The government-appointed Commission of Inquiry, which is tasked probing the killings of 17 out of 65 civilians since June 11 by police and paramilitary forces, has started its work. The two-member commission – headed by Justice (Retd) Syed Bashir-ud-Din and Justice (Retd) YP Nargotra as its member - on Wednesday issued a public notice asking witnesses to provide circumstantial accounts of the incidents in which these killings happened. Although, in principle, this initiative sounds good, but it leaves a whole gamut of questions unanswered.

The first and foremost question is; what guided the government’s decision of taking up 17 cases of killings for probe, while leaving out the 48 others? This, by default, is a significant political statement in itself. It, naturally, presumes that the circumstances in which these 48 individuals were killed provided enough justification for the use of force and, thereby, there is no need for fixing any responsibility. It also makes a chillingly implicit judgment that since there is no necessity for fixing responsibility for these killings, there is no need to stop such incidents in future. This kind of selective approach will be raising serious questions among the public in the days to come. It will also do little to address public anger and hurt of those who lost their loved ones. This approach is going to have an adverse psychological impact on the family members of those killed, too. Most importantly, it is going to make a whole new generation substantiate its loss of faith completely in the democratic system of Jammu & Kashmir, and create deeper psychological imprints of victimhood and being the ‘other. Once the probe is over, even if one assumes that the commission is able to fix responsibility in a categorical manner for these 17 killings, one question will bring us back to the basic debate: is J&K government politically empowered to initiate the process of legal action against armed forces? Or it will be a cosmetic measure to find and punish scapegoats of the local police, who might even have acted on the instructions of their officers?

When we reflect on such past probes, it becomes abundantly clear that no Jammu & Kashmir government, no matter the quantum of its electoral credibility, has the power to initiate action against armed forces. It took a one-time special personal initiative from the Home Minister P Chidambaram, on tremendous pressure from Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, to prosecute the paramilitary officer responsible for killing a teenage boy of Nishat early this year. And then the killing of three persons from Rafiabad in a fake encounter by an Army officer near the Line of Control this summer comes to the mind as well. Let us be reminded that the groundswell of public anger and political upheaval seen during the last three months is not only as a reaction to the killing of 17-year-old Tufail Mattoo in Srinagar but also as an angry reaction to the impunity with which army kills innocents and get away with that. It is in such a backdrop that one of the commission’s mandate – to suggest measures to avert the recurrence of such incidents in future and recommend action against those found responsible in any such incident – evokes cynicism. A lot of newsprint has been consumed in making the point that no such cosmetic measures are going to stabilise Kashmir. The moot question that is raised again and again is that why do we need to have a paradoxical situation of a ‘functional democracy’ and tight military control over the population? There are two frank ways of helping this paradox. Establishments in New Delhi and Srinagar will either have to admit publicly that they cannot do away with military control and impunity for the sake of the political status quo in Kashmir. In such a case wishing stability will be unrealistic. The other option is to give credibility to the democratic system in place – through the restoration of the appropriate political sovereignty, loosening military control and establishing the rule of law. Stability will follow.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 3 Sep 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 3 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 4 Sep 2010 00:00:00 IST