In its pro-active bid to pre-empt fresh unrest, Government may be aiding one
POINT OF VIEW BY RIYAZ AHMAD
Winter over, Kashmir is going through an anxious transition to the warm weather. Anticipations run rife - led primarily by the government – that the Valley would relapse into the extended separatist groundswell through the summer. There are also apprehensions that the unrest might unfold early in view of the panchayat elections in April. There is thus a degree of consternation in the government which has persuaded it to follow swift and fast with pre-emptive measures. Hence, we have police arresting several hundred alleged stone-throwers in a major sweep of the unrest-prone areas of the Valley and slapping many of them with PSAs.
However, police has combined the use of force with an attempt at engagement with the youth. We have a police recruitment rally in the heart of downtown city and subsequently one was held by the security forces at Ganderbal which drew crowds of desperate job seekers. Police also organized a successful get-together with the alleged stone-throwers – more than 150 of them - in the downtown city, seeking their help in the “eradication of social evils” And what is more, the boys were treated to a lunch and a kehwa.
This was followed up with a Valleywide singing competition in the city. The contest was the culmination of the talent hunt competitions held across the state at police station and zonal levels followed by the ones at district level.
But has this painstaking carrot and stick policy made any impact on the ground. An intuitive reading of the public mood – even while granting the subjective nature of the experience – would tell us that it hasn’t. The level of disaffection in the public discourse has only grown. And it may well be a matter of time before it reaches a critical mass.
What could be the reasons for this disaffection? Surely, there is little that can be easily identified. Kashmir has never been so simple a place. Even normally, the place remains on edge with a lingering sense of uncertainty. And it takes an exceptional incident, most probably a security excess to trigger a mass unrest. At the same time, this is also a fact that while events or incidents might have played a part in unleashing anger on the streets, the protests in Kashmir are not necessarily driven by the events. As the cycle of protests over the past three years would have us believe, they don’t need an immediate cause to start. Protests in Valley, have become a perennial fact of life emanating from the sources of anger that are of subliminal nature. That is, they come from a rationale that is deeply lodged in the hearts and minds of people. And this rationale is the endemic sense that Kashmir is a hopeless place for its people unless the long-standing dispute over the state is resolved. There is also an entire gamut of the political treachery of all sorts that over the years has nurtured the situation as we see it today.
An analysis of the past three unrests could really be informing. And the first thing that comes to mind is that the explanations offered about their beginning in the first place hardly sound credible. Did separatists really instigate them? Of course, they would like the protests like these to go on as part of their long term struggle to achieve their political objective of Azadi from India. And both Hurriyat factions have always made painstaking efforts to mobilize people for this cause. But as the unrests by their very nature of the eruption would have us believe, they were for the most part spontaneous outbursts. Even 2010 unrest was basically a leaderless groundswell which saw separatists, as one such leader would admit, putting themselves forcibly at the head of it.
However, police has combined the use of force with an attempt at engagement with the youth. We have a police recruitment rally in the heart of downtown city and subsequently one was held by the security forces at Ganderbal which drew crowds of desperate job seekers. Police also organized a successful get-together with the alleged stone-throwers – more than 150 of them - in the downtown city, seeking their help in the “eradication of social evils” And what is more, the boys were treated to a lunch and a kehwa.
This was followed up with a Valleywide singing competition in the city. The contest was the culmination of the talent hunt competitions held across the state at police station and zonal levels followed by the ones at district level.
But has this painstaking carrot and stick policy made any impact on the ground. An intuitive reading of the public mood – even while granting the subjective nature of the experience – would tell us that it hasn’t. The level of disaffection in the public discourse has only grown. And it may well be a matter of time before it reaches a critical mass.
What could be the reasons for this disaffection? Surely, there is little that can be easily identified. Kashmir has never been so simple a place. Even normally, the place remains on edge with a lingering sense of uncertainty. And it takes an exceptional incident, most probably a security excess to trigger a mass unrest. At the same time, this is also a fact that while events or incidents might have played a part in unleashing anger on the streets, the protests in Kashmir are not necessarily driven by the events. As the cycle of protests over the past three years would have us believe, they don’t need an immediate cause to start. Protests in Valley, have become a perennial fact of life emanating from the sources of anger that are of subliminal nature. That is, they come from a rationale that is deeply lodged in the hearts and minds of people. And this rationale is the endemic sense that Kashmir is a hopeless place for its people unless the long-standing dispute over the state is resolved. There is also an entire gamut of the political treachery of all sorts that over the years has nurtured the situation as we see it today.
An analysis of the past three unrests could really be informing. And the first thing that comes to mind is that the explanations offered about their beginning in the first place hardly sound credible. Did separatists really instigate them? Of course, they would like the protests like these to go on as part of their long term struggle to achieve their political objective of Azadi from India. And both Hurriyat factions have always made painstaking efforts to mobilize people for this cause. But as the unrests by their very nature of the eruption would have us believe, they were for the most part spontaneous outbursts. Even 2010 unrest was basically a leaderless groundswell which saw separatists, as one such leader would admit, putting themselves forcibly at the head of it.
Taking all these facts on board, the problem in Kashmir appears essentially three dimensional. One, an endemic separatist sentiment in Valley which goes through its dormant and dynamic phases. Second, the separatist leadership, comprising Hurriyat factions and some groups operating outside their fold who generally serve as symbolic representatives of the sentiment on the ground. And third, the mainstream establishment which comprises central and state government, political parties and of course their electoral support base. There is an inherent disconnect among the three, the apparent perception of an umbilical relationship or even some occasional overlap notwithstanding.
So the best that a state government can do to help the ground situation under the circumstances is through better mob control. Last year, it was the non-stop killings rather than the separatist hartals that kept the unrest going. And it was only when killings stopped that the situation returned to normal.
Now, government seems to be again repeating the same mistake by trying to pre-empt the unrest through arrests and PSAs. Around 4000 youth and alleged instigators of stone throwing have been held which has generated a fair degree of disaffection among the people. It is this paranoia which in the end instead of dousing the situation could only help blow it up. There is thus an urgent need for the government to introspect its current approach.
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