Kashmir: on a dangerous slide

India is a constitutional democracy and a secular state, as claimed by its citizens, but the existing ground realties reveal the opposite. Its majority Hindu population is becoming increasingly intolerant of other faiths. If it is not the cow, it has to be some other excuse for Indians to vent their anger on Muslim, Sikh and other minority populations.

This time it is the suicide bombing of a paramilitary convoy in Pulwama in which over 40 Indian soldiers lost their lives and triggered violence against Kashmiri students or anyone who looked like one. In the all-party conference called by the Indian government, a resolution was passed condemning the attack but it was void of an appeal for calm – an obvious nod for mischievous elements to do as they please in an explosive situation.

What we see in Kashmir today is the result of Modi’s failed policies there and a continuation of the mass uprising of 2010 which brought the Kashmiri cause into focus in the region and beyond. Two months ago, in the same locality, Indian army soldiers fired into protesters killing seven innocent Kashmiris. For quite some time, every now and then, Kashmiris gather in hundreds, thousands and hundreds of thousands, as an expression of their revulsion to the oppression by Indian security forces and make their point, but the Modi government and the rulers before him have not wanted to listen even with half an ear.

Initially, some saner voices raised their voices against excesses and injustice in Kashmir but only a few. These people were courageous and spoke out without fear of being branded anti-India or unpatriotic. In the last few years, however, they and anyone else who dares to speak has been pushed back into fear. In Dehradun, Kashmiri students are leaving the city amidst open threats to their safety. Affidavits are being obtained from educational institutions that they will not admit Kashmiri students in the next academic session. In present-day India, there is an overwhelming environment of fear.

No one wants to point out that Dar, the 22-year-old boy who carried out the attack, was a local Kashmiri, and the vehicle used by him was locally manufactured. No one wants to seek clarity how nearly 350 kgs of explosive found its way in a highly sensitive zone or what was its source. It had to be a retired Indian army Sikh general telling the ‘New York Times’ that the explosive, probably meant for widening the highway, could have been stolen from a nearby site. Isn’t this a huge failure of the Indian intelligence agencies because how could a plan like this by a young man on the radar of local police and other agencies go undetected? Besides, enough literature is now available both within India and around the world to cast aspersions on Indian intelligence agencies’ penchant for false-flag operations.

For years now, there is a full-blown resistance movement in Occupied Kashmir and for every action there is going to be a reaction. There is no reflection in Indian intellectual circles on Modi’s Kashmir policy which, for the past four to five years, has relied solely on incremental use of force and has failed miserably to calm tempers of population at large. How and why did the situation reach this stage? As reported in ‘The Hindu’ in 2013, only six Kashmiris joined the ranks of militancy; last year, the figure was close to 200. Ever since Modi boasted about his 56-inche chest and encouraged indiscriminate use of the ‘Goli’ (bullet), violence in the valley spiked manifold

Any distinction by the Indian state between a civilian and a militant is non-existent today. Youth in their teens and twenties are seen by the populace at large as their own sons, brothers, friends, cousins, students, or plain next-door boys. When any one of them dies, the whole valley spontaneously erupts into anger and grief. None of this moves the Indian government towards a resolution of their problems. The rocky three-year alliance between the PDP and the BJP under Mehbooba Mufti fell apart last year as alienated Kashmiris youth further hardened their stance. The more the Modi government employed aggressive tactics against its own people, the more it turned popular opinion in Occupied Kashmir against India. As one newspaper put it, Kashmir today is like an ocean of militarism at a high tide.

In Utter Pradesh (UP), a province with largest minority population of Muslims, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu warrior-priest, has called Indian Muslims “a crop of two-legged animals that has to be stopped”. At another public rally, he said, “We are all preparing for religious war”. Religious war against one’s own people? These frenzied words give a good indication of the prevailing religious fanaticism in so-called secular India.

India is undergoing a metamorphosis of a dangerous kind. As a society, it is going into convulsions which make any prospects of a sensible dialogue a far cry. Some extremists have issued calls to seek and kill Kashmiris just like the pogrom against Sikhs in New Delhi and Muslims in Gujarat. What happened in Jammu the other day could be the outcome of such irresponsible acts. Blaming Pakistan for the incident without a proper investigation and literally within minutes raises questions but India is not bothered. Its media even linked the attack with late Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi who died over ten years ago.

Prime Minister Modi has not mentioned Pakistan by name but his fulminations have left little to imaginations. He rhetorically declared that the Indian security forces have been given a ‘free hand’ to give a befitting reply to those behind the attack. These are hollow words because even the most naïve persons know that it is not backed up by any new provisions of law and the already draconian powers given to the Indian army in Occupied Kashmir have been employed to the fullest. But the trouble-makers on the street anyway took it as a free hand to harm Kashmiris and alienate them further.

India is now toying with different kinetic military options, like another surgical strike by elite commandoes, air strike on targets inside Azad Kashmir, stand-off strikes from inside Indian territory using artillery and long-range rockets, and covert operations, but all these e options are laced with ‘however’ and ‘moreover’ with a high risk of escalation give that there is a general election just round the corner. Prime Minister Imran Khan has asked India to stop blaming Pakistan without any proof or evidence and urged to share any actionable intelligence. He has also warned that if India indulges in any misadventure, Pakistan will not just think but will retaliate for sure.

Writing in the ‘New York Times’, David Brooks says, “Every time you assault a person, you have ripped the social fabric. Every time you see that person deeply and make him known, you have woven it”. Mahatma Gandhi stepped down from his elite status and spun cotton on his famous ‘Charkha’. He would try and heal wounds during communal disturbances in the midst of the independence movement. Narendra Modi’s journey, from railway station to the South block in Delhi, has been a phenomenal one and in some ways more impressive than Gandhi’s – but he is no weaver and sadly no healer of wounds.

The writer is a retired vice admiral.

Email: tajkhattak@ymail.com