Three Recent Events Prove the Alarm Bells Are Ringing Louder Than Ever in Kashmir
The Wire
Manoj Joshi
Dated March 25, 2019
Three Recent Events Prove the Alarm Bells Are
Ringing Louder Than Ever in Kashmir
The most alarming of these events was the
custodial death of a Jamaat member and school principal – likely due to
torture.
We know
that events in Jammu and Kashmir have been sliding backwards for some time now.
The rising death toll in the Valley, the increased recruitment of Valley
inhabitants into the armed militancy and the repeated crackdowns and curfews
have been signalling this for a while. But three events in recent weeks are
ringing the alarm bells louder than ever.
The first was the custodial death of Rizwan
Asad Pandit earlier this month. He was reportedly a Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu &
Kashmir (JIJK) activist and school principal, who had been arrested by the
National Investigation Agency. The second was the banning of the JIJK itself
and the third, the ban on the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.
These events seem to suggest that the clock is
being turned back in Jammu and Kashmir. It almost seems as though we are back
in the 1990s with its unrelenting violence, the use of torture and mass
repression. And all this is being done as a deliberate act of policy.
The most alarming development was Pandit’s
death. A preliminary autopsy submitted by the Government Medical College,
Srinagar has said that he died of “excessive bleeding caused by deep wounds on
his body”. Though the final report will only be out in two weeks or so, the
indications are that he was beaten to death.
Explaining the JIJK and JKLF
As for the JIJK, it has had a chequered
history. Popular with the educated middle classes and the young, it has moved
from constitutionalism to militant radicalism and back to constitutionalism in
the last 50 years. The JIJK is distinct from either the Jamaat-e-Islami-Hind or
counterpart organisations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and, indeed, Pakistan
itself.
In the 1970s, it openly advocated
participation in elections in the state. Its top leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani
was elected as an MLA thrice. It was loss in the rigged elections of 1987 that
triggered Mohammed Yusuf Shah aka Syed Salahuddin’s radicalism.
Subsequently, under the leadership of Geelani
and Salahuddin, the history of the organisation and the insurgency that broke
out in 1990 were intertwined. It was the JIJK which was openly pro-Pakistan,
that provided the leadership and the bulk of the cadre for the Hizbul
Mujahideen which had worked to turn the JKLF uprising for “azadi” into one for
a merger with Pakistan.
But the Indian response, which led to the
deaths and arrests of hundreds of its cadre, led to a re-think in the Jamaat
under the leadership of Ghulam Mohammed Bhat. It self-consciously distanced
itself from the militant group, which meant distancing itself from both Syed
Ali Shah Gilani and Hizbul Muhaideen leader Syed Salahuddin who now lives in Muzaffarabad. Gilani protested, but
Bhat’s views prevailed in the organisation and Gilani was sidelined in the
JIJK.
Bhat was instrumental in getting the All
Parties Hurriyat Conference to adopt a resolution saying that it would not
oppose the state assembly elections that were later held in 2002. Subsequently,
Geelani was dropped as a political adviser. In 2004, the top-most
decision-making body of the organisation, the Majlis-e-Shoora, committed itself
to “democratic and constitutional struggle”.
In 2008, the then Amir, Sheikh Mohammed Hassan, officially announced
that it would not participate in the boycott of the assembly elections called
for by the Hurriyat.
Over the years, Jamaat chiefs had realised
that involvement with the militancy was costing them their ability to function
as a socio-religious group. The JIJK leadership therefore led the organisation
back to the point where it was running educational institutions and organising
campaigns against Westernisation of the youth.
As for the JKLF, it initiated the Kashmir
insurgency, but they were soon a spent force. With their leaders killed or
under arrest – some betrayed by the Hizbul Mujahideen cadre – they officially
declared a unilateral ceasefire and their leader Yasin Malik was released from
jail in mid 1994. Having burnt their bridges in Pakistan, the JKLF remain a
token force in J&K. Indeed, it was soon acceptable enough for Yasin Malik
to be presented at a meeting with the new prime minister, Manmohan Singh, in
2005. That nothing came of this is another matter.
Have they moved back to violence?
The government actions now would suggest that
both the JIJK and JKLF have backtracked, and are once again committed to
violent separatism. If so, the government itself is squarely to blame. A
judicious mix of tough policing and political outreach had more or less
neutralised these organisations. If the government is now cracking down on
them, it must ask itself as to why things have come to this pass.
The government may cite Pulwama as the reason
for its action, but the mess in Kashmir predates that. It goes back to 2016 and
Operation All Out, aimed at an all-or-nothing approach that has refused to
discriminate between political dissidence and armed militancy.
With reference to Pulwama, there are still a
lot of explanations the government must provide over its intelligence failure
that allowed a huge amount of explosives to get through the Line of Control and
for Pakistani terrorists to fabricate a sophisticated car bomb and use it with
devastating effect against the hapless CRPF convoy. Wrapping themselves with
the national flag cannot be an alibi for the failure.
Over the weekend, two sets of explanations
appeared for the JIJK and JKLF bans. Both appear to be post-facto explanations.
A reporter known for her excellent sources in
the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a report that the ban was an outcome of
the Jammu and Kashmir high court’s dismissal of a plea for the transfer of a
case relating to the killing of four unarmed IAF personnel in 1990. What the
report suggests is that the government plans to revisit the entire outbreak of
the militancy in 1988-1990. How much of this will be justiciable 30 years later
is the big question, especially when it relates to insurgency and terrorism.
A second report attributed to a “senior
official” says that the JIJK was responsible for channelling Kashmiri youth
back into the militancy in the last couple of years. They had been using their
network of schools to promote an anti-Indian feeling. The report seems to
contradict other reportage that suggests that the enhanced recruitment in the
Valley had very local factors and were often linked to the emotions aroused by
the killing of local militants and their funerals.
But perhaps there is a simpler explanation for
all that has been happening. The
Bharatiya Janata Party has seen the Pulwama blasts and the subsequent clash
with Pakistan as a golden opportunity to give life to its election campaign. To
show to the electorate that it is tough on terror, it is cynically torching the
existing Kashmir policy, aimed at bringing reconciliation with the separatists.
This was a policy that had achieved a great deal and brought the state back
from the brink.
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