It is a given that India has to be wary of the prevailing environment for not only is it fighting Pakistani insurgency and active indoctrination, but it has to walk the tightrope with soft separatism being peddled by Mehbooba Mufti
That Kashmir needs an anodyne urgently is a gross understatement. It is not as if the last 25 odd years alone have seen bloodletting and insurrections against India. The Sunni Muslim driven paranoia over India exists only in the valley and that too it doesn’t include the entire Muslim community; the Shias, for instance, couldn’t care less. Nor do the pastoral nomads Gujjars or Bakarwals want secession from the Indian Union. Separatists believe they are representing 23 per cent of the Muslim population of the State, all living in the valley, who are seeking to disassociate themselves from the Union of India. The BJP, in alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the State, has to decide whether it wants power at the cost of an alliance partner which preaches soft separatism. like many other events over the last 69 years, the Kashmir valley is once again at crossroads. Anti-India sentiment is running high and anyone wearing fatigues or khaki, is game, for they are a symbol of an ‘occupation force’. Kashmir has seen cycles of violence and calm during the past 25 years.
The radical change in Pakistan’s obsession for Kashmir came about in 1986 when Zaki-ur-Rehman lakhvi and Hafiz Saeed joined hands. The extreme Wahhabi Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI) and its militant wing, lashker-e-Tayyeeba (leT) founded in 1990, was set up in Muridke with the help of transnational militants based in Afghanistan and aided by the Pakistani Government. This allowed it to become a financially independent social service organisation that was able to divert a significant portion of its funding to its militant wing. They began to receive patronage, both financial and militarily, from the Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI). It is the Markaz which has re-shaped the political narrative between India and Pakistan. Be it the 26/11 Parliament attack or the lashkar’s signature buddy-pairs-style, has done incalculable damage to the Indian psyche convincing the hoi polloi that India is a soft state. This is here and now and it continues to represent a clear and present danger to India. Burhan Wani’s killing and subsequent behaviour by Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti will continue to leave scars on the ragged relationship between the BJP and the PDP.
A known sympathiser of separatists and militants, her appeasement policy will only see the valley careening out of control. Though intermittently she did play nationalist by evoking Sheikh Abdullah’s legacy, she has reverted to type after Wani’s killing and rampant protests across the Kashmir division. This obviously gives Pakistan a fresh opportunity to fish in troubled waters which it does with great opportunism and vigour. Imagine the Chief Minister asking the police to apologise for killing a militant who had taken up arms against the state. Once again grabbing the militant mainstream politico space.
Needless to say that the PDP-BJP combine has been fragile from the outset. last year, we saw the Masrat Alam fiasco, when he was surreptitiously released to the chagrin of the BJP and nationalists elsewhere in India. Soon he was incarcerated again under the Public Safety Act, 1953. Then we had the unfortunate death of the Mufti and a prolonged state of mourning and then bargaining between the two coalition partners. Finally, they returned to the negotiating table and formed a new Government.
The clock rewound rapidly with Wani’s killing by security forces. And the veneer of nationalism that had enveloped Mehbooba Mufti in the Assembly and the first flush of the killing has been shorn to show her as a soft separatist once again as she spews venom all around. All of us read the tea leaves wrong thinking that there was perhaps a personality change in the Chief Minister.
Fear lurks everywhere again in the Kashmir valley, the BJP at the Centre has no say in the matter, hamstrung as it is by its hunger for power in the State. Pakistan cannot be expected not to enjoy such moments. After all it had constructed Operation Gibraltar and Operation Gulmarg to deflect attention from internal travails. In 1965, two of Ayub Khan’s sons kidnapped the daughter of the IG Police which created consternation in Pakistan. But buoyed by the Rann of Kutch skirmishes earlier that year and pump primed by his Foreign Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Field Marshal Ayub Khan decided to architect Operation Gibraltar to pouch Kashmir by infiltrating irregulars, militia and Special Surveillance Group specialists. The whole scheme flopped as no one in Kashmir rose in an uprising. The follow up Operation Grand Slam was a disaster too as Pakistani troops were evicted from the Akhnoor sector, as they tried to cut the Poonch lifeline to Jammu using six armoured divisions.
Operation Gulmarg was more successful in 1947 for it actually managed to grab Jammu & Kashmir territory but failed in its ultimate goal of pouching the Kashmir valley due to the prompt response of the Indian fighting forces and their bravado. Similarly, Operation Koh-e-Paima or Mountain of Resolve to sever the Srinagar-ladakh link was stymied by Indian troops in Kargil in 1999, but at a very heavy cost. Pakistan’s modus operandi hasn’t changed, its template remains the same. But each time they have been repulsed by Indian forces.
Unlike the 2008 and 2010 unrest, anything remotely representative of the Indian security forces is anathema to the local populace. It is a tinder box which Pakistan will try to exploit, for the anti-India sentiment has peaked. It is a given that India has to be wary of the prevailing environment for not only is it fighting Pakistani insurgency and active indoctrination, but it has to walk the tightrope with soft separatism being peddled by Mehbooba Mufti. The BJP has to re-evaluate its coalition, it cannot sit on its haunches and wait for judgment day.
Congress-mukt Bharat is all very well, but in a border-sensitive State like Jammu & Kashmir, it has ring fence its own latent ambition and remain nationalist to the core. It showed in 2008 that it was willing to act as a disruptor when it ran the gauntlet with the Amarnath Yatra Sangarsh Samiti which brought the Kashmir valley to its knees with an all pervasive economic blockade cutting off the Jammu-Srinagar lifeblood. Now as they say the shoe is on the other foot and it needs to show an equally feisty attitude towards its alliance partner.
Just like Sheikh Abdullah was frustrated by the Balraj Madhok/Maharaja propelled Jan Sangh/Praja Parishad activism in the immediate aftermath of the accession in the Jammu division, stultifying the gains of independence from Maharaja Hari Singh’s brutal regime. The chasm between a Hindu-majority Jammu and a Muslim-majority Kashmir has never been bridged and that perhaps is the ill-fated story of Jammu & Kashmir.