THE PROMISE & THE PERIL
What the Modi government must do to win the hearts and trust of the Kashmiris
IN
early July, a clutch of officials from the Jammu and Kashmir administration assembled at Hari Parbat, overlooking Srinagar. Their mission? To study the feasibility of putting a 100-foot-tall flagpole on the hill so that, on a clear day, a giant Indian flag could be visible from Gulmarg, 50 kilometres away. It was to symbolise that, almost two years after the Modi government took away J&K’s special status by abrogating Article 370 and demoted it to a Union territory, the Indian State had established an unchallenged dominance over the Valley. That Kashmir was no more a disputed territory but an integral part of the Indian federation.
The move came a fortnight after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for an all-party meeting of J&K leaders to discuss the prevailing situation in the UT. Among those who were invited and attended the June 24 meeting were the leaders who had been vilified by the central government for bringing ruin to the erstwhile state. For both Modi and these leaders, it was a walk back from their stated positions and an acknowledgement that they were all part of the solution and not the problem itself. But holding the meeting in Delhi and not Srinagar was a clear message that all talk of autonomy or independence was a closed chapter. It was the Centre that was calling the shots and deciding the sequence of how the new normal will be achieved. As an expert put it, “After the conquest, the prime minister was signalling that the next phases will be consolidation and accommodation.”
So, what are the benchmarks to determine the success of the Modi government’s audacious gameplan to radically alter the status quo in J&K? On top of the list is its clarity of purpose.
After trying several options, including allying with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to form a coalition government, and even making overtures to Pakistan to maintain friendly relations, the Modi government decided it was time to act decisively and end the ambiguity over Kashmir’s status. As a senior official puts it, “To achieve that target, it was clear that first the terror card had to be degraded, that networks such as the Hurriyat that fomented turmoil had to be dealt with with an iron fist and supporting insurgency had to be made cost-ineffective for Pakistan.”
In doing so, the government employed the Chanakyan manoeuvres of saam, daam, dand, bhed (persuade, purchase, punish and sow division). First, it put the major leaders under house detention for anything between six months and over a year. Security forces arrested those they believed could spark violence and spawn terror. It then imposed a drastic communication blackout by shutting down the internet for months in the Valley. Simultaneously, security forces hunted down terrorists and their commanders and liquidated the significant players with telling regularity. All this helped to break the back of the conflict economy and terror networks. When Pakistani forces tried to play their old game of infiltration by keeping the Line of Control hot, Indian forces were instructed to hit them twice as hard to inflict heavy costs.
The results are showing. Security forces report a 60 per cent drop in law and order incidents in the Valley as compared to previous years. With Pakistan preoccupied with major developments in Afghanistan, backchannel negotiations with India saw the two countries agree to a ceasefire on the LoC in February. So far, that has held. The upshot of all this, as Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha told india today, is that “the security position now is very good. Our forces have the upper hand. Our strategy of taking tough action against militancy has yielded results. One indication is that thrice the number of tourists have flocked to Srinagar compared to the past couple of years”. (See interview, ‘What hap
pens after delimitation…)
Alongside, the Modi government moved to legally end the anomalies between Indian law and that of the erstwhile J&K state based on its special status. As an official put it, “We recast the entire structure and institutional architecture of the state. Now no one can undo most of what we have done.” While presenting the budget for J&K in Parliament in March this year, the Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman made it a point to state, “We now have one nation, one Constitution and one law. All 890 central laws have now become applicable to J&K, 205 state laws have been repealed and 129 laws have been modified.” The budgetary allocation for J&K was a whopping Rs 1.08 lakh crore, a 33 per cent increase from 2017-18 and five times more the per capita expenditure of states like UP and Bihar. The mammoth central government expenditure for J&K is to enable it to meet its promise of transforming the UT through 55 development schemes, building infrastructure and funding industrialisation.
However, this is where the government’s gameplan has seemingly begun to falter. While Sinha rattles off a whole list of roads, bridges, power projects and medical institutions that his administration has either sanctioned or completed, many of these projects are yet to make a tangible difference to people’s lives. “There is a chasm,” says an official. “They want jobs, not bridges or roads.” The government’s efforts have been further stymied by the Covid-19 pandemic and the rolling lockdowns that have set back most development projects. The environment is still not conducive to promoting new entrepreneurship.
Providing jobs to the Valley’s youth is critical to channelling their energies into productive work and away from the lure of the gun. Unless this happens, security forces believe their hard-fought gains will soon dissipate. The J&K government already has a bloated bureaucracy of 450,000 employees, a size that even bigger states don’t have. So, there is a need for private jobs to meet the demand. In April, the UT government announced a massive industrial policy with an outlay of Rs 28,400 crore and offering major incentives to entrepreneurs to set up units. Meanwhile, a land bank is being created for industrial parks. But these efforts need a gestation period to fructify, while the need for employment is immediate and urgent.
Three years of President’s Rule (the Mehbooba Mufti government
HOLDING THE MEETING IN DELHI, AND NOT SRINAGAR, WAS A CLEAR SIGNAL THAT AUTONOMY WAS A CLOSED CHAPTER. THE CENTRE WILL DECIDE HOW THE NEW NORMAL WILL BE ACHIEVED
was dismissed in June 2018) saw the bureaucracy run the state, which has proved counter-productive. Bureaucracies tend to be arrogant, corrupt and rule-bound and because of frequent transfers cannot provide the accountability that politicians, seeking re-election, need to have. Nor do babus, who are busy implementing programmes, have the time to give people a patient ear, something the political class is adept at doing. As an expert puts it, “You cannot make Kashmir a Switzerland while the rest of India remains a Bihar.” The UT administration claims it has rooted out corruption through greater transparency and e-tenders, besides punishing officials caught taking bribes. “Actions now have consequences,” says a senior officer. “The good are rewarded and the corrupt punished. Corruption hasn’t vanished, but there is greater accountability.”
Ideally, the Modi government would have preferred another year of President’s Rule to consolidate its development agenda before restarting the political process. But two factors have compelled it to speed up the process. One is the negative factor of the growing disillusionment among people with the functioning of the bureaucracy and its ability to deliver. Two, the panchayat elections held in 2018 in an attempt to build a young grassroots leadership have proved immensely successful. So much so that mainstream political parties that boycotted it decided to join the fray when district council elections were held in November 2020. The enthusiastic voter participation in the panchayat and district council polls signalled to the government that the timing was right to revive the political process.
Following Modi’s meeting with all the political parties of J&K, the government announced that the Delimitation Commission formed to rationalise constituencies would complete its task at the earliest. It indicated its intention to hold an assembly election after the exercise and then consider restoring J&K’s statehood. Each of these will be a contentious process, especially in the sequence of their planning. The delimitation exercise has to be fair, just and transparent to counter the criticism that it is being done to end the dominance of Muslims in the Valley. Political parties want statehood restored before the assembly election, but the government is wary. “Each process,” as a government official observes, “whether it is delimitation or elections, will be a test of the good behaviour and sincerity of political parties before granting statehood. We do not want the process to be sabotaged or subverted. Notice how the goalposts have changed—from autonomy and azadi to now just full statehood.” What would be ideal, the official believes, is if there can be an unsigned pact that while India will
KASHMIRIS’ QUIESCENCE MUST NOT BE READ AS ACQUIESCENCE. THERE IS AN UNDERCURRENT OF ANGER, FEAR AND MISTRUST OF THE INDIAN STATE. TO WIN THEIR HEARTS, THESE CONCERNS MUST BE ADDRESSED URGENTLY
do everything to make Kashmir feel special (even if it has legally lost its special status), the Valley will eschew violence and extremism. Equally important is having a clear roadmap of the development goals to be achieved in the short and long term—a 20-year perspective.
A
ll these security, economic, social and political imperatives put Kashmir once again at a critical crossroad. The region finds itself at another significant inflection point that holds plenty of promise and peril, opportunity and worrying threat. Kashmir certainly deserves better. To assess the mood in the Valley, I travelled with my colleague, Group Photo Editor Bandeep Singh, across Kashmir to interview and photograph a wide cross-section of people—both those who govern (or aspire to govern) and those being governed. We met the L-G, who outlined his plan for transforming Kashmir, and then three political leaders, including two former chief ministers, to get the view from the other side.
We also talked to an army general and the inspector-general of police tasked with ensuring security in the Valley. To assess how development initiatives were unfolding on the ground, we went to representatives of all three tiers—the deputy commissioner of a sensitive district, the president of a municipality and the sarpanch of a panchayat in a remote village in Baramulla. We also approached a prominent Kashmiri hotelier and horticulturists—two sectors that are the backbone of Kashmir’s economy. An eminent educationist and a political strategist gave us insights on socioeconomic issues. But, mostly, we concentrated on speaking to young, aspiring Kashmiris to find out how they see the future.
Kashmir is not just a territory. It is a land full of people like you and me. Without their participation, the Valley means nothing. In the following pages, we bring you their life stories and views for you to judge. After spending nearly a week with them, I came away with the feeling that the Kashmiri’s intriguing quiescence must not be read as acquiescence to the present situation. You can sense an undercurrent of anger, fear, betrayal and mistrust of the Indian state in them, besides the concern that the loss of their special status will open their lands and jobs to outsiders. To win their hearts, these concerns must be addressed urgently.
However, coupled with the uncertainty, there is also immense hope. Many want to just move on with their lives: get jobs, pursue their passions and discover the joy of living. Their energy is infectious, be it the enterprising young woman who heads a self-help group that runs a milk cooperative and perceives enough opportunity to grow. Or a young reformed militant recruit who admits that jihad is not the answer to Kashmir’s woes and is now keen to become a policeman. Two young singers confide how they wanted to make it big in the Indian music industry. While I was with them, they belted out an old Hindi number: Jo vaada kiya woh nibhana padega/ roke zamaana chahe roke Khudai (You’ll have to keep your promise, whether the world or god comes in your way). It could well be J&K’s new anthem for the Government of India. ■