A Black Swan Moment for Kashmir
The 60-second burst of fire by five motorycle-borne terrorists on a Gujarat-registered bus near Anantnag, South Kashmir, on July 10, evoked nationwide outrage and international condemnation. Seven pilgrims, six of them women, lost their lives. Dozens more would have been killed if driver Salim Sheikh had not held his nerve to speed past through the hail of bullets. The leadership across the political spectrum, at the state and national level, has been one in condemning the dastardly attack. Preliminary investigations suggest this to be the handiwork of the Pakistan-based LeT. The incident occurred despite specific warnings of the J&K police and intelligence agencies of a likely terror attack on Amarnath pilgrims to trigger communal violence.
The joint separatist/resistance leadership slammed the terror attack in the strongest terms, condemning it as “going against the grain of Kashmiri ethos”. In solidarity with those killed, the Valley’s civil society comprising political activists, rights activists, traders, professionals among others, organised sit-in demonstrations to denounce the killings. The Jamaat-e-Islami termed the terror strike as “cowardly and beastly”. Jammu observed a day-long shutdown. Clearly, the seven victims had, in their tragic death, impelled a unified mainstream-separatist response rarely witnessed before. As a salute to their sacrifice, and reflecting a national resolve to defeat terror, over 3,000 pilgrims embarked on the yatra the very next day, undeterred by the attack. Could this be a black swan moment in the Kashmir narrative?
The common citizen in India is flummoxed as to how, with AFSPA in operation and a massive security grid in place and the timely availability of intelligence, 300-odd terrorists in the Valley are able to attack at will. The Anantnag attack has exposed gaps in the security deployment: an unregistered bus, plying beyond permissible timings, without police protection, driving past several check posts. Such lapses were also witnessed in the recent barbaric lynching of a J&K Police DSP, Ayub Pandith, at the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar.
The security forces’ leadership would doubtless examine inadequacies in general and those specific to the yatra. But it needs to be underscored that in the fourth-generation hybrid conflict milieu prevalent in contemporary Kashmir, in which both the HM and LeT benefit from a local, social and logistical ecosystem, the terrorists would tend to have the upper hand.
It is unlikely that the ‘hard’ counterterrorism posture, adopted recently, will by itself achieve lasting peace and stability. The Centre will need to introspect deeply on alternative options to contain and end the violence. Pandit Kalhana’s words in the book, Rajatarangini (1148), come to mind:
Kashmir… by the power of the spirit… yes By the power of the sword… never As a start, initiatives on the lines recommended by the Yashwant Sinha-led group of concerned citizens, could offer a way forward. The cycle of violence and bloodshed can only be broken through an imaginative and forward-looking Kashmir strategy founded on political outreach and multi-level dialogue with all stakeholders. The BJP-PDP alliance agenda commits to such a dialogue. A political outreach initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be perceived as a grand gesture and could electrify Kashmir’s politics. The Vajpayee-Manmohan Singh template of 2003-2007, that included talks with Pakistan, duly repackaged, would be worth a revisit. Without a sincere and sustained dialogue process, extant radicalisation could possibly aggravate providing greater political space for Daesh-inspired youth at the cost of moderate separatists.
Should the dialogue process not happen anytime soon, the Amarnath terror attack and its aftermath may serve as an opportune moment for the state and national political leadership, and civil society groups—within the state and the rest of India—to come together to contribute their mite for a more peaceful future for Kashmir. The process would require to be institutionalised to ensure youth exchanges and to help develop a better understanding of the Kashmir issue and its complexities as against the contrafactual shrill projections of some of the agenda-driven private TV channels.
Only an imaginative strategy founded on political outreach and multi-level dialogue can break the cycle of violence
pected to make the pilgrimage from Jammu to the Himalayan cave shrine over 40 days. Despite this massive bandobast, three militants, assisted by motorcycle-borne riders, all of them dressed in police uniforms, managed to track and specifically target a bus ferrying Gujarati and Maharashtrian pilgrims on the national highway in Anantnag district.
The explanation trotted out by the police is that the bus and its occupants were not formally registered as part of the yatra and had set out on the journey back to Jammu well after the permitted 7 pm deadline. Army sources blame the incident partly on the CRPF, whose duty it was to protect the route, and unregulated tourist traffic. The issue of ‘unregistered, unregulated tourist traffic’, a security officer says, was red-flagged in core group meetings held between the various security agencies even last month. The army feels the police and paramilitary let their guard down.
Security analyst Ajay Sahni, who runs the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), acknowledges the existence of illegal operators out to make a quick buck off the Amarnath yatra, but nonetheless insists that “the higher intelligence establishment cannot escape responsibility. They should have known about such vehicles and acted”.
Meanwhile, even as the mist clears on what really happened in Batengoo, Anantnag, Mehbooba Mufti’s troubled government may be on the brink of completely losing the plot. ‘#NotInMyName’, Omar Abdullah’s tweet on the morning of July 11, taking from the nationwide protest on killing in the name of protecting cows, was telling. The former J&K chief minister said that imposing President’s rule in the state may now be the only option going forward. Mehbooba’s position as CM, he said, is becoming untenable. But New Delhi clearly sees things differently. Madhav insists the PDP-BJP coalition is well and humming along. He points to ‘more important’ things: “The J&K assembly passed the GST bill,” Madhav says, pointing out that the state would have been in limbo in the absence of an elected government.
Whether Delhi and Srinagar seize it or not, analysts see a sliver of opportunity in the collective, across the political spectrum condemnation of the July 10 killings in Srinagar and in Jammu. It’s an opportunity to restart a dialogue, they say. But will New Delhi bite?
‘#NOTINMYNAME’, OMAR ABDULLAH’S
TWEET TAKING OFF FROM THE PROTEST AGAINST THE LYNCHINGS BY GAU RAKSHAKS, WAS TELLING