The Ghosts of Kashmir

The Ghosts of Kashmir

Written by

AIJAZ ZAKA SYED

Published on

August 13, 2022

AIJAZ ZAKA SYED suggests concrete steps to address the Kashmir problem.

It looks like only yesterday that Omar Abdullah was elected amid much fanfare and crowned as Jammu and Kashmir chief minister.

Rahul Gandhi, probably India’s next prime minister, personally campaigned for Omar. When Omar and Rahul hugged each other amid much cheering and sloganeering in Srinagar, we were all euphoric.

It felt rather good to identify with the two young leaders representing a new India. No wonder all television networks vied with one another to have Omar as a guest in their prime time slot. The guy has the gift of the gab, even if he isn’t in the league of his legendary grandfather, or even his doctor father known for his weakness for good life.

Today, though, India’s youngest chief minister is fighting for survival. He was struggling for words in his rather sombre interview with NDTV’s Barkha Dutt this week. Omar looks like his own ghost, a paler version of his flamboyant self. Gone are the gravitas and chutzpah. I almost feel sorry for him as he assured Barkha he doesn’t have “time to introspect” if he has made “any mistakes.”

But introspect Omar Abdullah must: Why’s Kashmir burning and how he squandered the goodwill and euphoria he earned himself only two summers ago? The army is back on the streets of Srinagar after 15 years in a desperate attempt to rein in violent protests and clashes with security forces that have rocked the state for months now.

Thanks to the endless curfew and the army deployment, the government may have managed to enforce some semblance of order. But this uneasy quiet could be the proverbial lull before the storm. Under the watchful gaze of the army, the unrest may appear to have settled down for now. But as Barkha says, “it’s like trying to cover a boiling cauldron of water -sooner or later, it will spill over.”

Kashmir increasingly looks like Gaza, even if the comparison isn’t politically correct, with angry, stone-pelting kids and youth clashing with the security forces. Since January, scores of young boys have died in police firing, one after another, constantly rocking the Kashmir Valley and bringing thousands of people out on the streets.

In fact, the army was brought out on the streets only after Delhi realized the situation had gotten out of the hands of the hopelessly clueless chief minister. Even as the angry Kashmiris protested over dying youth and more died in the process, Omar talked about the “war of ideas” being fought on the streets of Srinagar, defending the killings by blaming the protesters. “They’re provoking security forces by pelting stones,” he pointed out to the BBC.

Provocative the stone pelting protesters may be. But is this how you respond to protests in a democratic society? Violent demonstrations of this kind are hardly unusual in other parts of the world’s largest democracy. Not just stone-pelting but from burning buses to derailing trains to roughing up public figures, just about everything is de rigueur. No protester is shot dead though. At least, I don’t recall anyone dying in police firing in recent memory.

So why’s this honour exclusive to Kashmiris? Why’re we ever ready to respond to the slightest provocations with bullets? When will we realize that with every bullet fired, we are driving more and more Kashmiris away? How long will we stand and stare while the Valley burns and its people punished for being born in this beautiful prison? When will our politicians and democratic institutions and civil society wake up to the tragedy of Kashmir?

The current wave of protests is even more dangerous than the mayhem of 1990s. Because even at the height of the militancy in 1990s, there was a government in place in Srinagar and it controlled the administration including security forces. Today, it seems, there’s no government, no authority, no rule of law in the state despite the heavy presence of security forces. More important, security forces are not fighting the militants sent from across the border as they did back then.

Today, guns have given way to stones and street protests. And as history of another distant conflict would tell you, fighting guns with guns and violence with greater violence is any day easier than fighting the humble but more potent stones of the protester.

Omar blames Hurriyat and opposition PDP for encouraging protests. Indian Home Minister Chidambaram and opposition BJP agree the protests are being orchestrated by forces from across the border. Statements like these not just insult the intelligence of Kashmiri people but also add fuel to the cauldron that is the Valley. Especially when for the first time the Valley protests have evoked no response from Pakistanis, who are busy fighting the fires closer to home. Most Pakistani papers haven’t had a Kashmir story on their front pages for months now, a fact registered wryly by a BBC commentator.

Kashmir is burning because of the decades of failed policies and actions of the shortsighted, self-serving politicians in Srinagar, Delhi and Islamabad. This surge of violence and protests, ostensibly in response to police firings and faked encounters, is actually a result of decades of suppression, injustice and deprivation.

The long pent-up volcano of Kashmiri anger and frustration has burst open. And it threatens to consume everyone and everything in its path.

This is a movement that is now not in anyone’s control, not the dithering Hurriyat, not the PDP, not even Pakistan. This is a people’s protest, a protest against their own leaders for letting them down, against Pakistan for exploiting them and a protest against Delhi for not keeping its promises all these years.

What Kashmir urgently needs is a healing touch and some dramatic, bold steps by the government in Delhi. If India is keen to win back Kashmiris, perhaps Congress President Sonia Gandhi, not Manmohan Singh, should visit the Valley and talk to ordinary people, especially those who have lost their loved ones over the past few months.

As a mother and as a woman who’s lost her own husband to violence, she’d bring the soft touch that the Valley badly needs. She has already won a billion hearts with her act of self-denial. She could win Kashmiri hearts and minds too by reaching out to an alienated and angry people. Mere rhetoric and empty gestures won’t work anymore though.

The first step to peace and normalcy in Kashmir is a normal approach to the state: That is, stop treating it like a war zone and get more than half a million troops deployed there out. Secondly, and more importantly, start talking to both Kashmiri leadership and Pakistan to sort out this mess once and for all. I mean, real and meaningful talks, not the kind of photo opportunities we have had so far. This is the only way to bring peace to this breathtakingly beautiful, but cursed land.

The K knot came closest to resolution under Vajpayee and Musharraf notwithstanding the BJP’s and the general’s hawkish posturing and tough rhetoric. When the Congress coalition took over, many thought it would carry forward the initiative. But it was not to be. The Congress hasn’t quite mustered the courage. Under Sonia and Manmohan Singh though, the UPA government has a historic opportunity to put the ghosts of Kashmir to rest forever and gift South Asia a lasting legacy of peace. Soft borders, greater autonomy or a special status recognised by India and Pakistan … some solution ought to and must work for God’s sake! Kashmir deserves a break now.

[Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times.  Write to him at [email protected]]