Politicians and media personnel alike have contributed to hyping the security discourse in Jammu & Kashmir. This overshadows other important issues and compromises the State’s defence and law and order mechanisms
When we fail to blame anything in Kashmir, raising alarms on security and casting doubts on the security apparatus becomes the content of our daily discourse. Even politicians, off and on, use the phrase, ‘insecurity in Kashmir’ or ‘Kashmir is insecure’, to target rival parties but in the process, they undermine the efficiency of the security mechanism at place and add to the magnititude of uncertainty that is already prevailing.
This has scores of ramifications in public and security circles. Is Jammu & Kashmir really insecureIJ This is a disturbing and, simultaneously, crucial question especially when we proudly argue that the active deployment of multiple security agencies in the State has paid off well.
Not just leaders but the media also keeps on adding insult to injury, by highlighting punchlines like ‘the security situation in the valley/state is tense’ mostly due to continued border skirmishes or that ‘the violence graph has highly increased in the State’, or that ‘we are back to 1990s’.
There’s a ‘glorification’ of phenomena such as young militancy or Kashmir’s new age insurgency, and radicalization of the youth in south Kashmir and increasing terrorism in the entire Jammy & Kashmir region.
Scores of such sensational lines and new tags have led to mass hysteria and indirectly undermined the holistic and robust security apparatus in place. Such irresponsible and unneeded glorification has a counter-effect: It encourages militancy.
The question worth pondering is this: Is it the sense of political insecurity of our leaders that directly or indirectly undermines the security mechanism, that otherwise needs more encouragement and morale-boosting to overcome various challengesIJ
After all, there has to be a basis to undermining security. We must acknowledge that security is apolitical and insecurity is a state of mind. We also must realise that security personnel are not sitting idle but consistently trying their best to maintain order at least now. The security policies and procedures do not appear out of nothing. They are all part of the larger ongoing effort to stabilise target areas and keep watch on vulnerable areas.
This process of securitisation needs to be understood in a holistic perspective and appreciated by all and sundry without just painting it all with the brush of ‘politics of insecurity’. let us recognise the fact that this ideally sophisticated and practically alert security makes an important contribution to decreasing tensions. There is a rising security sense in the valley but hasty security-related or security-targeted statements, coupled with media exaggeration, shape the collective insecure psyche and make people re-imagine the brutal, violent, uncertain and turbulent past.
Also when we talk of insecurity in Kashmir, whom do we consider ‘insecure’IJ Is it the masses or others or security itselfIJ The masses have no enmity with anyone, so they are not insecure. The ‘others’ are already secured, and security is potentially strong enough to deal with any untoward happenings around them.
While giving too much attention to the insecurity of the masses, we need to ask: Who make the masses insecureIJ Is it the guerillas, military, police or othersIJ Commonsense dictates that widespread insecurity is not a reality but just a situation blown out of proportion. What remains is nothing but the politics of insecurity. This should be replaced with some constructive idea.
The public scare trend should go down as scare leads to more scare and distrust begets distrust only. Also raising such concerns blindly, we, as a state, will be in a foot-in-mouth situation, reflecting no trust in our security machine or suspecting their capabilities.
At this juncture, this writer strongly believes that the security personnel seriously need more field-sensitisation and gender-sensitisation training that will enable them to develop more goodwill while operating. Had our Forces been more people- and gender-sensitive, the Us-and-Them dichotomy would not have evolved and Kashmir’s new-age militancy faces like Burhan Wani would not have taken the route they have.
last but more essential is that political leaders, while targeting their rivals, should never bring security in to the debate, as the fallout becomes bigger than their personal and party politics. Instead of talking fear and insecurity, our collective leadership should find more ways of crafting peace in Kashmir, besides delivering social justice on the ground and punishing all those who have been involved in human rights abuse since 1989.
(The writer is a New Delhi-based associate editor at Eurasia Review)