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| Kashmir in flames: Act before it is too late | | |
RUSTAM
JAMMU, Feb 6: Kashmir is once again in flames. The enemies of peace are doing everything to ensure disrupt peace. Instead of dousing fire in the Valley, almost all those who proudly term themselves as Kashmiri leaders, “mainstream” and separatists included, are exploiting the prevailing anarchical situation there to further their own respective agendas overlooking the agony of the common people caused due to the shutdowns and bloodshed. National Conference president and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah perhaps is the only Kashmir-based leader who has taken a somewhat different stand and he appears to be an odd man.
The remaining Kashmiri leaders, whether “mainstream” or separatist, are busy in painting things in lurid colours so as to ignite communal feeling by making mountains out of the mole-hills and blowing out of proportion trivial incidents of everyday occurrence; incidents taking place in a situation that is the creation of the Kashmiri leaders themselves.
It is virtually a war-like situation in Kashmir. The situation has climaxed to the point that certain vested interests, backed to the hilt and prompted by Islamabad, which itself is facing serious situation across Pakistan, particularly in the frontier and tribal areas adjoining the equally disturbed Afghanistan, are giving money to the innocent and gullible Kashmiri youth in order to induce them to come on the streets; pelt stones, attack the police, the Army, the paramilitary forces and symbols of the state; and disrupt all the activities.
Such pre-planned actions on the part of the vested interests obviously not only cause grave provocation but also force the security forces involved in anti-insurgency operations to act in self-defence, as also to check their anti-India activities. And when the security forces act some casualties do take place.
Significantly, the vested interests do not suffer at all. It is the instigated innocents who, along with security forces, suffer. The vested interests stay away from the trouble-spots. Besides, they live under the fool-proof security cover provided by none other than the Indian State against whom they instigate the innocents to take the law of the land into their hands.
The problem is that the authorities who are constitutionally bound to protect the security forces under constant attack from the unruly and anti-India elements, wittingly or unwittingly walk into the trap laid down by the vested interests, who see in anarchy and bloodshed a God-sent opportunity to grind their own axe. The authorities, instead of looking into the circumstances under which the security force-crowd clashes take place and under which the security forces are operating, order inquiries against members of security forces, thus sending a weak signal and indirectly, even directly, strengthening the hands of the vested interests.
Such knee-jerk and senseless actions of the authorities have not only been weakening their own authority, but also causing immense damage to the polity, with the common people not being able to carry on their economic activities and meeting their day-to-day needs.
The worst aspect of the prevailing situation is that all those matter in the state’s political and administrative set-up have practically abandoned the Kashmir Valley and made Jammu city as their abode considering the winter capital as a safe heaven. In other words, at a time when the vested interests are playing havoc with Kashmir, hampering all the economic activities and provoking bloodshed and clashes with the security forces, the virtual conspicuous absence in Kashmir of those at the helm is enabling the vested interests to play their nefarious games with utmost ease.
Those at the helm should have been there in the Kashmir Valley to personally monitor developments and suggest appropriate actions so that things remained well within control. If at all, someone who is at the helm musters courage and goes to the Kashmir Valley, he makes statements that add more fuel to the fire and complicate further the already rather complex situation. He makes statements to establish that he is no different from those representing vested interests in Kashmir. In effect, he plays the game of one-upmanship, and, thus, become a party to what is happening in Kashmir.
The situation as it exists at present in Kashmir is highly volatile. The vested interests are vitiating the atmosphere and fishing in the troubled-waters. The political leadership of the state doesn’t have, it appears, the necessary courage and will to face the situation and tackle it in a manner the state apparatus is required to. The fact of the matter is that the state apparatus is flapping aimlessly and steadily drifting towards the rocks.
The today’s bleeding Kashmir needs a steersman and it is for the people to find out a steersman. Till that happens, it is the fundamental duty of New Delhi to take note of the developments that have been unfolding since the past few days and take remedial measures so that the ground the state’s political establishment has lost to the vested interests is retrieved and peace and normalcy restored. Any delay on the part of New Delhi to intervene would cause irreparable damage to the national cause in Kashmir.
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