Policy makers in Delhi continuing with their arm twisting policy in Kashmir for the last four years though ought to learn lessons from the killing of scholar turned militant commander of Hizb-Ul-Mujahideen Manan Wani but don’t show willingness and readiness to concede the failures of its arm twisting policy in Kashmir despite knowing it fully that killings of Manan Wani and Mohammad Rafiq Bhat a Kashmir University lecturer have set a new trend in the new age militancy in Jammu & Kashmir Kashmir. Young scholars and teachers in university and college campuses tending to move out to join militant ranks is dangerous both for the future of the coming generations of Kashmir and as well as the stability of peace in the state. The Governor’s administration in Jammu & Kashmir and Narendra Modi led BJP government in Delhi are yet to understand that only enemies of peace and political stability in Jammu and Kashmir would choose to celebrate the killing of the likes of Manan Wani a scholar of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) turned militant commander of Hizb-Ul-Mujahideen and Mohammad Rafiq Bhat a Kashmir University lecturer turned militant. Unfortunate it is that political leaders in Delhi and their cohorts in Jammu & Kashmir celebrate the killings of the likes of scholar turned militants like Manan Wani and Mohammad Rafiq Bhat instead trying to dig out the roots of a new trend in the new age militancy in Jammu & Kashmir. Governments in Jammu & Kashmir and New Delhi can’t dub the young scholars and university teachers taking to militancy misguided youth the way they dub other militants as misguided youth as couple of newspaper columns written by Manan Wani poses new questions to central government’s policy of counter militancy operations in Jammu & Kashmir state.
Very rightly the governor Satya Pal Malik recently said that the Government’s fight was against militancy and not the militants but actions on ground disputing the words of Governor Malik show that militancy is on rise in Kashmir. Use of force neutralises militants in numbers but the not the roots of militancy which demands an immediate shift in policy from arm twisting measures to peace initiatives.
The arrest of two kashmiri youth on charges of organizing funeral prayers in absentia in Aligarh and decision of slapping sedition charges on them show that the actions of the governments in Jammu & Kashmir and other parts of the country drive out youth from the university campuses to join new age militancy in Kashmir. A simple funeral prayer in absentia for Manan Wani won’t neither change the dividing boundaries of the two parts of Jammu &Kashmir nor alter the post 1947 course of political history in the state but it would have reduced the fears of alienation growing among the Kashmiri youth undergoing studies in universities and colleges in other states of the country. Unless and until the governments in Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi don’t understand the obvious reasons of this new dangerous trend among the Kashmiri youth undergoing post graduate and research courses in the colleges and universities, no idea of restoration of peace and stability can fructify in Jammu And Kashmir state. For Kashmiri youth it is not easy to take such a position which makes death their destiny in short time but for the governments in Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi the policy of driving youth to the path of death has become a matter of national pride. To prevent youth particularly students in colleges and universities from moving out from the university and college campuses to join new age militancy in Kashmir the governments in Jammu & Kashmir and New Delhi have to change their present positions on counter militancy operations and restoration of genuine political process in the state. Very rightly the governor Satya Pal Malik recently said that the Government’s fight was against militancy and not the militants but actions on ground disputing the words of Governor Malik show that militancy is on rise in Kashmir. Use of force neutralises militants in numbers but the not the roots of militancy which demands an immediate shift in policy from arm twisting measures to peace initiatives.
