[Reader-list] Beyond highway of peace

[Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्]

Beyond highway of peace

Muzamil Jaleel
Posted online: Monday, August 18, 2008 at 1012 hrs Print Email
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/349899._.html

The Amarnath land transfer controversy and the subsequent "economic
blockade" seem to the apparent reason for the unrest. But the actual
reasons are deeper and psychological and lie in the failure to resolve
the Kashmir problem

Srinagar, August 17: Muteeb Raja is eight. His voice cracked as he
shouted. "Hum kya chahte hain?" (what do we want?). A crowd of adults
around him responded: Azadi (independence). Ishtiyaq Rasool is six.
His mother told him that he was far too young to go and protest. "I
insisted. The protestors will be thirsty, we can offer them water," he
said. His mother joined the slogan-shouting women, hiding her face
with her blue scarf.

The march on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road flowed like a river of people
covering the highway from Chanakhan in Sopore to Khanpora ahead of
Baramulla. A generation of young men, who were toddlers in the 1990s
when Kashmir exploded with massive public demonstrations, was leading
the procession.

The security forces had withdrawn after failing to halt this march at
10 different places. They had tried everything. They had fired
hundreds of smoke shells. They had baton charged to disperse the mob.
They had opened fire, killing one and injuring two dozen at Sangrama
Chowk, a few miles away from Sopore.

Furious, the people had pelted stones at the police and security force
contingent. The security personnel retreated, abandoning their two
vehicles, which were immediately set afire by angry protestors.

This was the scene on August 11. All of Kashmir has erupted since
then; 24 people have died in police firing. This phenomenon is
extremely unusual for a place where two months ago, the only buzz was
election rallies, a pleasant spring and thousands of tourists.

Kashmir had returned to its glory as a favourite destination of the
holidaymaker. The militant attacks were rare and whenever there were
reports of encounters, the security forces launched a pre-emptive
offensive to kill them. Pakistan's President Musharraf had withdrawn
from his traditional Kashmir agenda, condemned militant attacks and
even dropped demand for plebiscite in Kashmir. His democratic
successors had publicly altered Pakistan's Kashmir-centric foreign
policy; emphasised on friendly relations with New Delhi to boost
bilateral trade.

At ground zero in Kashmir, the chairman of Hurriyat's moderate
faction, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was planning to leave for the US on a
fellowship, hoping to study conflict management in Belfin Centre at
Harvard. Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani was ill and disillusioned
by Pakistan's "divorce" from Kashmir. Several separatist leaders were
complaining that Kashmiris are fatigued and New Delhi had declared the
"end game" in Kashmir.

After successfully fighting militancy for 18 years, the Centre was
looking at the "free and fair" 2008 Assembly polls as the last dose of
its policy prescription to fully recover Kashmir.

The people's march on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road changed all that.
Hundreds of trucks with young men sitting on their bonnets were slowly
moving ahead. At the first Army camp ahead of Baramulla, the troops
had abandoned their roadside pickets to avoid confrontation. "We will
not stop. We have to cross the LoC. We have to re-unite Kashmir," said
Abdul Rasheed War (26), a teacher in a private school. "Kashmir has
woken up. The movement is alive again," he added.

Why is anger spilling on Kashmir's streets? The Amarnath land transfer
controversy and the subsequent "economic blockade" is the apparent
reason. But the real answer lies in the people's march on the
Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road.

Ironically, this road was re-christened as the "highway of peace"
between India and Pakistan on April 7, 2005, when for the first time a
bus service connected the divided Kashmir. The slogans and flags in
the march told another story. There was hardly any mention of the
Amarnath land row or the blockade. The protests had transcended the
issue of the Amarnath land transfer; it's only about separatism now.

Professor Noor Ahmad Baba, who teaches political science at Kashmir
University, articulated the reason behind this anger in Kashmir. He
said the peace process had been slow and had failed to address any of
the concerns of the Kashmiris. "There have been only superficial
changes in the situation here. Kashmir was a problem yesterday and is
a problem today," he said. Reacting to the question on why the
Amarnath land row and the subsequent "economic blockade" became a
tipping point, he added, "historically Kashmir had been at the centre
of cultural and economic interaction. It was a meeting point for South
Asia, China, Tibet and Central Asia. But since 1947 it has been pushed
to the periphery."

The way the Centre has been consistently avoiding facing the real
problem in Kashmir and even refusing to react to any serious proposals
from the mainstream and separatist political parties in Kashmir
explains this added mistrust here. Prof Sheikh Showkat of Law
Department in Kashmir University said New Delhi has contributed to the
prevailing situation in more than one way. "They had a chance to
resolve the problem during Musharraf's tenure. Once you lose the
opportunity, you have to face the reality in a crude manner. They
didn't even respond when Farooq Abdullah proposed autonomy that was
passed by the Assembly. Peace in Kashmir was an illusion," he said.

Concealed from vigilant eyes, Kashmir had been silently simmering and
was just a trigger away from another explosion. And when the land
transfer issue cropped up, it fit very well with the mistrust towards
New Delhi. The subsequent blockade of the road connecting Kashmir with
New Delhi — the only available road link for people and goods —
created a mass feeling of choking. The issue was never limited to
Kashmir's fruit growers losing their crop or the Valley facing
shortage of food and fuel because of snipped supply lines, it was
primarily psychological. The blockade reinforced a perception in
Kashmir that New Delhi was not a reliable partner.

National Conference president Omar Abdullah said the situation has
gone out of control because the Centre did not pay heed to clear
warning signs. "I had warned both PM Manmohan Singh and Congress
president Sonia Gandhi that this movement to Muzafarabad will take a
new dimension and go out of control if not handled urgently," he said,
adding that the blockade highlighted "our weakness in the shape of
dependence on a system to guarantee the safety of our economic and
lifeline linkages with the rest of the country. It made people realise
that the peace process has not delivered anything. Now what we see is
the resurfacing of the old anger. Till now, we have blamed Pakistan
for everything in Kashmir, this is the first time we have only
ourselves to blame."

Separatist Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, however, said the mass
protests have not surprised him. "We always saw it coming," he said.
"Amarnath land row might be the immediate cause, but the level of
anger is the result of the long pent up disillusionment with New
Delhi's status quo policies," he said.

Mirwaiz alleged that the Centre talks of a dialogue only to exit a
crisis situation. "New Delhi talks to us when the situation is really
bad here. And when there is apparent peace, they ignore us," he said.
"The Hurriyat joined the dialogue risking its own credibility. We lost
people. But what was the result? As soon as New Delhi felt there was
some peace in Valley, it abandoned the talks and left us in the
lurch," he said, adding that the present crisis is the result of
disillusionment. "A disillusionment born of the realisation that all
talks on Kashmir were held for the sake of them, to buy time and to
buy interlocutors, rather than work out a solution," he said.

It is a fact that the Centre and its various agencies on ground in
Kashmir had been extremely complacent after the recent drop in
militant violence and a surge in mainstream political activity. The
Government's understanding was simple: the problem in Kashmir is
militancy and an iron fist response from the security agencies would
bring the situation to normal. There was this skewed understanding
that militancy and not the denial of political aspirations was the
main problem. Then the establishment was emboldened by the drastic
changes across the world after 9/11 when Pakistan was forced to change
its tact and abandon Kashmir's militant movement. The line dividing
terrorism and armed political movements had blurred to an extent where
military solutions became increasingly acceptable to every violent
movement. Thus in a way, the Government emphasised the symptom and not
the disease and was happy to declare the lack of violence as permanent
peace in Kashmir.

Peoples Democratic Party's Mehbooba Mufti said the anger and
alienation have increased manifold. "The situation is worse than 2002
when we took over. There is a lack of understanding of the real issue
and we have been trying to make the Centre realise this," she said.

Separatist leader Sajjad Lone went a step further. "While I would say
that New Delhi underestimated the potency of the sentiment in Kashmir,
it also exhibited an arrogant triumph over the relative peace in
recent past. But now the reality has blown up on everybody's face. And
it has torn through the lies piled up over the years that whatever was
happening in Kashmir was Pakistan-sponsored," he said. He added that
there is only one lesson to be learned: "this place has a real problem
and it needs a real solution".

It is, however, for the first time that the Government does not have
to deal with the resurgence of the separatist sentiment in Kashmir
alone. The Hindu majority districts in Jammu are up in arms too,
seeking the cancellation of the revocation of the Amarnath land
transfer order. This has complicated the situation because this time
any confidence-building measure aimed at calming Kashmir will have an
adverse impact on the situation in Jammu.