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| Kashmir -- at a crossroads, again? |
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Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Dr Maleeha Lodhi
The writer is a former envoy to the US and the UK, and a former editor of The News.
The news from occupied Kashmir in recent days has been dominated by the political drama of Omar Abdullah's resignation and then resumption of chief ministership amid allegations of his involvement in a scandal. But this farcical row between the state government and opposition does not obscure the reality of renewed unrest in the Valley, which remains the world's most militarized region. Its latest expression has been the popular protests over the Shopian atrocity.
Public anger erupted two months ago over the rape and murder of a pregnant woman and her teenage sister-in-law at the hands of state security forces. Initial denial of this crime and an official cover up intensified the public outrage. Even as the chief minister relented and ordered an inquiry, the protests widened beyond Shopian and spread across Kashmir.
The Shopian rape case was only the latest instance of the violence inflicted by security forces in the past two decades. It was a consequence of the "structural realities of militarization in Kashmir that foster genderised and sexualized violence", according to a brief prepared by an Indian NGO, the International Peoples' Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice.
Unrest over Shopian quickly morphed, as discontent on most issues in Kashmir often does, into strident demands for an end to Indian rule. This prompted The Economist in its June 27 issue to comment: "Sixty two years after India secured the richest portion of Kashmir, its Muslim inhabitants miss no chance to tell it to leave." Demonstrations continued through July over a series of other deaths which implicated the security forces.
Attending an international Kashmir conference last week in Washington against this backdrop, I found one question dominate the two day proceedings. This being: which way is the youth-driven peaceful movement, evidenced in the recent demonstrations as well as in the much bigger protests last year, headed? Organized by that indefatigable champion of the Kashmir cause, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, the conference (attended by participants from the occupied state, India, Pakistan, Azad Kashmir, the US and Britain) posed a set of linked questions. What could happen if the Kashmiri struggle that has increasingly assumed the shape of a nonviolent movement, fails to achieve its objectives; if its grievances are not addressed; if the stalled Pakistan-India dialogue is unable to alleviate the demands of the movement? Will this be a game-changer?
To understand the significance of these questions, it is necessary to place them in the context of what has been happening in Jammu and Kashmir since 2008. This is the year the Indian authorities declared as the most nonviolent since 1989, when the Kashmir uprising began. The militancy, according to Indian officials, had been "crushed". A relative, though surface calm prevailed.
The eruption of protests shattered this illusion of normalcy.2008 witnessed the highest number of anti-India protests in Kashmir's recent history. The catalyst was the controversial government decision to transfer forest land to the trust that administered the Hindu Amarnath shrine. This provoked intense opposition, as Kashmiri Muslims saw parallels between this and Israeli settlement policy, and construed this as a design to alter the state's demographic and religious balance.
This triggered the largest demonstrations Kashmir had seen since the uprising broke out in 1989-1990. The protests snowballed into a people's movement with tens of thousands taking to the streets. When the government rescinded the decision, a blockade of the Valley imposed by Hindu nationalists in Jammu, added fuel to Kashmir's fire. Mass protests swelled to unleash long pent-up tensions.
While there were parallels with the political unrest of 1989, there were also important differences. What distinguished the 2008 upheaval from the past – there were several eyewitness accounts at the Washington conference – was that it was youth-led, remarkably well-organized and self disciplined as well as clear in articulating its demands. The protests of June-August 2008 saw tech-savvy students use the web to spread their message; they blogged their grievances and posted videos on You Tube. The authorities blocked internet access, but this did not dampen the rising wave of mass protest. The demand for "azadi" from Indian rule was articulated by those who had grown up on the memories and experience of 20 years of repression, torture, and the daily humiliation of occupation. "Nobody amongst us saw a childhood", said a young protestor. In a seminal piece in Outlook (1 Sept, 2008), Arundhati Roy wrote: "the young generation discovered the power of mass protest…. and the dignity to speak for themselves" and this became "a plebiscite that was never held".
The Kashmiri leadership was re-empowered by the people and forced to forge a common front. As the leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), Mirwaiz Umer Farooq put it at the time: "Purely indigenous, purely Kashmiri, even we were surprised by the force" of the protests.
The mass agitation shook the Indian establishment. Unable to blame Pakistan or the militants, Delhi didn't know how to respond. But respond it did with characteristic heavy handedness: a massive crackdown that left over 40 people dead, including an APHC leader, and hundreds injured. The movement's demands were contained in a memorandum handed in at the local UN office on August 18, 2008. This called for an end to Indian occupation, deployment of a UN peacekeeping force and an investigation into two decades of war crimes by India's security forces.
This was no passing episode as the renewal of protests in 2009 testified. It marked a new phase in the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination: using peaceful means of mass protests to press their case. At the conference it was not just Kashmiris from the Valley who stressed this point, but several Indian participants who also said that the mass rallies belied the official claim that elections had settled the issue. All of this raised the all-important question: if peaceful protests fail, what then?
An Indian delegate, Gautam Navlakha, from the Economic and Political Weekly, put it starkly. "If this peaceful movement does not find a democratic solution, the young will pick up the gun". He warned of radicalization on an unprecedented scale if Kashmiri aspirations are not addressed. This echoed what Mirwaiz had declared at the height of last year's upsurge: "The young will be forced to take up arms."
As for the likely response from Delhi, Mr Navlakha made the following comment: "For two decades well-intentioned Indians used to say that if the Kashmiris abandoned armed struggle, the Indian government would respond to their demands. But this has turned out to be a lie".
Other Indian participants concurred. Harinder Baweja, a journalist from Tehelka, spoke of India's enduringly obdurate stance of "containing" and "managing", rather than addressing the roots of Kashmiri alienation. An American academic, Dr Richard Shapiro injected into the debate his observation that Delhi uses the terrorism issue to "legitimate its repression of the Kashmiri people: traitors and terrorists become the template for the disproportionate violence unleashed in Kashmir".
The warnings voiced at the conference about the danger of radicalization suggests that the crisis has come full circle in Kashmir. Between 1987-89, a wave of peaceful protests swept the Valley, sparked initially by a rigged election. This was followed by the Gawkadal massacre in January 1990, when unprovoked firing by security forces on unarmed demonstrators, including women and children, in Srinagar left a record number of people dead. This became a defining moment in Kashmir's tortuous history and contributed to the conditions that led to armed resistance.
Kashmir may once again be at a critical turning point. What happens next can have grave implications for the region and beyond. Despite the potential ramifications for US policy in the region, it is astonishing that no American official came to the conference to learn about current dynamics in the world's most dangerous flash point, and listen to the grim prognosis from a diverse array of speakers.
The international community ignores the Kashmir powder keg at its peril. With Pakistan-India relations back to the default setting of 'no war, no peace, and no solutions to disputes', this does not hold out any promise of addressing Kashmiri aspirations and alleviating their plight. Tensions between the nuclear neighbours can easily be re-ignited by turmoil in the Valley. Paralysis in peace making and international apathy only heightens the danger in a volatile region that is poised at a tipping point.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
