How Modi government can avoid Kashmir slipping from India's hands
One of the interlocutors of the Yashwant Sinha-led Concerned Citizens Group had apparently warned, “Don’t let this wound become cancerous.”
This is patently an outdated and misleading diagnosis because the malaise in Kashmir is surely already cancerous. It is, in fact, at an advanced stage but thankfully not in the terminal stage as yet.
Kashmiri youth, born after 1985, comprising 68 per cent of the population, already declare that, “We now celebrate the martyrdom,..” and further that, “The best thing for which we are thankful is that your use of weapons, including pellet guns has killed the fear in us.”
According to some, southern Kashmir already resembles a "liberated zone." The state government has lost all credibility. The Hurriyat now stands completely exposed and discredited. And "stone pelters” who have been subjected to incessant and increasingly violent attacks on their self-dignity and physical security carry on despite absence of any leadership.
Malignancy
These are signs of advanced stages of malignancy. It needs urgent surgical intervention. Certainly not by further hardening Army’s response but by Modi directly owning up to the concerns of the Kashmiris by treating stone-pelters as misguided youth rather than potential terrorists and delivering a clean, corruption-free governance directly from Delhi.
Modi should ask the media to turn down the rhetoric and present a more balanced picture rather than treating all Kashmiris as militants or terrorists. Delhi should "soften" its stand vis-a-vis the misguided youth who are increasingly desperate and alienated.
It should harden the stance even more against soldiers of global jihad who have now spread mortal fear among the population, which sees itself caught between the Indian Army’s unmitigated hard stance on the street and jihadi bloodletting on the other. Delhi should also try and find credible negotiators among the youth and wean them away from violence.
Modi should ignore the threat, held out by some who propagate unconditional and unending negotiations, of more catastrophic events about to unfold in the Valley. Those who suggest four-way negotiations are barking up the wrong tree on two important counts.
Firstly, with pervasive malignancy afflicting the Valley, open ended negotiations with no defined outcomes or timelines will give wrong signals of India’s vulnerability to jihadi inspired violence. Negotiations with discredited Hurriyat are at dead end any way. A surgical approach is needed that seeks to improve governance across all dimensions, including that of making the Army firmly accountable to an honest civilian authority.
Secondly, those who suggest negotiating with Pakistan inexplicably do not still realise that negotiating with the political leadership in Islamabad is simply futile. Our PM tried all he could to build rapport with Nawaz Sharif who was roundly rebuffed and reprimanded by Rawalpindi.
Pakistan GHQ will make sure that Nawaz cannot move an inch towards improving Indo-Pak relations. Modi, in his search for a grand solution, has shown that he can ignore protocol and diplomatic norms. He could even agree to negotiate with Pakistan army generals.
The painful truth, however, is that Rawalpindi is prepared to become a client state of China but not accept India’s hand in friendship. And in the world of "real politics" it is unfortunately Rawalpindi and not Islamabad that matters. The "Pakistani Deep State", will never come to the negotiating table.
There are a few starting assumptions for a possible solution. First, is to recognise that there are no credible and influential leaders in the Valley today. An honest leadership committed to the welfare of Kashmiri youth will have to be identified.
Agitation
Second, those actually involved in the agitation may be themselves a small minority, but they do surely reflect widely held sentiments of extreme alienation from governments both in Srinagar and Delhi, especially the Army. Third, the GoI and government in Srinagar have failed in their bounden duty to honestly deliver basic public services, especially after the calamitous floods.
Delhi must share the blame for Kashmir representing the worst aspects of governance failure that has afflicted our entire country for decades.
Fourth, the agitation in Kashmir has long gone out of the hands of those wanting azadi or autonomy. It is now been run by jihadis with global support that is funneled to the Valley via the well-oiled and sophisticated ISI network. As in Afghanistan, ISI thinks that it can cleverly ride the Jihadi tiger in Kashmir to serve its own interests unmindful of the disasters it wrecks on its own Pakistani citizens.
Governance
In the above framework, Delhi must directly establish credible, efficient and effective governance in Srinagar. No timelines need be adopted and announced but the target must be to assure the common Kashmiri that her life, property and fundamental rights guaranteed by our Constitution are protected.
On the other hand, the perception of a "liberated zone" having been created in the southern Kashmir, must be quashed by liquidating the terrorists and at the same time assuring the Kashmiri people that their self-dignity and interests will be protected at all time and at all costs.
Finally, with global jihad raising its stakes, all talk of autonomy for Kashmir must be withdrawn for the time being. The fight against global jihadis operating in Kashmir today cannot be compromised as it attacks the most cherished values of the common Kashmiri, and indeed of all Indians who want to live in a truly secular and pluralistic society.
India will do the world a big service by comprehensively defeating those who are trying to impose Wahhabism in Kashmir. The answer must be to establish sustained good governance in Srinagar and win back the trust and confidence of the people especially the youth.
At the same time, the Army should be moved back, steadily but surely, to the LOC to prevent jihadi infiltration by all means at its command.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)