J&K: THE GENERAL MISFIRES
February 17 was the first Friday in many weeks when Kashmir’s Hurriyat separatists called for a shutdown. In a relative state of hibernation since the Durbar move (bi-annual relocation of the state government between Srinagar and Jammu) in October, after the violent summer of 2016, the Kashmir Valley may have just been primed for an even more frenzied 2017 by a comment from new army chief Gen. Bipin Rawat. The Friday prayers in Nowhata in downtown Srinagar and other parts of the Valley were followed by stone-pelting protests. Youngsters, some with faces masked, defied security personnel to open fire, daring the General to execute his threat.
Two days earlier, angered by the death of four soldiers, including Rashtriya Rifles officer Maj. Satish Dahiya, Gen. Rawat had threatened reprisals after stone-throwing village youth tried to interfere during an encounter with armed militants. “People who have picked up arms… and they are the local boys, if they want to continue with the acts of terrorism— displaying flags of ISIS and Pakistan—we will treat them as anti-national elements and go helter-skelter for them. They may survive today, but we will get them tomorrow,” he said after paying his respects to the fallen soldiers alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi.
Not only did the army chief threaten to treat protesting civilians like terrorists, he unwittingly articulated the first official acknowledgement that Kashmiris were alienated from India. “We find that the local population is somehow not supportive of the actions of the security forces,” Gen. Rawat said. “While our aim has been to conduct people-friendly operations, the manner in which the local population is preventing us from conducting the operations, at times even supporting the terrorists to escape…”
Predictably, the outburst kicked up a storm in the Valley. While the ruling dispensation sheepishly attempted to contain the ruckus, National Conference spokesman Junaid Azim Mattu said “threatening youth rather than engaging them politically” will cause further alienation and only fuel militancy. Moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq said Gen. Rawat’s words reflected “the tyrannical mindset towards the people of Kashmir”.
Delhi did little to allay such assertions. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, on February 17, stressed the army’s local commanders had complete freedom to decide how to act against insurgents and terrorists in J&K. MoS Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju endorsed the army chief ’s position in calling for action against stone-throwers. And that very afternoon, Jitendra Singh, junior minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, stood up to back the army chief. “He (Gen. Rawat) is worried that innocent people may end up as collateral damage,” Singh said.
Many would argue that after being forced to live under the shadow of the gun for close to three decades, young Kashmiris protest with good reason. And Gen. Rawat, by suggesting they’ll be taken down like jihadists, is lending a further edge to that sense of alienation.
The defence minister said the local army commanders were free to decide how to act against terrorists in J&K