundamentally this denial that forced Kashmiri youth to pick up gun”.
However, a more objective opinion in the Valley feels that Islamabad might be “tempted” to add a militant dimension to Kashmir struggle in the “post US scenario”.
“US’ exit from Afghanistan holds every possibility of turning Kabul into a fresh battleground between India and Pakistan. We can very well see the repeat of the scenario that was played out in Afghanistan and Kashmir after the withdrawal of USSR from Kabul towards the end of eighties,” says Naseer. “There is every possibility that what followed thereafter in Kashmir may come to pass once again. This time the situation can change for the worse with superpower China acting as a factor”.
But not all buy this opinion. According to Shiekh Showkat, Pakistan would love to encourage the peaceful protests in Kashmir because of their obvious gains in today’s world. “Leave aside Pakistan, which country in the world today would prefer violence in an area where there is already a robust peaceful struggle going on which also benefits its cause. And this in Kashmir’s case is the fight for the resolution of the historical dispute over the state,” says Prof Showkat. “On the contrary, Pakistan, already under assault for allegedly encouraging Taliban in Afghanistan would like as much as possible to be seen off Kashmir”.
As far as New Delhi is concerned, there is a section of opinion, which thinks that the country will benefit from a new spell of armed militancy in the state. “New Delhi has a well-oiled machinery to take on militancy. The country doesn’t have to open a new chapter,” says Iftikhar Ahmad, a Kashmir University student. “Besides, given the prevailing terror discourse in the world this will help the country to project Kashmir movement as a terrorist struggle”.
There is, however, some defence for the New Delhi’s approach to Kashmir dispute also. “Why, India would as well prefer a normal Kashmir with its people reaching a degree of accommodation with the country than a violent Kashmir,” says Naseer Ahmad. “Besides, even with a peaceful Kashmir, India has shown it can do a far better job of managing its international fallout. World at the same time is not ready to hear anything adversarial against India’s record in Kashmir as the last year’s unrest has more than underlined”.
This leaves resurgence of the militancy in Kashmir a subject which though severely opposed by the people of the state and also not seen in the interest of either India or Pakistan – except, may be as propaganda tool for New Delhi – can hardly be defined purely in black and white terms. Militancy in Kashmir is not only a function of the complex geo-political factors like the ongoing war in Afghanistan and how US, Pakistan and India sort it out but also the evolving situation in Kashmir and how New Delhi deals with it. For, beyond the geo-politics of the region, there is an ample scope for the homegrown militancy in a disaffected Kashmir, supported, of course by the independently acting groups in Pakistan. To whose benefit? Not in Kashmir’s at least. But this is not how movements by their very nature are ultimately born, by a mathematical calculation of the loss and gain.
