Posted on Monday, September 27, 2010 - 12:03 am:

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It's futile to believe that Islamists in the Kashmir Valley can be talked out of their campaign to separate the State from India

The Congress-led UPA Government is exposing through its serial demonstration of weakness the vulnerability of the Indian state to its avowed enemies. Islamist extremism is at play not just in Jammu & Kashmir but is spreading to other parts of the country. Unfortunately, the Union Government, instead of taking on the separatists, is seeking to buy peace: On Saturday, it announced an eight-point package to appease the recalcitrant elements.

The communal virus has been hibernating in the Kashmir Valley for decades now. The widespread impression that the separatists had bitten the dust after the people of Jammu & Kashmir rejected their call for boycotting the elections in 2008 and 2009, was perhaps a hasty assessment. And, if this assessment was correct, then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah needs to explain how the goodwill that catapulted him and the National Conference to power has waned in a short span of two years.

Mr Rahul Gandhi was primarily responsible for projecting Mr Abdullah as the Chief Minister even after his father, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, had announced he would be at the helm. Despite Mr Omar Abdullah’s demonstrated failure to inspire his flock to counter secessionist activities, Mr Gandhi has once again come to his rescue. This has put a spanner in all 'out-of-the-box' thinking to find a solution to the 'Kashmir issue', let alone putting in place a Government that could inspire the people.

What has the all-party delegation that visited Srinagar and Jammu achieved? It has only served the interests of the secessionists who were able to demonstrate that it is their writ that runs in the State capital. They rebuffed the delegation by enforcing a boycott. Still, some members of the delegation took the unusual step of calling on these leaders at their homes and listening to their anti-Indian diatribe. The leader of the hardline faction of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, has in his five-point agenda stopped short of asking India to quit Jammu & Kashmir. One would not be surprised if the leader of the APHC's moderate faction, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, who is now in competition with Mr Geelani for winning mass support, soon starts singing the same tune.

What surprises most is the UPA Government slipping into denial mode. It refuses to face the truth that its constant reference to the 'future' of Jammu & Kashmir and reiteration of the "sacred pledge we have given to the Kashmiri people" have only emboldened the secessionists to poison young minds with anti-India hatred.

One cannot talk of Jammu & Kashmir being an integral part of India and 'crucial' to India's secularism while retaining Article 370 in the Constitution. The political establishment in New Delhi has year after year lacked the courage to seal the full and final integration of Jammu & Kashmir with India by abolishing Article 370.

In a recent interview, Union Minister for Home Affairs P Chidambaram has insisted that the plebiscite promise of 1950 is no longer relevant and that Jammu & Kashmir has moved forward. In that case, shouldn't the Union Government move to abolish the exclusivist Article 370? The Kashmiris must find out that being part of India, which is emerging as an economic super-power, would enable them to reap benefits like all other Indians. So long as the separatist nature of Article 370 remains unrecognised, the true nature of the agitation being led by separatists like Mr Geelani cannot be understood, much less countered.

Mr Omar Abdullah failed to see the invisible hands of the trouble-makers when the Sopore incident involving the death of two women by drowning happened. Look at the sequence of events since then. The incident immediately led to the levelling of outrageous charges against the security forces, alleging that they had raped and killed the women. The doctors called in to do the autopsy were complicit in this campaign of calumny: They switched forensic samples taken from the bodies to make out that the women had indeed been raped. It was later proved to be false.

Mr Oman Abdullah failed to take charge of the situation and instead was led by the mob hysteria on the streets of Sopore and Srinagar. The Central Bureau of Investigation was then brought in to establish the truth; the bodies of the women were exhumed; and, a fresh post-mortem was conducted. Result: The charge that the women had been raped and killed was found to be false. Extensive forensic tests established that the women had drowned after they fell into a canal in spate. The family of the victims refused to accept the CBI's findings and insisted that the women had been raped and killed; this fuelled further mob hysteria and violent street protests.

The Chief Minister, instead of taking a firm stand, comes across as far removed from the realities of the Kashmir Valley. If the National Conference has the political support that it claims it has in the Valley, then what has prevented the party's leaders from reaching out to the people rather than letting the Islamists lead them to participate in violent agitations like pelting security forces with stones?

In fact, it is not even the Islamists of the Valley who are setting the agenda. There are dark forces at work. This is demonstrated by the fact that when members of the all-party delegation went to meet the separatist leaders, the latter insisted that they would talk only in the glare of television cameras. The significance of this cannot be overstressed. The separatist leaders, in reality, are afraid of holding any meeting with mainstream political leaders for fear of offending their behind-the-scene masters who are orchestrating the agitation in the Valley.

There is a method to this apparent madness; a familiar pattern that is being repeated day after day. The separatists provoke the people to protest with stones. They organise marches to public buildings and police stations. When the security forces step in, they are met with a hail of stones which in turn provokes them to fire at the protesters. This leads to death and injury. Which in turn fuels further violence and the cycle continues. This serves the purpose of the separatists to show the Indian state as a ruthless oppressor of 'innocent' people and 'peaceful' protesters in the Kashmir Valley.

Separatists like Mr Geelani want nothing less than India to 'quit' Jammu & Kashmir. Talking to them is a futile exercise. The Congress-led UPA Government must send out an unambiguous message that the entire nation stands united to defend the integrity of India: Jammu & Kashmir is and shall remain an inseparable part of the country, no matter what it takes.

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