‘Nothing has changed in Jammu and Kashmir for past sixty three years’. It has been much of consequences, who have been at the helm of affairs in New Delhi or who has been running the show in Jammu and Kashmir. It has always needed a spark, such as, rise in electricity tariff, bus fare, an indiscreet bureaucratic decision, a rigging in elections, infringing a religious sentiment, a rape or a killing to flare up a situation and set ‘Kashmir valley and many hilly districts in Jammu on a fire’.  Often these flare-ups have ended up in ‘full-scale movements’ for ‘demanding a plebiscite,’ ‘right to self-determination’ or its synonym ‘azadi’.  

Looking back, we have a very long history of summers of discontent. There have been winters of mass agitations. Sixty three years history and experiences have taught powers that matter in New Delhi the situation never ‘really returns to normal’ in Jammu and Kashmir.   “Even it sees the outward symptoms of peace, it has been missing   the resentment within.’   It may not be possible to recount all the sixty three summers of discontent in this column- some of which blew up into mass movements of unmanageable magnitude and brought Kashmir under sharp focus at the international level and UN Human Rights Commission. 

The sixty three years long chain of simmering summers has had some ‘punctures’ of peace. There however have now   been three summers of discontent in a series. These three summers of discontent seen without tinted glasses were spontaneous youth movements with very little inputs from the ‘umbrella organization’, or the ‘political combines supporting right to self-determination’ or ‘accessions supporting political partners.  What is most ironical that it has not been the divided and fragmented “pro-freedom camps” that did put in some labor for the mass uprising during the three summers under focus but it is the governments in office or the official machinery that in literal sense one or the other  way worked as ‘agent provocateurs’ for these tidal uprisings.
 
SUMMER 2008:
The state was almost free of militancy related violence. The number of militants from thirty to forty thousand in 1990 had come down to, from government’s reckoning, to bare three hundred – almost inactive, living in some remote jungles. The one of the two umbrella organizations was groping in the dark after the waterloo of the “General’s Four Point Formula”, many of ilk’s were equally caught up in a ‘no-idea syndrome’- it was the allotment of some nine hundred acres of land to a temple trust that provided grits to otherwise silent mill of Kashmir politics.

The allotment of land first came under focus at sparsely attended seminar in a non-descript hotel at Srinagar. And after sometime it was yet another seminar in dingy hall of   another hotel in busy Lal Chowk that Syed Ali Geelani expressed his apprehension about the allotment of land and saw it as a game plan for changing demography of the state.  It was this seminar that snowballed into the mass movement bringing about five million of the ten million population on this side of the LOC participating in different mass rallies during the ‘Amarnath agitation’. Many Indian observers saw it as a referendum.

The agitation for the first time after the 1964, Holy Relic Movement changed what I would call as India’s national mood about Kashmir.  Arundhati Roy, radical intellectual from India   said “Azadi is the only thing that Kashmiri wants. Denial is delusion’. In one of her seven thousand and odd words article she raised many a question about Kashmir relations with India and tried to look for answers. The most pertinent question and answer that deserve to be repeated:

 “At the heart of it all is a moral question. Does any government have the right to take away people's liberty with military force?
India needs azadi from Kashmir just as much—if not more—than Kashmir needs azadi from India”

She was not alone but a whole tribe of Indian intelligentsia like Pankaj Mishra,  , Ajit Bhattacharjea, Vir Sanghvi, Swaminathan Aiyar and many others made bold statements, even pleaded  for granting independence to Kashmir These were not discordant but real patriotic voices,  indicative of the national mood in New Delhi.

SUMMER 2009.   
Immediately after   winter Kashmir cauldron started boiling. The bodies of Aasiya, 17, and her pregnant sister-in-law, Neelofar, 24, of Bungam Shopian were found near Rambairia Nullah at a distance from a CRP camp. The family members of the dead women and local people accused the armed forces and have alleged that the duo were raped and murdered. The incident spiraled out into a mass movement that brought within its ambit entire Kashmir valley. The agitation over the death of two young women like the 2008 not only attracted covers in Indian press but also turned into yet another summer of discontent. It fuelled the movement for “Azadi”. And again brought ‘the dialogue obsessed’ leaders on the roads.  This agitation failed to assume as massive dimension as that of 2008 but brought Kashmir problem with all its brutal and ugly manifestation to the fore.  But it again failed to help in furthering the resolution of the Kashmir problem.

Summer 2010:
I have no exact figure how many youth died since January 2010- but the images of the blood soaked bodies of school going children and teenagers are nightmarishly haunting every home. It has already been named as “the year of teenager killings”. I need not to recount here how every death of a child or teenage provoked spontaneous demonstrations, protest and brought surging crowds on the roads…

 It will be too early to say if the summer of 2010 snowballs into a situation as that of 2008 or the government succeeds in containing it before it spilt over to August and September. It will also be early to say if the umbrella organization that has been looking for New Delhi inviting it for a meeting, more precisely another photo-session, succeeds in preventing the younger generation from coming on the streets; that way help the government in bringing in some semblance of peace in cities and towns across the state.
There are many in Kashmir who believe that had not “the 2008 movement been messed up by some Kashmiri leaders, Kashmir would have been free”. A friend in ‘academia’ persistently blames Syed Ali Geelani for failing to take the 2008 ‘movement’ towards a final march.  Some have been accusing the leadership under the canopy of a faction of an umbrella organization for their ‘infidelity’ to the cause and for their commitments in New Delhi for the failure of 2008 mass movement translating into achieving of the ultimate goal.  It is a big question if the 2008 movement could have proved to be as the last march. It cannot be disputed that 2008 situation brought Kashmir under the international focus and it also cannot be denied that international opinions have an important role in the resolution of disputes like Jammu and Kashmir but it always demands diplomatic ability and agility to harness that international opinion to the advantage of agitating nations and masses.

I have a different take on this question why these summers of discontent more elaborately from 1965 onwards have failed to work as catalyst for resolving the Kashmir imbroglio. It may not be possible to dwell in detail upon the subject, I will try to make some points that I may elaborate upon in some future column.

It is misnomer to say Kashmiris are the primary stake holders, looking at the dispute as a historical dispute that it is, it has been India and Pakistan that are key players in the dispute. It cannot be denied that India and Pakistan that are the key players in the dispute. One may adumbrate that dispute continued for New Delhi’s procrastinating policy but at the same time it has   so far failed resolution for Pakistan’s faulty foreign policy right from the Ayub Khan days.   Kashmir those days despite resounding in the UN Security Council and garnering tremendous support failed a resolution for having been caught in the cold war cleft. In the post cold war Pakistan again failed to reprioritize its international relations. It failed in the words of Eric Margolis understand that US had a ‘sorry record of abandoning its faithful allies.’ Notwithstanding US abandoning Pakistan after Soviet exit, it is a reality that in 1993, the Bill Clinton Administration had shown a tilt towards Kashmir. From Clinton to Madeleine Albright to Rabin Raphel there was one voice on Kashmir but how Pakistan Foreign Office fritted away this opportunity by toeing Iranian line on Kashmir in withdrawing resolution from UN is in itself a big subject. Quoting Ambassador Yusuf Buch: “Had not Kashmir problem been left to India-Pakistan diplomats it would have been solved long before.’

Now what is required to watch where Kashmir  fits in the emerging US  South-Asian equations….
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Lastupdate on : Sun, 4 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
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