Sheikh Arshid Ahmad
It remains always difficult for the political leaders to foresee the prospects of peace in Kashmir due to continuing spree of gunfights between the militants and the government forces. The number of militants killed can never taken the government to the route to peace as admitted by Home Minister Rajnath Singh many a times in his statement and Governor Satya Pal Malik in his latest statement. While the government links the presence of government forces in the populated areas to the restoration of peace the people the presence of the government forces and their actions on group are the main causes in the restoration of peace in Kashmir.
While the government forces always try to fight the militants through military means like Cordon and Search Operations (CASO) and crack downs but in the process the very idea of peace is lost and the militancy goes on spreading its wings to more areas.
In the counter militancy operations the precious lives of civilians are lost and public properties are reduced to ashes and huge loss of lives and intolerable damage to public properties lead to rise in continuing spree of militant recruitments across Kashmir. In such a situation only alternative ways have to be given a serious though to restore normalcy in Kashmir. Stone pelting has already been converted into a mass ritual with girls and boys as new participants especially at encounter sites despite knowing it that they have to face bullets there and the situation throws up a huge challenges to the government forces who have face militants and as well as the rock hurling crowds simultaneously.
The open support by locals to trapped militants with the motive of enabling their easy escape has entirely changed the situation on ground. Many encounters have also led to the death of non-combatant civilians who got trapped in the crossfire. Death of civilians leads to further violent protests and at times a vicious cycle in which every death leads to more deaths. Funerals of slain militants’ customarily attracting mammoth gatherings of slogan-shouting and stone-pelting protestors, have increased the intensity of the deaths across Kashmir. The presence of active militants at the funerals, where they give gun salutes to their slain comrades, has thrown up another challenge to the government and the same many security experts believe leads to radicalization of youth.
In the prevailing environment of minimal governmental credibility and legitimacy, no public effort would be adequate to control the youth from joining militancy and convince them of a life beyond compulsive India-bashing. Resuming peace talks either with Hurriyat or Pakistan is not going to lead to any readymade solution to the present volatile situation in Kashmir. The dispute in Jammu & Kashmir has continued for more than six decades, at huge cost. There has huge loss of life estimated to be at least 70,000 deaths and 8,000 disappearances. Now a days Kashmiris are angry against the military presence in populated areas and actions against the protesters moving to encounter sites. Although ceasefire was announced last year but internally violence largely gives way to non-violent protest and the calm is often punctured by military operations on both sides of the border between India and Pakistan. In the present situation all the stakeholders need to come together to stop unabated killings and resume the stalled peace process as other rulers will find the situation in Kashmir slipping out of their hands.
(The author presently pursuing Ph D in Sociology at Bhagwant University Ajmeer is a lecture at Government Degree College Tral. Views are his own)
