TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2005
Militants beat retreat in J&K
BALRAJ PURI
The militant movement in Kashmir is yielding diminishing returns. Popular participation and enthusiasm have declined; 'Azadi' is no more round the corner as people were led to believe in the early 90s. Pakistan is no longer in a position to openly sustain the movement with the supply of arms and personnel.
As a frontline partner in the US-led war against terrorism, it cannot easily play a double role — suppressing terrorism at home and exporting it to the Indian part of Kashmir.
The militant movement reached a stage when like any other violent revolution, it started consuming its own children — Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq in 1990 and Abdul Ghani Lone in 2002, to give just two examples.
Meanwhile, elections in 2002 provided the first-ever opportunity to change the state government through the ballot. Despite attacks on election rallies, polling booths and candidates, and boycott calls by separatist parties and militants, a much larger number of voters parti-cipated in municipal polls in 2005.
The degree of voter participation is no measure of pro-India feelings in the Valley. But it underlines the belief that problems of governance, development and civic issues cannot be postponed till the "Kashmir problem" is finally resolved.
To that extent, the appeal of militancy lost its urgency. A well-organised opposition party, the National Conference (NC), which is also the single largest party in the assembly, provides an outlet to the discontent of the people, which would otherwise feed the militant movement.
The NC and ruling People's Democratic Party compete with each other in taking up popular issues. Protests of mainstream parties are as vocal as those of the separatists over human rights violations, except that the latter are usually silent over excesses of militants.
The Hurriyat thus complains that its agenda has been hijacked by pro-India parties. When Mirwaiz Umar Farooq called upon militants to back the dialogue process, he was only taking cognisance of the new realities. He said continuing with militancy as the sole means to achieve independence would mean laying down another one lakh lives.
He further held that after 9/11 no movement coupled with violence had received world support. "Hence we call upon our militant leadership to join our efforts aimed at seeking a political settlement of the issue", he said. Yasin Malik's JKLF gave up violence in 1995.
He chided his hosts in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, whom he visited along with Hurriyat leaders in June 2005, for romanticising the role of militants. Shabir Shah's People's Democratic Freedom Party, while acknow-ledging the role of militants in reviving the Kashmir issue, conceded that it was over by now.
The Jamaat-e-Islami suspended four members of the party, including Ali Shah Geelani, its best known face. Its amir (chief) Nazir Ahmed Kashani said, "We do not believe in armed struggle and believe in dialogue for resolving conflicts".
In the Muslim-majority hilly parts of Jammu, mili-tancy started three or four years after it had spread in the Valley but lost its momentum within a decade. This was on account of the ethnic divide between the two regions and the atmosphere of religious harmony in the region, which served to blunt the appeal of militants.
There was no mass-based separatist political movement in the region either. Disillusionment with the armed movement across the LoC is no less pronounced. Sardar Abdul Qayum Khan, a senior leader of the "Azad Kashmir", held that "the worst damage to the Kashmir cause has been caused by the jehadis.
Jehad has no future. It is over". While this does not mean militancy will come to an end right away, it clearly indicates that militancy lacks popular support. However, the end of militancy does not imply the end of alienation. Alienation is the most important cause of militancy and not the other way round.
With militancy on the wane, what alternative outlets will alienation seek? Much would depend on final out-come of New Delhi-Islamabad and New Delhi-Srinagar dialogues as also post-militancy plan of the Indian government, if any, to contain or provide non-militant and non-violent outlets.
The writer is a political commentator.