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| Security is the primary issue in Kashmir | | | Jaibans Singh | 11/1/2010 11:59:40 PM |
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The panel of interlocutors for Kashmir is likely to have its hands full provided it is allowed to function by the anarchic separatist leadership. The initial response is predictable but not encouraging. The separatists and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have rejected the panel due to different reasons. Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Yasin Malik feel that a Parliamentary panel would have been a more appropriate. Syed Ali Shah Geelani has, as usual, termed this as a "futile exercise" and the PDP is maintaining a stony silence. This negative attitude is not without reason. These elements are well aware that now a can of worms will be unearthed which will clearly establish their complicity in orchestrating the violence that engulfed the Valley over the last three months.
There is ample reason to believe that the protests were manipulated by the separatists and their partners with considerable financial and other support from across the line of control. It is well known that post the fateful incident June, 11, which led to the death of Tufail Mattoo the protests slowly but surely proliferated across the Valley, and gained momentum as the cycle of violence set-in. The agitations blossomed outwards from Srinagar and engulfed Kupwara in North Kashmir and Anantnag, Bijbehara and Pampore in South Kashmir. It concentrated largely along the National highway and in major population centre’s since these areas provided the ring leaders an opportunity of melting in the crowds. The concentration was also by and large in urban areas like Anantnag, Bijbehara, Pampore, Srinagar, Palhalan, Sangram, Sopore, Baramulla, Handwara and Kupwara. Districts of Bandipora, Ganderbal and Budgam remained relatively calm with people not responding to the edicts of the separatists.
There are some other characteristics of the agitations that merit attention. The average size of crowds ranged between100-150 and rarely increased to ‘thousands’ as has been repeatedly reported by the media. The approximate strength of the populace supporting the agitation mostly varied between 20 to 25 percent. A majority of the people (70 to 80 percent) participating were the youth, with about one/two percent women mostly confined to Srinagar. While taking the geographic extent into consideration it so emerges that there were no incidents of mass agitations simultaneously across North, Central and South Kashmir. These factors in themselves question the claim being made by the separatists that the agitation was and continues to be a homogeneous mass movement for ‘Azadi’ and ‘Plebiscite’. Apparently, it was being powered by a group of people who moved from one location to another. With the course of time, as the cycle of violence took over, the agitation gained a life of its own. Crowds gathered to express sympathy and anger against deaths by firing leading to further aggravation due to orchestrated violence and this continued to spiral.
The disturbances affected the life of the populace and day to day living was severely impinged upon. The losses which the Valley incurred by shutdowns/protests on a daily basis are estimated to be in the tune of Rs 161 crores per day. Education of children, the livelihood of daily wage earners, horticulture, the tourist and connected industries like transport, handicraft etc were severely curtailed. A very large number of cases of post traumatic stress disorder were reported especially amongst the school children and their parents. All this further aggravated the situation and led to pent up frustration and anger. The resultant sense of despondency and frustration, on many occasions, also boiled over and came out in the form of more protests.
Yet another important aspect that merits the utmost attention is that these disturbances were, by and large, concentrated in urban areas with very limited impact in the hinterland. There have been reports that people from villages who visited towns for day to day requirements, were targeted and told to show solidarity with the ‘Tehrik’. There are also reports indicative of the populace in villages refusing to listen to the edicts of the separatists. The long term ramification of this is that the Valley may be moving towards a rural-urban split which will add yet another security dimension to the already tense situation.
In the Valley stone pelting has become a lucrative ‘business’ with the unemployed youth offering their ‘service’ for a price. Organisations like the Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar- e-Taiba, in concert with elements of the separatist segment, have reportedly formed groups each comprising of about a dozen committed cadre who are paid Rs five to eight lakhs as overall expenditure for orchestrating agitation in a particular district under their jurisdiction. Part of the money is paid to another group called the ‘initiators’ who pick-up stones and start pelting on the police/Para military forces. There are two distinct categories of persons who then get involved, the professionals who get paid for the job and the misguided youth in their teens who do it to show that they are brave and can hit the security forces. The professionals mask their faces and know their escape routes. They usually manage to escape leaving behind the largely innocent but misguided youth to face the baton and the bullets.
The interlocutors and others now involved in a post agitation analysis of the situation in Kashmir need to be sensitive to the manner in which the people and the events are being manipulated by vested interests. One cannot loose sight of the fact that the need for appointing interlocutors emerged from the serious security situation that engulfed a small portion of the State for a period of three months. The mandate of the interlocutors needs to be extended to engagement of those entrusted with the security of the region and the territorial integrity of the Nation. It would be appropriate if a person with the requisite experience in this field is included in the panel. The aspects of political aspirations and diverse shades of opinion can be dealt with after the basic issue of national security is addressed.
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