39. JAMMU AND KASHMIR - FROM CRISIS TO NORMALCY

39 JAMMU AND KASHMIR DONTS AND DOS

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN JAMMU & KASHMIR

1. March 2015: BJP-PDP Alliance

2. 2016: Burhan Wani Encounter

3. Oct. 2017: Dineshwar Sharma

4. April 2018: Kathua Rape Case

5. May-June 2018: Ramzan Ceasefire

6. Eve of Eid: Aurangzeb Khan killed

7. 14 June 2018: Shujaat Bukhari killed

8. 20 June 2018: Governor’s Rule

Timeline of Governor’s Rule in Last 4 Decades:

March 26, 1977: Governor’s Rule was first imposed in the state on this date by the then Governor LK Jha, when Congress withdrew support to the minority government headed by Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah.

March 1986: Congress withdrew support to the GM Shah-led state government setting the stage for imposition of Governor’s Rule for the second time.

January 1990: The Governor’s Rule was imposed when the then chief minister Farooq Abdullah resigned after the appointment of Jagmohan as the state’s Governor.

October 2002: Farooq Abdullah refused to continue as the caretaker CM following his party’s defeat in the assembly elections. This was when NN Vohra took over as the Governor for the first time.

June 2008: Governor’s Rule was imposed again after PDP withdrew its support to the Ghulam Nabi Azad-led government.

January 2015: With his party failing to get a majority in the state elections, Omar Abdullah refused to continue as caretaker CM, and the state was placed under the Governor’s Rule for the sixth time.

January 7, 2016: Governor’s Rule was imposed for the seventh time after the death of former Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed on January 7, 2016.

June 20, 2018: Vohra assumed reins of the administration as Governor’s Rule was imposed following the BJP’s decision to withdraw support to the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP government int he state.

Way Ahead

Don’ts

1.       We cannot afford to play partisan politics over Kashmir. A national political consensus is needed to frame a Kashmir policy that is neither the subject of prime time bickering nor the focus of parliamentary one-upmanship. The coalition government was buried under the weight of its own contradictions. This is a warning to parties on the right and left of the spectrum to find a way to agree on next steps. In the past, all-party delegations have managed to show maturity and unison during moments of crisis. This is an unprecedented crisis; our politicians need to measure up. They should commit to leaving the Kashmir situation outside the purview of the 2019 election campaign.

2.       Don’t be complacent: Denials about the gravity of the situation need to end. The 29-year-old insurgency is a consequence of many different factors. Pakistan’s patronage of terrorism is definitely a large dimension of the truth. But, there are many sins of omission and commission that have been our own over the decades. Our Kashmir policy cannot be robust if we lurch from crisis to crisis with long phases of complacency in between. Stop measuring normalcy by how many hotel rooms are booked in Gulmarg or how many tourists visit. These are cosmetic measures unrelated to the genesis of the situation or how it has evolved over the years.

3.       End the myth that education is an antidote to militancy. The last three years have witnessed a record resurgence in local militancy. Most of these men come from educated, economically comfortable homes. One was so bright at his studies that he was nicknamed ‘Newton’; another is the son of a government school headmaster; a third studied at an engineering college in Chandigarh, and so on. The mythology that enough laptops will displace stones needs to end.

4.       Quit branding people as nationalists/anti-nationalists based on your own whimsical, armchair patriotism. Our hatemongering hashtags have polarised the Kashmir debate to the extent that any reasonable conversation has become impossible. If you keep labelling individuals as treacherous just for having a view that deviates from the dominant narrative, you may be cheered on by virtual mobs; but, you are only adding to the toxicity that stops reasonable dialogue.

Dos

1.       Listen carefully to the local police force and serving Army commanders. You will discover that they are far less hawkish than your average television news anchor. They will tell you repeatedly that while they will successfully contain militancy, it is the failure of political imagination that has created dangerous vacuums. They will also have a better network of local contacts than most politicians. You don’t have to give them a veto; but certainly give them a clear voice in policy.

2.       Strengthen the moderates, so that ideological extremists on either side of the trenches do not divide regions and religions. Think of how ironic it is that while we are all mourning the assassination of journalist Shujaat Bukhari, while he was alive, he was attacked by both sides—either for not being separatist enough or for not being nationalist enough. There are only a handful of people left who are willing to concede that there are multiple shades of truth and not a singular truth. Those are the voices that need to be strengthened. If every Kashmiri voice is to be dismissed pejoratively as a traitor, who exactly will the New Delhi-appointed interlocutors speak with? Soon, there will be no one left to talk to.

3.       Empathise with Kashmiris:  Don’t lose your empathy. If you feel nothing for the Kashmiri people but only want territorial rights over the land, you will only deepen the crisis. There is no ‘national integration’ possible without a genuine, friendly assimilation and engagement.

4.       Create a new set of political leaders from the new generation of Kashmiris. The future of the state cannot be defined only by two families where power is handed down from generation to generation. We need new names, new faces and self-made professionals. Real normalcy would mean a wider set of political options than the Abdullahs and the Muftis.

5.       Work on intra-Kashmir conversations between the three regions of the state as well as between pandits and Muslims. There can be no justice or truth or reconciliation in Kashmir till the issue of enforced exodus of pandits is also included in that framework.

6.       Find a new language. The old clichés—Kashmiriyat, alienation, autonomy, winning hearts and minds are worn out. We need a new idiom. The old formulas have all failed.