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| Unrest in Kashmir due to gross misrule, communal politics | | News ANALYSIS | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Oct 3: The state government told the Legislative Assembly the other day that the current phase of unrest and violence in Kashmir is the offshoot of the alleged fake encounter in which three "innocent civilians" were killed by the Army in Machil, Kupwara sector of North Kashmir, in April this year. The state government is wrong. It is simply striving to divert the attention of the Government of India away from the real cause responsible for what has been happening in the Kashmir Valley since months. The Machil encounter has nothing to do with the current phase of unrest in Kashmir.
The causes responsible for the spurt in the anti-India activities, coupled with an extreme form of violence, are deeper. A reference here to just three of them would be in order. One, the spurt in the anti-India activities in the Kashmir Valley is the immediate fall-out of the failure of the state government to deliver. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) hit the nail on the head when it on September 13 directly held the Omar Abdullah-led coalition government directly responsible for what it called "governance deficit" and "trust deficit." It was a scathing attack on the state government.
There is no doubt whatever that ever since January 5, 2009, when Omar Abdullah took over as the Chief Minister, those at the helm did nothing whatever to address the genuine concerns of the common people. They did nothing to provide a people-centric, accountable, responsible and corruption-free administration. Instead, they consistently subverted the institutions to promote their own personal interests and the interests of those close to them, with the common people being shown the door. A small coterie consisting of politicians, bureaucrats and others, instead of catering to the basic needs of the common people, resorted to all means to loot and plunder the public wealth and enrich themselves. They manipulated everything in their own favour and in favour of those close to them. In fact, they left the common people to the care of those ever ready to exploit the people's discontent to their advantage and queer the Indian pitch in the Kashmir Valley.
Convinced that the people have turned against them, those at the helm sought to divert the people's attention away from the issues of public import and exploit the religious sentiments of the people by raking up non-issues. They sought to arouse passions by describing Kashmir as a political problem and by accusing the Army and paramilitary forces of unleashing a reign of terror in Kashmir. So much so, they, including the Chief Minister, virtually identified themselves with the dreaded Kashmiri separatists like Geelani and Umer Farooq. The result was that it became extremely difficult to distinguish between those at the helm and those instigating violence. Had those at the helm focused on the people's day-to-day needs and provided a good and impartial administration, things in Kashmir would have been somewhat different and the Geelanis and the Mirwaizs would not have been able to convert the anti-government sentiment into an anti-India sentiment. It is the mal-administration that has contributed in a big way to the unrest in Kashmir.
Two, there are elements in Kashmir who have never accepted Kashmir as an integral part of India. They have all thorough since 1947 worked hard to communalize the Kashmir polity and society and their one-point agenda all along was, and continues to be, to instigate the Muslims of Kashmir against India by painting it black and describing it as an invader, oppressor and alien. Even the so-called mainstream Kashmiri leaders belong to this school of thought. How else should one interpret their demands like greater autonomy, self-rule, shared sovereignty, irrelevant or porous borders and Actual Line of Control and so on? The fact of the matter is that all the Kashmiri leaders have communalized the Kashmir's polity and society and poisoned the minds of the people of Kashmir by exaggerating things and by making them believe that their salvation lies in separation from India. In other words, what has been going on in the Valley is also the offshoot of politics of communalism and separatism being indulged in by both the Kashmiri separatists and the "mainstream" Kashmiri leaders. New Delhi may announce more economic and employment packages, but nothing would change in Kashmir because the separatists in Kashmir have vitiated the whole atmosphere there by preaching perversion and hatred.
Three, it is Pakistan that has been consistently played dirty games in Kashmir and fomented anti-India troubles in the Valley. It considers Kashmir as an integral part of Islamabad because it is a Muslim-majority area. It has invested everything in Kashmir and created in Kashmir a group of people who are rabidly communal and whose agenda is to Talibanize Kashmir at whatever cost. It is not for nothing that Pakistan has waged four full-scale wars in 1947-48, 1965, 1971 and 1999 and that it has been carrying on since 1989 a low-intensity but a highly deadly proxy war to achieve its goal.
In short, the misrule and politics of communalism in Kashmir and the unwillingness of Pakistan to forget Jammu and Kashmir are the three major factors responsible for the unrest and violence in the Kashmir Valley. Pakistan and the Kashmiri leaders are breeding terrorism. The Army or the paramilitary forces have nothing to do with the current phase of turmoil in the Valley. They are discharging their duties to the best of their ability and capability. They are compassionate. They seldom take the law of the land into their hands because they are the most disciplined organs of the Indian state. The state government would do well to accept its guilt and start afresh. The best thing for it to do would be to stop airing controversial views and hand down to the people an administration that is of the people, by the people and for the people. Shifting responsibility would not help it. |
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