JOIN USFrom Prime Minister Narendra Modi to writer Chetan Bhagat to Azadi-seeking JNU leader Kanhaiya Kumar, there’s a general consensus among myriad voices that Kashmir is India’s integral part. But then, the feeling in the vexed state is that Indians and Kashmiris are treated differently in the world’s largest democracy.
New Delhi’s recent reactions to lathi-charge on outstation students at National Institute of Technology (NIT), Srinagar, followed by killing of five civilians in the frontier district of Kupwara, has just strengthened this belief.
On April 6, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry rushed a 3-member team to Srinagar to resolve the situation which snowballed out of control when India lost the T20 World Cup semifinals to the West Indies. While some Kashmiri students celebrated India’s defeat, the outstation students objected by raising “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, which was countered by “Hum Kya Chahte? Azadi!” (What do we want? Freedom!)
Amid the media hype, the argument festered into a major controversy. HRD Minister Smriti Irani and Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti over safety of outstation (non-Kashmiri) students. On April 21, the NIT administration agreed to most of the demands made by the outstation students.
The institute authorities, however, stayed mum on the demand to have either the prime minister or the HRD Minister hoist the national flag on campus to end the impasse, as also “reiterate the message that Kashmir is an integral part of India”.
BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi, flanked by some party colleagues, including Modi, unfurled the national flag at the historic Lal Chowk. Subsequently, turmoil worsened for around a decade.
As of now, when right-wing nationalists want to reconquer Kashmir through flag-raising, the regional mainstream parties have missed the opportunity to burst the bubble over “patriotism”.
While the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) obviously won’t offend its ally the BJP, the National Conference could have encashed on the situation. Had NC leader Omar Abdullah made it to the NIT campus and unfurled the tricolor, it would have been seen as checkmating the PDP.
But Kashmir is a different story where almost everything, including campus counselling and civilian killings, evolve out of systematic design, something typical of conflict zones. The Handwara incident has put a question mark on Modi’s commitments and intentions alike. It had been over a year since the army was accused of civilian killings, a first since the 1990s, and Modi knew it.
On November 3, 2014, two civilians were killed by the army in Chattergam area. A month later, when Modi visited Kashmir on December 8, he made a strong statement saying it is for the first time that the army owned up to the mistake of gunning down two innocent youth and action has been taken against those who opened fire. “This had not happened in the last 30 years.
Ye Modi Sarkar Ka Kaamal Hai. Ye mere nek iradon ka saboot hai (That’s the miracle of Modi government. It’s an evidence of my sincerity),” Modi said.
J&K ‘trifurcation’
Though thereafter, during the first innings of the PDP-BJP government, there were at least six incidents of civilian killings, and the army was nowhere accused. But this time, the police filed murder charges against personnel from the army.
Amid protests against the molestation of a schoolgirl by a soldier, the killings continued for 4 days, ample time for Modi to make a statement on the killings. Interestingly, though he subsequently visited Jammu and invoked Vajpayee’s phrase on “Jamhuriyat, Insaniyat and Kashmiriyat”, there was no mention of the issue.
Handwara and NIT incidents have given rise to a feeling among a section of the people in the state whether it was aimed at the trifurcation of the state. The RSS-backed BJP has already made the Hindutva agenda clear by seeking division of Jammu & Kashmir, when Ladakh is already demanding a Union territory status.
With 25 seats to its kitty from the Jammu region, on October 29, 2015, senior BJP leader Hari Om asked the prime minister to divide the state to end “alienation in Jammu region”.
There is revival of militancy which gained momentum after the secret hanging of Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru. On January 7, when chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed died, merely a few hundred people participated in Mufti’s last rites. But during funeral of militants, the number of mourners swell to thousands.
The situation now is more alarming than the 1990s. The police are worried about public support for militants, and recently an advisory was issued asking people to stay away from encounter sites where they attempt to break cordons to let militants flee.
(The writer is a journalist and analyst based in Kashmir)