What triggers the Kashmir deaths?

Extremists are filling the space created by the retreat of political groups in Kashmir – the bedrock of democracy. This is what the killings of young people by security men are suggesting. Arun Joshi writes.

Extremists are filling the space created by the retreat of political groups in Kashmir – the bedrock of democracy. This is what the killings of young people by security men are suggesting.

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This comes at a time when the projection was that one million tourists would visit Kashmir this year.

The valley is now shut down. The army is staging flag marches to keep things under control.

The situation – 12 young persons killed and more than 100 injured across the valley in the past 11 days – is reflective of a pattern of keeping Kashmir on the boil.

It is a sign where the soft voices on the political horizon of Kashmir are drowned and hardliners are looked up to as guides. It’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani and his faction of the Hurriyat Conference that’s heeded.

It was this wing that issued a protest (against the Indian state) calendar, and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s moderate faction followed by giving calls for a march to Sopore on Monday following Friday’s deaths, and shutdown calls. The government’s appeals for peace and calm have been ignored as the death toll continued to rise.

Geelani had warned the state government of serious consequences if it did not reduce the Amarnath journey (pilgrimage) period to 15 days from two months. And the trouble has come coinciding with the start of the yatra (June 30).

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has blamed “anti-national elements and vested interests” for the trouble.

“It is a battle of wits and a battle of ideas,” he said, and charged the separatists with “instigating the vulnerable youth (to take the path of violence)”.

The trouble, however, has another angle, which is political lethargy.

Political analysts and thinkers feel that radicals (read separatists) have strengthened themselves. “The radicals have definitely consolidated their position,” observed Riyaz Punjabi, vice-chancellor of Kashmir University.

He told HT that somewhere down the line there was an absence of political coordination and direction. “There are several segments, including a political approach and governance, and each one of them has to work in coordination with the other and take a direction.”

Punjabi is not optimistic. “I don’t think it is happening, perhaps.”

What is seen now is a resumption of what was happening four-five months ago in five or six police stations of Srinagar city. Abdullah had reiterated that the “trouble (owing to stone pelting) was confined to five or six police stations in Srinagar, and the rest of the Valley is calm”.

The chief minister was correct until a few weeks ago. But Srinagar had voted for the National Conference (NC) in all its eight seats in the assembly elections of 2008 (the party has 28 seats in the state). Four of the legislators of Srinagar have minister rank (two are ministers, one is the CM’s advisor with cabinet rank and the fourth is chairman of the women commission with ministerial rank). They cocooned themselves, and the same holds true for Sopore, 55 km north of Srinagar, again represented by the ruling NC. But the healthy situation was not used to further the democratic cause. A good chance was lost.

And separatists took advantage of this, and found in the youth fertile ground. While the NC and opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) were busy in political mud-slinging, extremists stepped in to fill the vacuum.

PDP President Mehbooba Mufti agrees that what’s happening has cast a “shadow on the role of mainstream parties”. “We’re being rendered irrelevant”.

Punjabi says: “There is a need for all nationalist forces to come together and sink differences because it is a challenge for all of them.”