Supreme Court judgment outlawing the deployment of tribal youths as Special Police Officers has a deep resonance for Kashmir.  The court has declared the creation of Salwa Judum which helps the security agencies in the fight against Naxals as illegal and unconstitutional. The use of such ill-trained and unqualified tribals, the court said, is outside the moral and constitutional mandate of the government. The court has warned that these tribals could turn against the government itself. This is a landmark judgment and has deep implications for the country's counterinsurgency security paradigm.  In fact, the court ruling has already put the Naxal-hit states in a fix. They are arguing that without the support of Salwa Judum, their anti-Maoist campaign will suffer. Salwa Judum which was set up in 2005 by recruiting tribal youth as SPOs to use their local knowledge to aid the counterinsurgency effort has been accused of committing excess in the areas of its operation.  For Kashmir, the judgment is deeply relevant. This place has not only seen  large number of SPOs being recruited to fight the separatist militancy over the past two decades but at one time government even hired a former militant outfit to do this job. And what this organization did in the name of fighting militancy still evokes bitter memories in Valley. Ikhwanies, as they are still called in Valley, turned their guns at the local people – most of them innocent – with impunity, plundered forests and even interfered in the development work. Did they make any major difference to the state of militancy in the state at the time. Initially, they did by helping the security forces in identifying and eliminating the militants. They did this in the most ruthless manner possible by harassing the families of the militants and by going against the separatist sympathizers, often killing them in broad day light on busy thoroughfares. The backwaters of Hajin, Safapora, Sumbal and Bandipora and many places in South Kashmir are witness to the massive human rights excesses perpetrated by this ragtag band of militia – its brunt borne by the innocent men and women whose only fault was that they were perceived to be the workers of a particular political party. The point at issue is that operating in a gray zone of law, Ikhwanies and later SPOs often got away with the worst atrocities. No doubt government later did wake up to the chilling reality and many of them were later taken to task but the deep scars that the experiment has left on the minds of people will take time to heal. Yes, there can be a counter-argument about the matching violations by the militants and of course the security forces themselves but what made the Ikhwan and later SPOs’ experiment gruesome was that they didn’t seem to be accountable even to any vague moral compass let alone to the law. However, for the clarity’s sake we should limit our argument to the purpose behind arming civilians to fight insurgencies and whether this is the desirable method to achieve this goal. The two decade long experiment in Kashmir tells us that this is not. What counter-insurgents actually helped achieve was to force the militancy in Valley go underground rather than in any way contribute to its elimination. In fact, militancy in Valley only ended up growing so professional and strong that it not only wiped clean even Ikhwan but also took the fight to the security establishment. Suicide attacks that started through the early period of millennium despite the SPOs and SOG are witness to this reality. And if militancy has now declined precipitously in recent years, it is more the result of the altered geo-political reality of the region than any game-changing security policy in Kashmir. So when apex court puts the sponsored hired armed civilian gangs outside the moral and constitutional mandate of the government, the people in Kashmir would not only hail it but also expect it to be extended to the state.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 6 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 6 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 7 Jul 2011 00:00:00 IST