It is wrong to assume that Governor Satya Pal Malik said it for the first time that killing of militants in Kashmir would not help solve the problem for the militancy, primarily resides in the mind. It is just that what he said on January 24 made it to headlines, before that his call to end the militancy by addressing the issues agitating the mind of the people did not catch the required attention.
At the start of his innings as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir , he had listed “winning hearts and minds of the youth” as his first priority. Second, he had repeatedly pressed the point that the militancy would not end with the elimination of militants but by engaging them in a positive manner. That’s why he always talked of sports fields , entertainment and other activities that could recognize and enhance the positive thinking and action of the youth.
Third, he was very clear from the very beginning that peace cannot be found in a vacuum and wanted all the stakeholders to contribute in this endeavor. Satya Pal Malik’s January 24th remarks should be seen in line with his original thinking and the agenda that he brought with him to work for peace in Kashmir.” Nothing can be do ne overnight in a conflict zone where there are so many forces crisscrossing with their vested interests. He had to navigate through the rough waters as a number of narratives , often contradictory, were on the airwaves. This has added to the confusion to the situation and to his challenges as well.
Now what makes his statement more significant than before has to be analysed in the context of his five month-long experience of the Kashmir situation. He has seen the things with his own eyes and heard them with his own ears. There is a huge difference between what the TV channels shout day in and day out about Kashmir and the reality on the ground. The TV channels have complicated the matters by their polarizing narrative, whereas what happens on the ground is quite different.
Malik has had first hand experience that the Governor has gained during his tenure in the Raj Bhavan so far. Secondly, he has seen that the pain of the loss of the youth is beyond the self-consuming disaster – it has started consuming Kashmiri society and its ethos , where the radical forces have started making forays . His statement that, ” every loss of life is painful, even if it is that of a terrorist,” need to be seen in this context. There is an urge to embrace the men with guns if they rejoin the “mainstream.”
Malik must have observed that the outrage that the desecration of Jamia mosque in December last year triggered across the Valley, when a group of the youth captured the pulpit where from the chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq delivers his Friday sermons to the devotees who throng the shrine in thousands every Friday. The act of sacrilege was a matter of grave concern .. But, it also indicated greater danger that the ideology that was incompatible and alien to the Kashmiri society had started making appearance with ISIS flags.
The outrage that this act triggered was a resistance against the radicalism. A US based think tank , The Soufan Center, in its latest research paper titled, ” Al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent – the Nucleus of Jihad in South Asia noted it with concern that the ” The situation in Kashmir has also taken an unprecedented turn . For the first time since the onset of conflict in Kashmir , the region is responding to the appeal of groups like al-Qaeda. Local Kashmiris
lead the AQIS wing in the contested territory, which reflects the growing Islamisation of Kashmiri militancy.” This is a view from a distance. It may not be as reasonable and realistic as the researchers of the report have tried to put in the manner in which they did, but there certainly is a whiff of something that they have sensed. It cannot be ignored.
Again, it would be worth mentioning that the Governor – who is the representative of Government of India and speaks on behalf of Delhi – had asked the Hurriyat Conference to visit him and air their grievances. This was a deeply significant statement. It was a statement that had many connotations, and by limiting the assessment to his bid to build bridges with the separatists, is a narrow vision analysis. There is a need to understand the idea on a larger scale.
The messaging was clear that there are certain deficiencies in the system: some real, others perceived. Let there be exchange of ideas so that a new narrative of undoing the injustices be started so that Kashmir is rid of this curse. There is a need to read the mind that is what has become very important in today’s Kashmir.
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