There can never be a doubt that the decision to amend Article 370 of the Indian Constitution through an Act of Parliament on August 5, 2023, was bold, appropriate and rightly timed. However, four years after the decision, everyone seems in a hurry to declare that the proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir is over and only the celebration is left. Lt Governor Manoj Sinha needs a round of applause for having handled the challenging post-abrogation situation most sensitively; the right gestures and the right words have invariably accompanied his many decisions.
However, a 76-year-old problem and a 34-year-old proxy war will not just go away. The encounters in the Rajouri-Poonch sector in April-May this year and the ongoing encounters at Hallan forest near Kulgam and at the LoC in Rajouri, which have resulted in abnormally high loss of lives of soldiers, give evidence of efforts to ratchet up a confrontation with the security forces and seek new areas for that. Dying embers of proxy internal conflict often give out-of-proportion results to terror groups. Many times, this emboldens them to rekindle and give a surge to violence.
I write this sitting in Srinagar so my observations are based on the opinion I seek from the ground. Among the achievements everyone listed is the return of freedom of movement. The airport has flights coming in even at night and security checkpoints have reduced to a great extent. What normal society anywhere in the world enjoys most is family outings for movies, dining out or simply a late-night cup of coffee, plus picnics on holidays. The latter was always a favourite with the people of Kashmir with outsized picnic baskets but now there are more smiles around to accompany those. People are socialising and enjoying the benefits of near normalcy, something which the rest of India was doing to a much greater extent after 1991, when economic liberalisation began and the shackles of socialism diluted. That is when in Kashmir, conflict initiation towards a full-blown proxy war was underway. In essence, what the citizens of J&K are savouring today is something that they missed for 32 years. INOX theatres, multi-cuisine restaurants and coffee shops, and the excellent tourist season which is ensuring more money in pockets, are all contributing towards ‘emerging normalcy’.
The term ‘emerging normalcy’ may seem cynical since I am praising the government’s achievements in development parameters and yet not giving it a clean chit of normalcy. There is a reason for that. Conflicts do not end in such rosy ways especially if they are sponsored proxy ones. This was never a clean soldier-against-soldier affair, it was a dirty hybrid war perpetrated for 30 years with a purpose. The purpose was to infuse the idea of ‘Azaadi’ and the feasibility of achieving it by the devious use of terror and all its accompanying practices and activities. Separatists, sponsored and financed by Pakistan, used religious ideology to infuse a sense of separate identity among Kashmiris and their willingness to condone the use of violence to achieve that end. We used hard power and subsequently a lot of soft power to cajole the more balanced and pragmatic citizens but it was never enough. Violence was controlled by the effectiveness of our security forces but everything else, which enabled it, remained almost intact.
Overground workers continued with soft separatism, many times running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Financial conduits, safe houses, narcotics and arms networks functioned at will. Stone throwers received monthly allowances since the practice became a virtual profession. The media was always free and too often pandered to separatist sentiments. From 2017, when the government decided to commence targeting these networks, many of them got dented but were too deep-rooted to be completely eradicated. When the final decision was taken on August 5, 2019, the task began of dismantling these enablers of terrorism with real earnestness. Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic placed blocks in the way of both, the process of dismantling networks and the development of better administration. Effectively, the UT government had just two years to perform. It’s done so admirably, but the task of dismantlement is obviously not over.
Too many people with a low orientation towards security parameters involved in proxy conflicts imagine that this is a switch-on, switch-off situation. Even if the best administration is provided and the most optimum development parameters are achieved, it is no guarantee of permanent change. A grey zone continues to exist. Efforts to have better integration among the people of the Jammu and Kashmir region are yet insufficient. The purpose of keeping the two regions together as a UT was to ensure that Jammu’s pull towards India is replicated in Kashmir. It is an area which needs much more focus and the people of Jammu have to assume their responsibility with great seriousness.
The Lt Governor and his administration will achieve much more in economic and even political domains in the near future, but a bounce back of separatism and terrorism is related more to the social, ideological and psychological domains. The decision to allow the 8th Muharram processions in Srinagar has been an absolute clincher. It was laden with risk but some smart intelligence work by police and intelligence agencies contributed to the success. Progressive risks such as this will need to be borne to keep dynamism alive. Youth in Kashmir is happy with the freedom of movement, women are satisfied with the openness provided. The majority of them come for national day events, sing the national anthem and swear their loyalty to the nation.
Yet, anyone who senses Kashmiri sentiments will tell you that here too, a grey zone exists. The leadership will need to engage with the youth far more and convey the right narratives for this to substantially change. There aren’t enough people of substance doing this. Kashmir needs several more Manoj Sinhas who feel and convey the right sentiment. It’s not just in Srinagar but in those hotspots of Tral, Pulwama, Shopian and Kulgam where this engagement must take place. The Army’s assistance in conducting this engagement is almost mandatory. The engagement must also happen at Aligarh, Jamia Milia and JNU in Delhi, in Bengaluru, Indore and several of those newly sprouted private universities where Kashmir’s youth flocks. These are young people fairly confused by the clash of national narratives with those they hear many times back home. Constant messages of positivity drawn up in consultation with sociologists and psychologists will ensure even better acceptance.
I do feel that the Centre should not hurry on the conduct of elections, although there will be a lot of pressure, local and international. Currently, after long, there is convergence of thinking at Delhi and Srinagar. Elections cannot guarantee its continuity. We are currently at too delicate a juncture. Local body elections, to give a sense of involvement with the development efforts, have taken place. These must continue at the appropriate intervals.
We may be sensing reduced Pakistani involvement at the moment. This could surge any time after elections are held there. Much of it will involve religious indoctrination against which we need to be better prepared, it being our vulnerability. Taking nationalist clergy on board may not be a bad idea.
The writer is a former GOC of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps and Chancellor, Central University of Kashmir. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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