 "Protesters throwing stones on police vehicle during a protest following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani along with his two associates, in Srinagar on Saturday Photo: PTI")
My landlord in Patiala, Chief Manager with the State Bank of Patiala, a jovial Sikh once narrated the story of another Sardar who got so fed up with the cops stopping his scooter in Patiala all the time to check for weapons or explosives that he got the lid of his side dicky taken off completely to allow any and every cop a look-in. This was during the terrible days in the 1980s when the Khalistani movement was at its peak and Punjab police (predominantly Sikh) was one of the major targets. Hindu traders and businessmen (and many others no doubt) were also targeted, but they had the option of migrating out of Punjab and settling in Haryana or other states which many of them did, suffering big setbacks though.
The story (or perhaps the legend) of Burhan Wani — parts of it narrated in gushing tone by some — is somewhat similar but involves a little more than getting a scooter modified. Wani decided to wage war against the Indian state and became the poster boy of new Kashmiri militancy; shedding masks and aliases, embracing social media and becoming ‘cool’ for Kashmiri youth. The arrival of the new militancy wave has been reported in media for a long time and the warning signs have been visible.
His death has sparked violent protests in the valley, with police stations being torched, public property destroyed, policemen attacked with intent to kill, paramilitary camps attacked by violent mobs. At the last count, 21 people had died. According to reports, the forces timed Wani’s encounter after the by-election in Anantnag where CM and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti was contesting and won.
The tinderbox in Kashmir was hit by a spark last week when security personnel killed Burhan Wani, the 22-year-old area commander of the Hizbul Mujahedeen. Kashmir, which had trundled back to a semblance of normalcy over a decade, has turned a dangerous corner. In 2004, the number of security personnel killed in the state stood at 325 and that went down to 51 in 2014. This year, 30 security personnel have already been killed till July 3.
What has led to this turn? Why did sections feel compelled to turn their backs on peace? The answers can be found in the formation of state government in March 2015 when the PDP and BJP joined hands to form the government under Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. That represented betrayal. While the roots of democracy are deeply entrenched in India, Kashmir returned to electoral politics only in 1996 after witnessing more than half a decade of bloody strife.
Democracy strengthens its roots by engaging the electorate politically. People find parties that best represent their wishes and aspirations and support them with a vote. All political parties fulfill important roles therefore. They engage different sections that feel they have a stake in the system through their choice of political vehicle.
If political ideologies are plotted on a graph, then BJP and PDP will definitely be plotted at opposite ends of the spectrum. PDP may have appealed to a more conservative section of the Kashmiri people who were disenchanted with the Indian state but still expressed their begrudging approval of the system by aligning with PDP. When BJP, in its efforts to create a pan Indian presence forged an improbable and nearly impossible alliance with the PDP, it represented a betrayal of the PDP and BJP voters. So, while the disaffection in Kashmir in 1989-90 was sparked off by a sense of unfairness of the system, in 2015-16 it was sparked off by a sense of betrayal.
Political problems like Kashmir can only be resolved through political means rather than military ones. When elections were held in the state in 1996, public participation in the valley was thin, but it represented the end of the worst phase of the Kashmir insurgency. The armed forces had done their job and handed over the state for the political solution to be found. In the 20 years since then, despite marked improvements in ground conditions, politics failed to adjudicate this important matter. Worse still, the Indian state, instead of treating Kashmiri population as citizens who had equal rights, treated them as subjects, forever under siege with AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) being a permanent feature.
While the phase between 2004 and 2014 represented slow progress towards normalcy, the period since has seen it regress thanks to some poor political judgement by the Indian government.
If news reports indicated the rise of a new militancy for months, it would be fair to assume that this was common knowledge for the national security apparatus and the political leadership. Reports indicate that while security forces had decided to go after Wani, they waited for the bypolls in Anantnag — where the CM was contesting from — to pass before they decide to act on their plan. It indicates that the security forces were aware of the backlash Wani’s death would spark, yet the state and the security machinery has been caught off-guard with violent protests throwing life out of gear and extracting a heavy toll.
After Gurdaspur, Pathankot terrorist attacks and the shoddy handling of the violence in Haryana during the Jat agitation and UP with the clashes with Netaji cult in Mathura, the backlash after Wani’s death has once again caught Indian security in an awkward position. This is yet another failure of our domestic intelligence gathering capabilities and raises serious doubts over our national security machinery.
As per reports, 20 police camps were attacked by violent mobs that looted weapons from these camps and fired them on the policemen. It is incumbent upon forces to stand firm in such a situation. Law, order and calm must be restored. Indian forces are constitutionally bound to ensure territorial integrity of the nation and this concern would always be supreme irrespective of the cost or the party in power.
Since 1989-90, the Indian state has got the better of this war of attrition with separatism in Kashmir. The Indian state will outlast such violence and will move on from there. The peace, howsoever fragile that gets restored must be used to engage the populace politically, to ensure they develop dependencies on the democratic system while the Indian state tries to win over the people. This task, is however made much more difficult by incidences like the one in Rajasthan when four Kashmiri students were arrested on the suspicion of eating beef.
It would be helpful to remember that the state has a monopoly over violence. No nation state will or can give-in to armed insurrection and India is no different. When Burhan Wani picked arms to wage a religious war on the Indian state, he chose a path which would logically lead to his death. His actions cannot be romanticized, but the Indian state cannot absolve itself of the failure to politically resolve the Kashmir issue or give the Kashmiri population the dignity that is guaranteed to them as citizens of a constitutional republic. The Indian state can afford to pay the price of political mismanagement, just that the EMIs will only get dearer.
Twitter: @bhayankur
