Four months after the state of Jammu and Kashmir was dismantled, two sentiments can be felt brewing in Kashmir. One is of deep fury and humiliation, an anticipation of a trigger that will unleash fresh violence bringing the Narendra Modi government to its knees. The second, which almost coexists with the first, is of despair that the changed status is now irreversible. Despite all the international posturing, neither Pakistan can ensure azadi (freedom), nor will any new government at the Centre restore the pre-5 August ‘special’ status of Jammu and Kashmir. Irrespective of the unjust or illegal nature of the Modi government’s move, Delhi won’t be able to wish it away.
“Dafa (Article) 370 was once a 50-storeyed building. Over time, it had been reduced to a mere two-storeyed one. But people felt betrayed by the manner in which it (J&K’s special status) was removed. However, now that it’s done, we will have to live with it. Delhi should also try to win back people’s faith,” says Chaudhary Rafiq Balot, the newly elected chairman of the block development council in Uri.
Balot’s sentiment is echoed by the Congress sarpanch of Nambla B village, Shahidul Islam. Despite the security threat, village councils demand funds and security so that their members could go out in the field and implement the J&K government’s Back to Village programme in militancy-hit areas. Last week, militants killed a sarpanch and an official of the state agriculture department in an attack on one such programme in Anantnag district’s Badasgam village.
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Different voices, different demands
Every group has its own expectations from Delhi. The business lobby, which, according to the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has already suffered a loss of about Rs 12,000 crore and more than one lakh jobs, expects sops; apple growers who couldn’t sell their produce want crop insurance; those who had made EMI purchases before 5 August 2019 demand interest waiver. Private schools, institutions, hospitals and other establishments have either retrenched their staff or not paid them salaries; they want monetary assistance. Even dhaba owners like Daljeet Singh at Udhampur’s Jakhani Chowk seeks the resumption of the older and freer Amarnath Yatra, not the recent regulated one that badly affected local business.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s J&K unit also has its long list of demands – the restoration of statehood, an amendment to Article 371 that puts Kashmir at par with northeastern states, a law against land purchase by outsiders, a firm assurance that the new Union Territory’s demography will not be changed. “Delhi doesn’t understand the ground reality. How will we go to the people? The Centre must release the boys detained for stone-pelting. Families of militants should not be harassed,” many BJP workers at the party’s Srinagar office say.
Detained politicians are on a different path. Some of whom I spoke to vow to overthrow Delhi’s rule. The furious National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders send messages out that once they are released, Kashmir will be on fire. It has also brought the NC, PDP and the Hurriyat on a common platform — walk out of the Union. Their anger does reach people but the latter have lost faith in them. In the absence of any leadership, the rudderless Kashmiri seems willing to accept a new deal if it gives an assurance against the demographic change, the most pressing fear at the moment.
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An imposed silence
Even though Delhi interprets the near-absence of violence since August as its success and a sign of ‘normalcy’, Kashmiris reject it. “You know why we are quiet, why there is no stone-pelting this time? Because we are mentally dead,” says an MSc student who studies in Srinagar but, with the university closed, now sells blankets outside Shopian’s Jama Masjid. The Hurriyat has been cautious because it doesn’t want to shift its focus from azadi to Article 370.
Amid all this, the desire for a new deal emerges not out of ‘normalcy’ but despair, despite an intensified anti-India sentiment, and yet, Delhi is not listening. With the youth comprising 50 per cent of Kashmir’s population, Kashmir urgently needs major investment in education and jobs.
Having unilaterally snatched J&K’s autonomy, the Narendra Modi government should have introduced many measures to win people back. But all that Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have done is raise Kashmir in various assembly elections – from Maharashtra to Jharkhand. This, Kashmiris say, was like rubbing salt on their wounds. The proposed renaming of Srinagar’s Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium after Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel also hurts the Kashmiris.
But that precisely is the Centre’s ploy, something almost every Kashmiri pointed out over the nine days that I travelled from the southern Anantnag to LoC villages in Uri: crush the Kashmiri soul to the extent that they never raise their head. Let them remain hopelessly engaged with the essentials; physical pain will eventually dominate the mental agony. Large areas of Kashmir had power cuts, water shortage and snowfall in November, but the administration took little steps to even clear the snow. How does the simmering insult unfold later is anybody’s guess.
The treacherous ploy will hurt India more than it does Kashmir because the desire for azadi runs much deeper in the Valley than Delhi is willing to admit.
Exhibit A is the manicured Shaheed Park in the heart of Pulwama city. The district that saw the most devastating militant attack in recent years has a sprawling memorial for the “martyrs”, just a kilometre from the District Collectorate’s office. If that doesn’t sound odd, plaques in the park inform that it’s been “developed and maintained” by the former state’s biggest bank, J&K Bank, in which the J&K government has the majority stake. Funded and sustained by taxpayers’ money, the memorial was inaugurated by the bank’s then-chairman Mushtaq Ahmad in November 2011.
New Delhi has stepped into a chakravyuh without an exit plan. Any procrastination will worsen the crisis.
The author is an independent journalist. Views are personal.