Echoes of Gaza in Kashmir

The scenes of young Kashmiri girls, most of them in school uniforms and hijab, throwing stones at security forces have stunned India and people around the world.

The iconic image of a young and angry football coach Afshan Ashique – who once wanted to play for India – with a football in one hand and a stone in another, taking on the security forces has gone viral. The disturbing images reminded one of Palestinian schoolgirls and women protesting on the streets of Gaza.

India, for all its flaws, is not Israel. But the fact that the young women are picking up stones and fighting pitched battles with the security forces suggests that Kashmir has crossed a new, dangerous milestone. When women take up arms – in this case, stones – and stand with men to challenge authority, it is a sign that that society has traversed a point of no return.

With women joining men and schoolboys on the streets, virtually the whole of Kashmiri society is now up in arms. As Essar Batool, one of the authors of the book, ‘Do You Remember Kunan-Poshpura’, puts it: “These images of young women with their cute bunny bags or footballs in hand are extremely powerful. They shatter many myths and stereotypes about Kashmiri women”.

This should have been a wake-up call to a mature leadership, prompting it to reach out to the dangerously alienated Kashmiris with a new sense of purpose and sincerity. Instead, true to its hardnosed image, the BJP government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi – which shares power with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir – has chosen to form a new female force to deal with the new phenomenon of female protesters.

When a desperate Mehbooba Mufti, the chief minister, recently met Modi seeking immediate intervention and dialogue ‘with all stakeholders’ to defuse the explosive situation – invoking Vajpayee’s message of ‘insaniyat and jamhuriyat’ (humanity and democracy) – she was bluntly told that no dialogue was possible with the separatists or Pakistan. Instead, Modi offered to hold talks with pro-India political parties, the very people who are responsible for the current mess in Kashmir. And yes, Mufti was asked to raise another 5,000-strong police force.

This is not the first government to view Kashmir through a security prism. Successive governments, including the previous Congress-led government, have always treated Kashmir as a ‘security problem’ that must be kept under control using security forces.

It is an endless, vicious cycle. The more freedom Kashmiris demand to “choose their own destiny”, the more security forces are sent by Delhi to tame what it sees as a lawless frontier. And the more the ubiquitous military gets on Kashmiri nerves, the more they crave freedom and take to the streets.

As a result, Kashmir, despite being the world’s densest militarised zone with the highest number of soldiers per capita, remains as Bill Clinton aptly put: “the world’s most dangerous place”, thanks to the perpetual bickering between the forever estranged nuclear neighbours.

Many thought things would change when the PDP – a party that passionately championed autonomy and dialogue with separatists and Pakistan – surprisingly joined hands with the BJP to form the coalition government.

Considering the BJP’s stance on Kashmir and Modi’s massive mandate, many hoped the PDP-BJP government might succeed where many others had failed in restoring peace and normalcy and defusing tensions with Pakistan. This gained significance particularly after Modi invoked Vajpayee, the tallest leader and founder of the BJP, during his first visit to the valley. Clearly, that was not to be. Under the PDP and the BJP, things have only gone from bad to worse. Instead of offering a healing touch to the bleeding Kashmiris, the governments in Delhi and Srinagar have constantly stoked the fire of Kashmiri anger.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has lost all credibility as she desperately and unsuccessfully tries to push and toe the Delhi line. The strong-arm tactics of a myopic and callous government that clearly thinks that a big stick in hand and brute force in uniform are the answers to all problems have inflamed Kashmiri society like never before.

As if the daily killings of Kashmiris and brutalising of Kashmiris using pellet guns weren’t enough, the security forces are now resorting to methods like using locals as ‘human shields’. The recent assault on Farooq Ahmed Dar, a 26-year-old shawl weaver – strapping him to the front of an army jeep and parading him through several villages the whole day as a ‘live trophy’ and as a ‘lesson’ to others – takes ‘psychological’ warfare to a whole new level.

Not surprisingly, the video went viral sparking outrage around the world. Condemning the action, Lt General HS Panag, a decorated veteran of the Indian Army, tweeted saying that the “image of a ‘stone pelter’ tied in front of a jeep as a ‘human shield’ will forever haunt the Indian Army and the nation”.

But there were many – the holy warriors in television studios and those who are supposed to offer protection of the law to the weak and vulnerable – who defended the indefensible. The country’s senior-most lawyer, the attorney general of India no less, defended the action, praising the officer who made an example of Dar.

A judge on the Armed Forces Tribunal, which hears court-martial appeals, generated a tweet hailing the “innovative idea”.

Meanwhile several graphic videos surfaced showing the torture of Kashmiris by the security forces. In one such grisly video, soldiers are seen raining blows on hapless, terrified men, urging them to shout anti-Pakistan slogans. Is it any wonder then that even young women and children are taking to the streets to protest against the security forces and what they have come to represent. The Kashmiri alienation is complete.

Of course, it is easy to blame Pakistan for its role in having added fuel to the fire in Kashmir from time to time. However, much of this mess is the creation of successive politicians in Kashmir and Delhi.

Regularly rigged elections, a dogged refusal to acknowledge the legitimate demands and aspirations of Kashmiris, forgetting India’s own historic promises, and above all the widespread human rights abuses – these have brought Kashmir to this pass. After living with military presence for so long, even the most peaceful and docile populations can turn hostile. And Kashmiris, especially the young and restless of today’s generation, have lived with the armed forces for as long as they can remember.

What will it take for governments in Srinagar and Delhi to see that you cannot rule at gunpoint forever? Peace and normalcy will continue to elude Kashmir as long as the army rules the streets and occupies the political space and inhuman laws like the AFSPA continue to protect it. Talk of dialogue and resolution of the K knot is meaningless as long as there’s no political will and courage of conviction at the highest level.

All those well-meaning peace missions to Kashmir, the latest one being led by the BJP’s Yashwant Sinha, haven’t gone anywhere precisely because of this. From the late Dileep Padgaonkar to CPM’s Sitaram Yechury to Sinha, no one in Delhi has even bothered to read their sincere recommendations. Yet it is Kashmiris who are repeatedly blamed for this mess.

Prime Minister Modi with his massive mandate and popularity is uniquely placed to make a new beginning in Kashmir. Does he have the courage and willingness to walk the talk on his own promise to bring ‘insaniyat and jamhuriyat’ to Kashmir?

It’s still not too late to act.

The writer is an award-winning journalist.

Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com