Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Why is peace in Kashmir so fragile?

The week-long protests by Kashmiris against the transfer of 800 kanals of forest land to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) by the state government has proved true what many refused to understand for a long time: peace in Kashmir is too fragile to be taken for granted. Normalcy in Kashmir, one would have to say, managed to veil the discontent, uneasiness and disapproval of people at whatever was happening in and on Kashmir. It is this pent-up anger and uneasiness that is being vented out on the streets of Srinagar as I write these lines. Even as we hope for the speedy return of normalcy to the turbulent valley, we need to ask ourselves certain important questions: why is peace is Kashmir so fragile? Why has this otherwise relatively minor act of land transfer and the controversy surrounding it, which of course could have been pre-empted by some deft handling by the government, suddenly gone out of control? What factors have brought Kashmir to this state of affairs?

There are a number of obvious causes behind what is happening now and they call for some serious introspection on our part. Many analysts around the country tend to believe that the anger on the streets of Kashmir is communal in nature and the Kashmiri dissidents such as Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Sajad Lone and Yaseen Malik and a large number of common Kashmiris are indulging in anti-Hindu politics. The truth, as I see it, is far from that. The current spell of protests, in fact, is the result of a series of fundamentally flawed policies in and on Jammu and Kashmir by the governments in Srinagar and New Delhi. There may indeed be some elements among the protesters too who would like to give it a communal color, but that is certainly not its key feature.

First of all, despite all their promises to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, what have the governments in Srinagar and New Delhi done to resolve the Kashmir issue to the satisfaction of the people of the state? Almost nothing. The Prime Minister’s Round Table Conferences and the reports which were produced subsequently by various Working Groups have been neatly archived and forgotten about, as usual. The reports and the contents were indeed very encouraging and one had hoped that the governments would act on them helping, thereby, improve the situation in the state. The change of guard in Srinagar in November 2005, in retrospect, was a grave mistake by the Congress party: it suddenly brought to a grinding halt all the good work that Mufti government was doing in the state even to the extent of being accused of as pro-militants by some. More importantly, the incoming political leadership lacked the political will and vision to implement the suggestions from the various Working Group reports. Even as People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) ‘healing touch‘ was dismissed as mere rhetoric, it did have a great deal of symbolic effect. Therefore, one might say that the Mufti government would have organized the Round Tables better and worked towards implementing the suggestions from the Working Groups. More importantly, nothing substantial has been done to return the houses, schools and orchards to Kashmiris which the armed forces have been keeping with themselves for many years, despite assurances from the Central government in this regard.

Secondly, it is now apparent that the government was sleeping through the various phases of peace in Kashmir ignoring the daily demands and pleas from dissidents, activists, mainstream politicians and analysts to engage the state and the problems therein more proactively. Not only that there was willingness from the part of the dissidents and various sections of Kashmiris in looking for a solution to the state’s problems but more importantly many of these suggestions to conflict resolution were concrete and should have been taken into serious consideration. The governments’ dismissive attitude towards such gestures and proposals has now brought about this situation.

Bureaucracy in India, unfortunately, has a tendency to be insensitive towards the people and this is a widely recognized fact, be it in Kashmir or Bihar. Officers especially those belonging to India’s higher bureaucracy behave as if the country is still under colonial rule and this becomes more pronounced when it comes to Kashmir. When dealing with Kashmir the usual arrogance of the Indian bureaucracy combines with suspicion and a mere law and order approach to understanding issues and concerns. This is precisely what was evident from the acts and utterances of the bureaucrat who was in charge of the Shrine Board. The bureaucrats need to understand that they are servants of the public and that people are not their subjects. If they refuse to learn this fundamental truth of democracy, they will continue to land their political masters in situations such as the one we are witnessing in Kashmir today.

Finally, the present crisis was also precipitated by a feeling among the people and dissident leaders that the peace process was going nowhere. Political crises in Pakistan one after the other, disenchanted dissident leadership in Kashmir, and vision-less Kashmir policies by New Delhi all disillusioned the people of the state and they have now grabbed an opportunity that came their way to vent their feelings. Giving the current spate of protests in Kashmir a religious colour and discarding it is being simplistic and counter-productive. Its time we learnt to read the signs of political frustration and act on them before it is too late.

That said, it is necessary also to point out that the argument that the transfer of land to SASB is part of a well-thought out Indian conspiracy to settle non-local Hindus in the valley in order to turn Muslims to a minority in the state is far from the reality.

(Happymon Jacob is Assistant Professor at the Department of Strategic and Regional Studies, University of Jammu, J&K.)

Source: Greater Kashmir, July 2, 2008. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=2_7_2008&ItemID=3&cat=11