With the anti national forces fuelling widespread protests in Kashmir, the need of the hour is to deal with the separatist elements firmly. “Madness is consistent which is more than can be said of poor reason”, says Sterne.  That the Kashmir Valley has a habit of erupting suddenly when everything appears to be hunky dory proves that there is definitely a method to its madness, which sums up the all too familiar story of the state. The latest upsurge in which 12 persons were killed and more than 100 injured is reflective of that sickening pattern that occurs with dangerous regularity aiming to keep the overall atmosphere volatile.
That this was the case in the Valley was only surprising in that the protests this time came after a prolonged period of quiet. Although Kashmir seldom sees more than a few days without incident, the peace that seemed to have been gained was lost in a matter of days with the belligerence display on the streets that led to widespread instigation of people in many areas.
The violence of the last few days stands out in stark contrast to an extraordinary spell of peace and development in the state. Though militancy in the Valley has fallen to its lowest levels since the anti India insurgency began nearly two decades ago, people are still killed in near daily street protests and fire fights. However, forces are at play to keep Kashmir on the boil by providing fertile ground for anti-India insurgency. The latest wave of unrest started with two suspected terrorists being killed in an encounter with CRPF Jawans in Sopore when local people trashed the claims of security forces that they were terrorists. Sensing their opportunity, the separatists moved in to incite the youngsters to protest against the army highhandedness. The situation took a turn for the worse when at least 12 people were killed and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq’s moderate faction followed by giving calls for a protest march from Srinagar to Sopre. This depressing pattern that has seen protesters clash with security personal prompting the latter to retaliate, fuels anti India anger in Kashmir, a state where sentiments against New Delhi run wide and deep. In the summer of 2009 also there was turmoil because of death of two women and the locals blamed the security forces for their alleged rape and murder.
Back in 2008, a row over land for Hindu Pilgrims snowballed into widespread protests which were comparably only to the revolt against Indian rule in 1989. These in turn provide fuel for more protests and street battle underlying this is the abysmal failure of the state govt. in fulfilling its responsibility. The Chief Minister needs to assert his authority and should be seen to be in command of the situation rather than appearing to be helpless. Inarguably, what Kashmir sorely needs is prudent politics and governance. In fact the CM’s appeal to the youngsters to control their emotions so that such incidents are avoided needs to be heeded seriously.
It needs no reiteration that the current unrest in the state will only help the separatists. In particular hardliners among them who were getting increasingly marginalised but are now back in the reckoning. It is for this reason that they want to exploit these incidents to use it as a stick to beat New Delhi with. As pointed out by Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Lashkar-e-Taiba has a questionable role in instigating mob violence against security forces in J & K. “The antinational elements are clearly linked to the LeT. We think Let is active in the Spore area”, he is reported to have said in a statement after a specially convened meeting by the PM to take stock of the security scenario in J & K. The Home Minister’s statement is significant as it clearly indicates that the LeT is engineering protests to wage a different kind of Jihad on India by using Kashmir’s young new generation radicalized separatists as cannon fodder rather than relying only on infiltrators. But why is the govt. silent on the more obvious role of the two factions of Hurriat conference, who are the only people known to benefit from such spiraling violence? While it was earlier Syed Alishah Jeelani’s faction that was heeded but this time matters have been made worse by the moderate Hurriat Leadership who gave the call for a march from Srinagar to Sopore and also scored on the issue of declaring one of the persons done to death in the Sopore encounter as innocent. It is imperative to ensure that all those indulging in provocative acts be identified and punished for misguiding the public. That calls for all the mainstream political parties in the state to see through the separatist’s poly and deny any political space to them. There is a strong case for stopping politicising issues related to the maintenance of law and order in the state.

Dr. Manmohan Singh, downwards every leader or the person in authority has repeatedly underlined the national policy of zero tolerance of human rights violations. But security forces alone are not to blame through. It is the communal forces and separatists who are fuelling anti-India sentiments. This has been the trend in the past several years. Violence usually shows a cascading increase before the Amarnath Yatra and the much awaited tourist reason. J & K chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s concern over the deaths of civilians at the hands of the CRPF is entirely justified. But at the same time he must not start blaming the security forces for the current turmoil. People of J & K as well as the rights activists need to understand that it is not the high handedness of the security forces that is responsible for the violence in the state. This is clear from the pictures of Jawans being beaten up by young protestors near Srinagar which speak volumes about the mob’s intentions of creating mistrust between the people of Kashmir and security forces. Most of us express shock and anger over the death of civilians. But what about the security forces?  In the 19 days, 53 personnel of CRPF been injured, many of them seriously. Most politicians and rights activists who make statements to lower the morale of security forces faced with war like situation in insurgency-hit states should instead ban religious outfits that disrupt peace in the first place.

The govt. has said that its Pakistan policy will be centred around “trust and verify” principle, but the latest developments of the past week are a great cause of concern. Home Minister P Chidambram’s visit to Pakistan has hardly made any impact on the diplomatic relations between the two countries. Neither has the six decades of diplomatic parleys with our neighbour evinced any response.  The promises made by former Prime Minister Z A Bhutto and former president Pervez Musharraf were never kept. It has again been two years that Pakistan has been making empty promises of bringing the guilty to book. Isn’t it time we stopped talking and started acting for a change?