Dealing with hell in paradise

All focus is now on finding a solution to the current unrest in the Kashmir Valley and the Government is taking an all-party delegation to the disturbed area, apparently to understand what has gone so horribly wrong all over again and, perhaps, arrive at some initiative to calm the frayed tempers which have been taking lives, mostly young lives, continuously for the past few months.

To be very stark, and of course politically incorrect, a solution to the Kashmir problem is impossible, mired as it is in too many complexities to actually take even its first step. What the Government can at best try to do, and I am sure that is what it is aiming to do, is to somehow, anyhow put down the current unrest. The rest, or should one say unrest, will be yet again brushed under the carpet. Of course, quelling the present protests will go a long way in ending all the bloodshed that has been staining the region for some months now, sadly involving a lot of teens and children, but life will take a long, long time to become normal.

First, the separatists who have suddenly found currency thanks to the problem being allowed by the Government to get out of hand, will not let the poor Kashmiri Muslim rest till, well nobody knows till when because azaadi, or even autonomy which is their demand, is not something that can be easily conceded, if at all — at least not in the coming many generations.

If this truth is staring an entire population — which it has been for a very long time — then one wonders why the so-called common Valley population is so willing to become a handy tool in the hands of those fuelling the unrest? How, for example, can any parent, even the one fighting for a cause, brainwash and use his own children in mounting his purpose. To first let the children out, incite them to fight the forces with stones, get killed in the process and then be worshipped as martyrs is something that defies the very sacred and protective bond between a child and his parent.

Valley watchers say the reason for this undying anger lies in the population’s undying angst, its continued oppression. A lot of wrongs have been done on them by not just circumstance but also their own stance, their leaders, their separatist agenda and, very unfortunately their political class whom they had so overwhelmingly voted to power, a vote which signaled the shunning of terrorism and opting for a place in the national mainstream not very long ago. But, none of the political leaders or parties could meet the expectations of their votebank which soon saw the futility of making this big turnaround.

That the Valleyists have nowhere to go, no one to turn to, except go deeper and deeper into the vortex of a fits and starts war, is our Government’s biggest failure, a failure they have snatched from the jaws of refreshing and the full of hope first-time support the elections had granted them. Public confidence is a big advantage that has been lost due to incessant bumbling both at the State and Central levels of power. What is more unfortunate than anything else is the fact that this bumbling has become the signature tune of our Government. Come to think of it, a Government that is unable to solve even the simplest problem of a developing democracy — price rise — is being expected to take a decisive stand on an issue that has been given the tag of being the world’s most critical flashpoint. Isn’t that way beyond the capacity of the present Government?

Today, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah resembles a clueless child without a guiding hand. The UPA Government resembles a clueless parent without a strategy to reign in its wards. The separatists are doing something that they always craved for — riding the crest of popular upheaval — but they too are clueless about what they ultimately want or can achieve from the current situation. Suffice it to say, no party whatsoever, not even the common man himself, is interested in any kind of normalcy in the Valley. The very fact that Omar has been asking for a withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act shows how naïve this well-meaning young man is. The Army is not the trigger of the current situation. It is the CRPF and the police who are trying to handle the crisis and to whom most of the “killings” are being attributed.

What is most alarming is that the situation has been so ill-managed that for the first time in at least my memory, the otherwise strictly silent Indian Army has been compelled to voice its protest against the political “initiative” meant to calm the Valley. The Army bosses say AFSPA scrapping will totally demoralise Army operations in the Valley. You can’t cut off the hand of a soldier and then expect him to wield a sword. And in pointing this out the Indian Army is absolutely correct.

Quite another matter though that the AFSPA withdrawal was nothing more than mere tabletalk, highly undoable and somewhat fruitless. The thing to do is to give the Valley a dose of such aggressive development that the youth is lured into working for a living rather than working up death. Yes, there is a vicious circle that retards, hampers and often takes away the possibility of any scheme being implemented amid the strife, but what kind of a Government it is which cannot rise above this hurdle and establish law and order. Remember, even in the middle of this highly volatile anti-police movement, a record number of Kashmiri Muslim youth turned up for a placement in the police force. If it is just jobs that will take away their will to kill and get killed then shouldn’t that be the easiest way out? That, and a healing hand that they are not saying but nevertheless looking for.

Can our Government give these two basics to the Valley? Apparently not, because this would need a very mature, seasoned, honest and saintly approach — something which neither the Government has nor do us mainstream Indians allow it to have. 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, September 19, 2010