The streets of Kashmir today represent the debilitating disconnect between the aspirations of its people and India's claims on the issue. As young lives are ruthlessly spent, resolute passions continue to defy the tyranny, armed with little more than dusty stones.

Just when India thinks it has craftily relegated the issue to oblivion through a superficially managed surface calm – the crest of a falling wave -- the issue resurrects itself to haunt the entire region.

The failings of the separatist leadership during the Amarnath land row (2008) resulted in a large voter turnout in the ensuing state legislative elections. An expression of lost confidence in the separatist leadership (as distinct to the separatist ideology) was misconstrued by India as an assertion of its (Kashmir's) assimilation within the Indian state. Misplaced confidence further replaced critical analysis. As simmering discontentment continued, India increasingly found itself at loggerheads with the prevalent mood in the valley. Its responses underscored by disdain and temerity only exacerbated the situation. The highhandedness with which it handled the Shopian rape case (2009) created an impasse precipitating a crisis that ultimately snowballed into the present uprising.

The peaceful conducting of and considerable voter participation in the State Legislative Elections (2008) had marked a watershed for India's policy on Kashmir. Where it reinforced its confidence, boosting its national morale, it also helped create the myth of vindication of India's standpoint on Kashmir, earning it diplomatic kudos whilst papering over the fault lines that extended below. On the ground it provided India with the opening to entrench its interests through planned musical chairs to power of its representatives -- the National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).The overlapping of ideological agendas, previously exclusive to the separatist camp, was believed and marketed by India as the capturing of separatist turf by these mainstream parties. To further discredit the separatist leadership and consequently weakening separatist sentiment India extended a suspect offer of the much-publicised "Quiet talks" and, while engaged in it, leaked controversial details denting an already plummeting separatist credibility. However, the volatile turn of events upset India's proverbial applecart. Gleaning lessons from the past India sought to provide a Kashmiri face to gloss over its excesses. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was more than willing to furnish the cover.

The situation proved to be explosive. For a generation brought up during the conflict and bred on a diet of violence and violations things had reached a precipice. They would no longer be mute spectators nor ready victims.

Outraged at the brazen insensitivity and unaccountability with which innocent lives were felled, these young men took to the streets seeking to register their grief and frustration. While some youth pelted stones at army bunkers and military personnel they were met by disproportionate retaliation -- a deluge of bullets unmistakably aiming the chest and skull. This set a cycle of confrontation with more the sadistic brutality of the armed forces the upsurge in motivated youth swarming the streets. Defying curfews and braving bullets these non-armed youth -- but for the stones in their fists – raised the bar, ushering in a new phase of the freedom movement.

The youth also effectively utilised popular social networking sites and blogs to create awareness and insight regarding the issue. This along with other non-armed methods – the fact that there was not a single fatality on the side of the Indian security forces – generated sympathy and concern world over with the issue drawing critical attention. It also created a perceptive change of roles from "cross-border" terrorism to peaceful and indigenous articulation of the right to self-determination on the part of the Kashmiris and for India from the largest democracy to abettors of tyrannical human rights violations. Within India it produced a stir within civil society laying the grounds for a receptive shift in the Indian public opinion. The movement also made a defining transition from being cult-driven to issue-driven. Milestones no doubt, there is, however, a need to identify and plug the emerging weak spots.

Raging idealism coupled with the perceptive non-deliverance of the prevalent movement prompted the youth to take things in their own hands along the way perilously weakening existing structures of leadership and centres of authority. Statures that had taken years to build were being dismantled overnight with effigies being burnt, perspectives rebuffed and restricting of public space. This is a dangerous development as within the layered context of Kashmiri politics there is limited scope for a legitimate and widely acceptable leadership to be thrown up immediately. Though the evolution of a new leadership stemming the setting in decay is inevitable, the erosion of established leadership in the present milieu will further deepen the leadership crisis, internally weaken the movement and render it vulnerable to infiltration of hostile elements.

There is also absence of integrated long-term strategy. Despite the significant achievements these are loosely knit designs rather than collective endeavours strung together in a well-conceived grand strategy. Hartaals and strikes while altering the balance of power in the interim are not sustainable in the long term and often result in diminishing returns. These need to be corroborated with innovative and all-encompassing mechanisms of protest sustainable over a period of time to be able to create ample pressure from within forcing some form of amicable resolution. The peaceful Palestinian intifada which started in 1987 was able to accelerate the movement to an agreement in the form of the Oslo accords of 1993.

Its weaknesses notwithstanding, the mantle of the movement has passed on to the next generation. Despite attempts at superficial healing and distrust alleviation, New Delhi's relationship with Kashmir continues to be arbitrated through the latter's desire for the right of self determination. Every few decades the struggle comes full circle with the coming of age of a new generation. The writing is on the wall, whether India chooses to reflect or continue whistling in the wind, it's its call, at its peril.

(Courtesy: The News)
(The author also contributes regularly for Greater Kashmir. Feedback at asma_ sgl@hotmail.com)

Lastupdate on : Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
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