A new dimension of contemporary Islamic terror surfaced in its full force with 9/11 event.  In Palestine, suicide bombers have been in action for a long time but observers did not bring them under special focus.  For a long time, it seemed unbelievable that somebody would blow himself up for blowing up a large number of innocent people while standing amidst them.

Indians met with the first shock of a suicide bomber in operation when Rajiv Gandhi was blown up by a woman who had tied a bomb to her body. LTTE frequently used suicide bombing as a war weapon against Sri Lankan security forces.

With terror unleashed by Islamic Theo-fascists, suicide bombing has become a regular feature of destroying innocent lives in various parts of the world especially in such regions as are alleged to be in a state of conflict and crisis (daru’l harb).  Other purpose of the perpetrators of terror is to destabilize governments and paralyze civil institutions as the process of replacing all existing faiths and their institutions by Islamic faith and sharia.

Suicide bombers have been active in some of the eastern states of India where insurgency has taken roots for quite some time.  During the Khalistan movement in Punjab, there were many cases of suicide bombing which caused considerable loss of life and property and created nightmare for the security forces.

But it is Kashmir where suicide bombers have a wide network. History of suicide bombing in Kashmir during past two decades of insurgency has shown that the pattern of these acts of subversion is almost identical. This suggests that the suicide bombers receive training from the same source.

In Kashmir Theo-fascists embarking on suicide bombing generally targeted the camps of the security forces and police establishments. Their methods vary according to the nature of the target. For example while targeting a camp of security forces or police establishment, the suicide bombers drive a car or a  jeep loaded with RDX and the suicide  bomber ties  bombs to  his body and then gate crashes into the target. This blows up the gate or the protection wall and the personnel manning the post are also blown up.

These tactics change in the case of blowing up an individual or a couple of individuals. The killer ties a bomb to his body and when he is juxtaposed to the target, presses the button and the bomb blows up killing him and the target(s).

Obviously a suicide bomber is fully brainwashed for quite some time till he is mentally prepared to kill and get killed.  His brainwashing is done by sensitizing him to Islamic religious teachings of making all kinds of sacrifices to spread and propagate Islam —- brute force and violence being its important instruments. In the first phase of brainwashing, the object is made to believe through incessant propaganda sprees that Islam, the last of the faiths sent down on earth by Allah through his Prophet, has to prevail and that all Muslims are enjoined to make any sacrifice in that direction. It is called divine ordination, and has to be obeyed come what may.

In order to sharpen his religious zeal, he is told that Islam is in danger at such and such a place or region and the Muslims have to be liberated. The philosophy of martyrdom in Islam is of great significance and martyrdom (shahadat) means laying down life not for the country or the nation or the motherland but for Islam. Ali and his son Husayn laid down life for the faith and hence they are the foremost of martyrs in Islamic history.

Martyrdom (shahadat) as an adjunct of faith is actually the contribution of the Shia’ sect and gradually extended to the Sunni sect as well. The first ever attempt of inducting it into politics was made by the Assassins of Iran around the time of the rise of Chingiz Khan in Central Asia in 13th century. The name of Hasan bin Sabbah is linked to the episode of Grand Master of Alamut, a mountain stronghold in western Iran. Hasan bin Sabbah is reported to have raised a strong band of his followers indoctrinated with the philosophy of suicidal attacks on their political adversaries or the adversaries of Ismaili faith.

In the stronghold of Alamut Mountain, Hasan bin Sabbah had laid beautiful parks with streams of pure water flowing through and some luxurious complexes where beautiful damsels were housed. When a follower of his faith called dai’ finished his training in terrorism and indoctrination, he would be brought to the gate of the Alamut fort, administered a drug called hashish in Farsi (Assassin is drawn from hashish) and after getting intoxicated, he would be bodily lifted and put in a beautiful room within the fort where, on regaining his senses, he would find beautiful damsels entertaining him. Thus he would believe that Sabbah was the intermediary to take him to paradise with promised fresh cool water and honey and damsels.

Once out of the fort, he reinforced his allegiance to Hasan bin Sabbah and became a devout dai, the present-day fidayeen, The fidayeen of Hasan bin Sabbah compassed many murders of opponents of Ismaili faith including the Prime Minister Nidhamu’l Mulk Tusi who was warned the previous night by striking a dagger in the ground outside his tent to which a letter was attached saying he would be killed. It was only Chingiz Khan, the great Mongol warrior who attacked and destroyed the Alamut fortress and dispersed the fidayeen. However the idea of martyrdom in the path of faith stuck and has now re-emerged in its new avatar.

In the backdrop of this scenario, the suicide bombers have to be understood in historical perspective. Then it was Hasan bin Sabbah and his small group of fidayeen but now it is entire Muslim ummah in all the five continents of the globe that is fascinated about martyrdom in the path of religion of Muhammad.

(The writer is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

The Hindu religious minority of Kashmir Valley, known as Pandits formed nearly 07 per cent of the total population of Kashmir province at the time of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir State to the Indian Union in October 1947. Owing to discriminatory policies of successive regimes in J and K ever since, a good percentage of the Pandits was forced to leave their homeland and seek livelihood in other parts of the country. As a result of eruption of armed insurgency in late 1989-90,  Theo-fascists made the Pandits their selective targets killing more than a thousand innocent members within a couple of months of insurgency. Their objective was to enforce ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in order to pave the way for Islamic homogenization with sharia replacing secular democratic dispensation. Radical and Wahhabi Islamic ideologues in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, who have sponsored the jihadi terror world over, consider Kashmir integral to the concept of Islamic Caliphate. The Pandits were considered a symbol of secularist presence in Kashmir.  Religious extremists decided to efface this symbol once for all because it obstructed their scheme of things.

In 1990, the popularly elected Congress-NC coalition government of Jammu and Kashmiri lacked will and determination to protect life and property of this religious minority against lawless Islamic brigades. Not only that, instead meeting the threat of subversion and disintegration of the state, and dire threat to law and order,  the then popularly elected government decided not to resist the uprising and quit the office abandoning the people, particularly the defenseless minority, to armed Islamic insurgents. Wittingly it facilitated space for the insurgents to indulge freely in acts of pogroms and violence against the Pandit minority. Protection of life is the foremost constitutional and moral duty of any government. It is also the first article of the UN Charter on Human Rights.

Abandoned by the popular government, surrounded by an atmosphere of unrelenting threat to life and honour relayed through loudspeakers from mosque tops and in vernacular media, targeted by the gun-wielding marauders and ignored by the national press and mainstream political parties, the minuscule religious minority was left with no option but to abandon, albeit most unwillingly, their homes and hearths. This led to their mass exodus to unfamiliar places and environs. By April 1990, almost 99 per cent of their people left the Valley for some safer places.

The Government of India, in its official note to the International Commission of Jurists, (ICJ) - an international NGO of repute - communicated in writing the story of ethnic cleansing and exodus of the Pandits. It is fully reproduced in its published report on Kashmir, 1995.

Extirpated people fled to the other region of the State, Jammu, and other places in the country like Delhi, Bombay, Chandigarh etc. They did not cross the borders of the Indian Union but remained as refugees within the confines of their own country. Paragraph 2 of the report of the Representative of the UN Secretary General pursuant to the UNHRC resolution 1997/39, dealing with the scope and purpose of the Guiding Principles defines the IDPs as under:

For the purpose of these Principles, internally Displaced Persons are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border. (E/CN: 4/1998/53/Add. 2. page 5).

Section A paragraph 9 of the Report of the representative of the UN Secretary General to the Commission of Human Rights states:

Loss of life, brutality, violence and threats thereof that create a climate of insecurity frequently force people to flee their homes: for instance, in cases of direct or indiscriminate attacks on civilian sites. In fact, violence and threats affecting life and personal security are a particularly effective and frequently used means of inducing displacement and are often also employed in the course of displacement. In some cases the forced movement of persons may amount to genocide, including “ethnic cleansing”, or to inhuman and degrading treatment. (E/CN.4/1998/53/Add. 1. page 5)

In the matter of “ethnic cleansing” of the Pandits of Kashmir, a situation which the Government of India has conceded in its report to the ICJ, (to which allusion has been made above), the report of the representative of the Secretary General observes in paragraph 73:

Ethnic cleansing” is never admissible. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in its concluding observations on the report of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CERD/C/247/Add. 1), condemned “ethnic cleansing” because it constitutes” a grave violation of all basic principles underlying the international convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination.” (E/CN.4/1998/53/Add. 1 page 17).

We have already stated that by April 1990 over a thousand members of the Pandit community had been gunned down by the armed Islamists. In regard to genocide, the report of the representative of the Secretary General states in paragraph 74 as follows:

Certain forms of forced removal, in particular in the context of “ethnic cleansing” or extreme suppression of ethnic or indigenous peoples may amount to genocide. Genocide constitutes an especially grave form of violation of the right to life, as discussed in detail in the Compilation and analysis of legal Norms (para 73-74). Article 1 of the Genocide Convention recognizes genocide, committed at any time, to be an international crime. Article 11 of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as “ … any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, such as :

• (a) Killing members of the group;
• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (E/CN.4/1998/3/Add.1 page 18).

Despite this ground reality, the Government of India has, so far, refused to declare the Pandits of Kashmir as IDPs.

Indian National Human Rights Commission seems to toe the policy of the government. We do understand that response to internal displacement worldwide, frequently resulting from civil war, is, in the words of the representative of the UN Secretary General, “often constrained by ruptured sense of national solidarity and identity.” This could be a reason for the Government of India’s reluctance to declare the Pandits as IDPs in terms of the UNHRC’s definition. But apart from this, the Government of India might be averse to the involvement of a UN agency or its nominee or reputed human rights agencies like Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) or any other of high credibility to address within its competence and legal jurisdiction the human rights violations of the internally displaced persons from Kashmir. Conceding the right of the states to sovereignty, it would be apt to refer at the same time to the concept of “sovereignty with responsibility” as enunciated in the Guiding Principles of the representative for the IDPs. In that sense it does not seem justifiable for the Government of India to obstruct, as it has hitherto done, the affected IDPs from enjoying the rights and privileges that are provided by the international community through various UN instruments and treaty bodies. It is tantamount to disregard of international obligation if not violation of human rights of the IDPs when they are segregated and deliberately kept outside the ambit of Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) designated by the UN Secretary-General as the UN’s focal point on internally displaced persons. (See UNHRC Resolution para 9 of E/CN.4/2003/86/Add. 6. page 6.)

Among other serious deprivations caused by refusing to declare them as IDPs would be the denial of their right to seeking asylum in a foreign country. This is gross violation of human rights and the right to freedom of movement.

It is a matter of regret that neither the Government of India nor the Government of the Jammu and Kashmir State (the State in which ethnic cleansing and genocide of a religious minority have occurred and where from the mass exodus of the community members has taken place) has instituted a Commission of Inquiry into the rise of religion-based terrorism allegedly with full connivance of sections of local authorities, political groups and segments of majority community of Kashmir.

Five major massacres of the members of the community’s residual members in Kashmir and adjoining areas have taken place during last one decade and a half.  No inquiry into the rise of armed insurgency in Kashmir in 1990, recurrent massacres of the minority community members, its full scale exodus, and vandalizing of their immoveable property  has been instituted by either the state or the union government nor has even an official statement been issued on the floor of the Legislative Assembly in regard to these pogroms. This shows the State and the Union government’s lack of concern about a blatant case of human rights violations.

Now there is much talk about the return and resettlement of the IDPs. The talk has become a cliché with the State and the Central government and some pseudo-human rights organizations. Observers feel that real ground situation does not support practicability of any such plan at least for the near future. We expect the Indian authorities to be in full knowledge of the observations, recommendations and resolutions of the UN, the Human Rights Commission and other UN subsidiary bodies in the matter of rights of Internally Displaced Persons.

In the context of the return of Pandit religious minority, the ground situation and its harsh realities are decisive factors. Indian security forces are locked in heroic combat against the committed jihadis and Islamic suicide squads who strike suddenly and at vulnerable places or soft targets. Most of Kashmiri Muslim bureaucracy and administrative structure abhors broad nationalist and secular orientation. A senior minister of Mufti cabinet was indicted by security agencies for known involvement in the Akshardham temple attack but he has been cleared by Mufti and given a “healing touch” by restoring him to his cabinet post. Mattan and Khirbhawani, the Hindu religious sites in the Valley, are being projected as future habitats of the exiled Pandits. This is not for any real love of the minority. Mattan is the constituency of Mufti himself and Khirbhawani is the constituency of Qazi Afzal who was a cabinet rank minister in Mufti government.
He had no qualms of conscience in publicly announcing that he won election through the support of militants. Millions of rupees officially earmarked for the rehabilitation of Pandit IDPs are actually spent to bolster vote bank syndrome of these two constituencies.

There is little sense in making Hindu religious places in the valley as focal point for their concentration. Are the exiled people to become mendicants and monks at their shrines or are they to be activated as equal partners in our nation’s political and social construct?

In these conditions, return of the IDPs becomes a secondary issue. The primary issue is of reversing the Illumination of Kashmir. It is re-establishing and reinforcing the primacy of secular democratic dispensation. It is providing constitutional and institutional cover to physical security. It is recognition of the right of the minority group to become partner in nation-building process. It is re-interpretation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution in the light of ongoing jihad. Above all, it is recognizing the sacrifices made by the community first as nuts and bolts of freedom movement, then as sufferers of discrimination and finally as the victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

It is moral, legal, administrative, constitutional and humanistic duty of the Government of Indian Union and the Indian civil society to advise state authorities to desist from employing wearing away tactics in the case of ethnically cleansed people. The report of the representative of the Secretary- General on IDPs, the Special Rapporteur on Minorities, and also of the Chairman of Working Group on Minorities – the important subsidiary of the UN Commission on Human Rights that has defined the Pandits as a clear example of “reverse minority” - should form the basis of any blueprint for Pandit return. The blueprint has to be implemented only when de-communalization of Kashmir along with wiping out terrorism is brought about in letter and in spirit. Whether the Indian State has the capacity of transforming violent and aggressive Kashmiri jihadi activism into peaceful coexistence among the people of different faiths through the current policy of appeasement and concessions is the crux of the problem.  So far the Indian experiment in Kashmir has yielded only the extirpation of the minuscule Hindu population of the State and the collapse of Indian projection of Kashmir as its secular symbol. New Delhi will have to redefine its secularist prognosis.

Principle 28 of the Guiding Principles in Section V relating to Return, Resettlement and Reintegration of the IDPs’ states:

• 1. Competent authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to establish conditions, as well as a provide the means, which allow internally displaced persons to return voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle voluntarily in another part of the country. Such authorities shall endeavour to facilitate the reintegration of returned or resettled internally displaced persons.
• 2. Special efforts should be made to ensure the full participation of internally displaced persons in the planning and management of their return or resettlement and reintegration. (E/CN.4/1998/53/Add. 2. page 14).

From this principle, the following inferences become self explanatory:

• a) The IDPs will not be coerced into return. Return will be their free choice
• b) It is the responsibility of the State authorities to care for their “return, resettlement and reintegration”
• c) The returnees have the freedom of resettling in their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle voluntarily in another part of the country/state
• d) Internally displaced persons will be involved actively in the decision of planning their return, resettlement and reintegration.

In the light of these inferences, it is logical if the internally displaced Kashmiri Pandits are demanding concentrated resettlement in one part of the Kashmir valley. This is what the right to freedom of movement and the right to freedom of resettlement embody. These being the human rights cannot be denied. Again there is full justification for the Pandit IDPs to ask for adequate political empowerment and full participation in the decision making and planning process in the State. This is their constitutional, political and human right. Additionally, the right to compensation is equally important as substantiated in the Guiding Principles.

Ultimately, the Pandits have to return to the Valley. Ultimately secularist dispensation has to be the basic philosophy of Indian nation. But this return is not an ordinary one. It is the return of the ethnically cleansed minority. It is the return of the indigenous people to their homeland. It is the return of a religious minority, which has been persecuted by the majority community. It is the return of a community abandoned by the democratically elected government. It is the return of a community portrayed by the Indian State as its secularist model in Kashmir. Naturally, return, rehabilitation and re-integration of this community has to be under very clear terms and conditions. Its survival, development, integration and future concerns have to be insulated through constitutional and institutional guarantees in the light of re-interpretation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India.

In this connection some suggestions could be made:

1. The Union Government constitutes a Commission of Inquiry with the following clear terms of reference:

• (a) Probe the causes of the rise of extremist religion-based armed insurgency in Kashmir in 1990;
• (b) Probe the causes and events of selective killings of Pandits followed by their ethnic cleansing in 1989-90.

The report of the inquiry into 1986 Anantnag attacks on Pandits should also be made public.  Constituting this commission is essential for preventing recurrence of communal pogroms in future and also for strengthening secular democracy of India. It will pave the way for the return of the IDPs. It must be understood that return of an ethnically cleansed minority to its homeland essentially depends not only on the quantum of security provided by the government but also in reversing the factors which led to ethnic-cleansing. No amount of rhetoric can be a substitute.
(The writer is the former director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).
The End

Contemporary Kashmir Politics: Some Insights

By Reshi Dev and Kashinath Pandit (see flyer)

The book will be released by Shri Jagmohan, Former Governor J and K and Union Minister
Guest of Honour: Shri Arun Shouri,  former Union Minister

On Thursday, 6th Nov. 2008 at 5.30 P.M. at the  Indian International Centre (Committee Room II)
40, Max Muller Marg, New Delhi-110003.

TEA:  5 p.m.
Tele (0) 981 821 77 55

New Arrival

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Reshi Dev, a life–long political activist of Kashmir, hopped in and out of almost all major political parties, worked honestly at grassroots level for seven decades, came into contact with many leading personalities in politics and, to his great consternation, found that they were sincere only to their self-interests and not to the people who returned them to power in elections. Bruised and mauled, Reshi Dev penned down at the age of 92 his reminiscences in exile.  K.N. Pandit has translated this diary from Urdu into English adding informative annotations and appendices.

Indo-US civilian nuclear deal promises further cementing of good relations between two major democracies of the world. At the same time it is a boost to democracy in principle as the time tested political dispensation that ensures equitable justice and protection of human rights.

The deal is expected to meet India’s energy requirement, contribute to economic development and raise the quality of life of millions of Indians. That is how ordinary people will interpret the claim of ending India’s nuclear segregation.

Any deal of this importance and depth should not be taken into account either in isolation or in narrow national perspective. India is not a small country that will exert minimum impact on neighbouring countries and the region. What will be the implication on the region which, as we all know, is not only very sensitive but also involved in chronic conflicts and contradictions?

The first reaction of the deal took no time to come to surface. Following it, Pakistan President paid a hurried visit to Beijing and the two countries are reported to have finalized a civilian nuclear deal similar to one India and the US signed recently.  China will build several nuclear reactors for Pakistan ostensibly to boost her electric power supply. This is the overt part of the deal but what lies underneath is not known.

China has been wooing Muslim countries and they are responding. The nature of their relationship is very different from what obtains between the US and the Muslim world. Somehow; the Muslim world has the impression that China is not politically exploiting them or their natural resources to the disadvantage of their respective peoples.

How far would the Muslims feel comfortable with this myth is for them to decide. But China’s support to or, at least friendship with dictatorships and military regimes in Muslims countries shows that her interests in promoting democracy and egalitarianism in these countries are not of vital importance. Her logistic, moral and diplomatic support to Pakistan vis-à-vis India explains Beijing’s minimal concern for democracy to flourish in Pakistan. It is for the people of Pakistan to decide whether this is a friendly gesture or not?. Nowhere in the Muslim Asia has China supported a people’s national movement against autocratic regimes. Like any western country her oil interests constitute the fundamentals of her policy towards them, which is also very true in the case with the US as well. But the US has other designs also, namely the world policemanship.

As Indo-US civil nuclear deal was being hotly debated inside and outside the Indian Parliament, it generated an impression in the mind of some segments of Indian Muslim society that this was something against their interests. They called it a sinister nexus between US, Israel and India aimed at harming the Muslims world over.  Although many among the Indian Muslims were not convinced that the deal would harm their larger interests - something which the partisan sections of Indian print media, known for their anti-American stance had been vehemently propagating - yet it is likely that in the parliamentary election of 2009, such political parties and groups as are opposed to Congress will, in one way or the other, try to exploit the matter and strengthen anti-Congress lobby.

However, it has to be noted that the foremost cause of violent rise of terrorism in South Asian region is generally attributed to US’ massive arming and fundamentalizing of Pakistani and Afghan societies in the wake of Soviet incursion into Afghanistan in 1979. Proliferation of sophisticated portable weapons on a very large scale in the region with the objective of resisting and repulsing advancing communist ideology enormously reinforced combat capacity of religious militias. Today the Frankenstein of terror is looking eyeball to eyeball at the United States. By virtue of her deepening ties with the United States, Al Qaeda has brought Indian on its radar.  Sudden exacerbation in SIMI’s bomb attacks in various cities in the country and unearthing of their links to cross boarder terrorist organizations is not a chance happening.

Iran has been figuring in the Indo-US nuclear talks quite frequently. The fact of the matter is that the US wants dismantling of nuclear arsenal in all countries outside the Big Five group or the members of Security Council. Thus India, Pakistan, Libya, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, and North Korea come under surveillance. They are to be dealt with and put in place not through a uniform set of operative principles but through a bilaterally negotiated deal, if possible, taking into account the ground position in each case. Israel is a different case and outside this generality. The reason why Washington refused to have a civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan similar to one it has made with India is that while India is a stable and responsible democracy, Pakistan is an instable state where ultimate power rests with the Army and not with its civil society.

Iran is stubbornly defying American pressure of shutting down her nuclear arms producing programme. UN sanctions against Iran are not proving effective as generally is the case with such sanctions. While Iran has been trying to drag India to her side by offering her the IPI gas pipeline project and some other concessions, Washington saw to it that this deal did not mature before the civilian nuclear deal was signed.  With a large Shia’ population mostly concentrated in Uttar Pradesh province, India wants to take very cautious steps in regard to her policy towards Iran. India has been one of the important actors behind the curtain to dissuade Washington from using a strong fist policy as in Iraq. Given the rigidity of the theocratic regime in Iran, one option with the US is to strengthen nationalist and secular forces in that country.  India would be very happy if that option works without giving direct affront to the theocratic regime.

It is clear that the US will deal with each of these countries in the light of a number of factors like area, population, type of governance, control and command system, strategic importance, demographic composition and the rest of it. The presumption is that Indo-US civilian nuclear deal will become a catalyst for de-nuclearizing program of the US in global context outside the Big Five. While India, Libya, Iraq and North Korea have been neutralized by one mechanism or the other, Iran remains to be dealt with. In all probability, Indo-US civilian nuclear deal may become the ultimate model whose board contours could help bring about a breakthrough. One has to wait till the US gets a new President.
(The writer is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

After nearly two months of half-hearted affirmative and negative posturing, political parties in Jammu and Kashmir are gearing up for 7-stage elections to the state assembly beginning with first tie on November 17 in Ladakh region.

Two mainstream political parties, Congress and National Conference have kick-started election campaigning, while PDP, the accidental political pigmy, is still busy debating the option whether it should or should not participate. Its hesitation comes from commitment made to separatists of securing pre-requisites before going to polls.

In more than one way, the forthcoming election will be unique in the history of post-accession election process in the state.  Separatists have vowed to enforce poll boycott, which is their patent policy ever since the rise of armed insurgency in Kashmir.

Sajjad Lone, chairman of J&K Peoples’ Conference - a component of APHC (Mirwaiz) - is sore over Prime Minister’s tepid response to his nondescript conflict resolving agenda. He has not only called for poll boycott by his party but has also announced the agenda of actively launching a campaign in his constituencies to persuade the electorate not to participate in elections. He appears to be too willing to defy the law of the land and also deny the people their right to elect their representatives.

Separatists and secessionists led by two factions of the Hurriyat are hopeful that a large section of electorate in Kashmir Valley would boycott polls and thus show to the world that India is on a slippery ground in Kashmir. PDP patron Mufti Saeed is trying to draw mileage from a grim situation of which his party is the prime architect.

The apprehension of a total boycott is giving sleepless nights to the policy planners in New Delhi. The last minute decision by the EC to make arrangements for special polling booths for the extirpated Kashmiri Pandit voters in Udhampur, Jammu and Delhi is an indicator of sorts because the same demand made by this segment of state electorate during assembly elections of 1996 and 2002 was cursorily brushed aside.

From a recent statement of Dr. Farooq Abdullah, the patron of National Conference and party’s candidate for chief ministry, National Conference has decided against alliance with any other party either for elections or power sharing. Dr. Farooq Abdullah appears to be confident that his party has regained its popularity not only in Kashmir but also in Jammu despite recent turmoil in both regions of the state and its impact not only on his but on all regional political parties. With Congress’ chances bleak in the valley and less hopeful in Jammu region, NC may be feeling reassured of valley-based dissident Congress leaders changing allegiance to it.

Dr. Farooq’s statement hinting at some broad outlines of NC’s election policy is met by PDP’s forty-page document on party’s perception of a solution of Kashmir issue. While Farooq has succinctly stated that there is no chage in NC’s stand on “greater autonomy” concept, Mufti Saeed’s document goes into more details of party’s concept of “self-rule.”

A comparative study of the two stands, viz greater autonomy versus self-rule shows that in spirit National Conference believes that since existing physical boundaries cannot be changed, and involuntary movement of masses of people is unacceptable on the basis of conflict resolution norms recognized by the UN bodies and subsidiaries, it confines its concerns to the part of the state under Indian control.  Thus if greater autonomy becomes a reality, its application will have nothing to do with territories beyond the LoC.

But Mufti Saeed’s document on “self-rule” makes several proposals for both parts of the state, meaning the Indian and the Pakistani part without asking for dissolving the existing LOC. The ideas like regional council, dual currency, visa-less travel and trade etc. are steps, which, if stabilized over a period of time, would, by their very nature, lead to a sort of confederation of regions, the proposition once thrown up by Owen Dixon in his plan for solving Kashmir question.

The common wavelength between the suggestions of NC and PDP, the two entrenched rival parties in the valley, is of the State returning to the position that emanated from the instrument of accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on October 26, 1947. Both demand annulment of Accords signet by the state and central leadership onwards of 1947.

The point of divergence between the two is that while NC wants to remain confined to present geographical limits of the State, PDP envisions the pre-1947 geographical entity called the State of Dogra ruling house.

But some basic questions arise in the case of self-rule theory of PDP. While it categorically demands withdrawal of Indian army from its present position, no doubt a confused and vague demand, it does not say the same thing about Pakistan Army stationed and operating in PoK including the Northern Areas.

Secondly, the 40-page document of Mufti Saeed, makes no mention whether the training camps in PoK have to be liquidated and whether the insurgents in Kashmir and other parts of the State have to be disarmed? While PDP patron claims to be issuing timely warnings to the Indian Prime Minister that time was running out, he makes no mention whether elimination of gun and gun culture was the pre-requisite of any peace and reconciliation process.

It is obvious that any comprehensive plan of self-rule envisaging a solution of  Kashmir issue  cannot  brush under carpet the case of hundreds of thousands of state citizens displaced from present PoK in 1947,  and the religious cleansing of the Hindus in the valley brought about in  1990. This sizeable chunk of nearly a million displaced people cannot be left to the whims of short-sighted politicians.

If the basic thinking is that the State returns to its position of 26 October 1947, ignores constitutional, legal and administrative validation of integrating the state into  the national state structure, and rescinds various  Accords between the union and the state government, then, of course,  legitimizing  abolishing of monarchy over the State in 1948 stands flawed. The geographical entity now called Jammu and Kashmir State was created by Maharaja Gulab Singh in 1846.  Today it is being dragged to the operation table for surgery or butchery. It must be rescued and returned to the safe custody of the people who decided to accede to India in 1947, and not to those who have put it on sale.

(The writer is the former director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

The Hindu religious minority of Kashmir Valley, known as Pandits formed nearly 07 per cent of the total population of Kashmir province at the time of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir State to the Indian Union in October 1947. Owing to discriminatory policies of successive regimes in J&K ever since, a good percentage of the Pandits was forced to leave their homeland and seek livelihood in other parts of the country. As a result of eruption of armed insurgency in late 1989-90,  Theo-fascists made the Pandits their selective targets killing more than a thousand innocent members within a couple of months of insurgency. Their objective was to enforce ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in order to pave the way for Islamic homogenization with sharia replacing secular democratic dispensation. Radical and Wahhabi Islamic ideologues in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, who have sponsored the jihadi terror world over, consider Kashmir integral to the concept of Islamic Caliphate. The Pandits were considered a symbol of secularist presence in Kashmir.  Religious extremists decided to efface this symbol once for all because it obstructed their scheme of things.

In 1990, the popularly elected Congress-NC coalition government of Jammu and Kashmiri lacked will and determination to protect life and property of this religious minority against lawless Islamic brigades. Not only that, instead meeting the threat of subversion and disintegration of the state, and dire threat to law and order,  the then popularly elected government decided not to resist the uprising and quit the office abandoning the people, particularly the defenseless minority, to armed Islamic insurgents. Wittingly it facilitated space for the insurgents to indulge freely in acts of pogroms and violence against the Pandit minority. Protection of life is the foremost constitutional and moral duty of any government. It is also the first article of the UN Charter on Human Rights.

Abandoned by the popular government, surrounded by an atmosphere of unrelenting threat to life and honour relayed through loudspeakers from mosque tops and in vernacular media, targeted by the gun-wielding marauders and ignored by the national press and mainstream political parties, the minuscule religious minority was left with no option but to abandon, albeit most unwillingly, their homes and hearths. This led to their mass exodus to unfamiliar places and environs. By April 1990, almost 99 per cent of their people left the Valley for some safer places.

The Government of India, in its official note to the International Commission of Jurists, (ICJ) — an international NGO of repute–communicated in writing the story of ethnic cleansing and exodus of the Pandits. It is fully reproduced in its published report on Kashmir, 1995.

Extirpated people fled to the other region of the State, Jammu, and other places in the country like Delhi, Bombay, Chandigarh etc. They did not cross the borders of the Indian Union but remained as refugees within the confines of their own country. Paragraph 2 of the report of the Representative of the UN Secretary General pursuant to the UNHRC resolution 1997/39, dealing with the scope and purpose of the Guiding Principles defines the IDPs as under:

For the purpose of these Principles, internally Displaced Persons are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border. (E/CN: 4/1998/53/Add. 2. page 5).

Section A paragraph 9 of the Report of the representative of the UN Secretary General to the Commission of Human Rights states:

Loss of life, brutality, violence and threats thereof that create a climate of insecurity frequently force people to flee their homes: for instance, in cases of direct or indiscriminate attacks on civilian sites. In fact, violence and threats affecting life and personal security are a particularly effective and frequently used means of inducing displacement and are often also employed in the course of displacement. In some cases the forced movement of persons may amount to genocide, including “ethnic cleansing”, or to inhuman and degrading treatment. (E/CN.4/1998/53/Add. 1. page 5)

In the matter of “ethnic cleansing” of the Pandits of Kashmir, a situation which the Government of India has conceded in its report to the ICJ, (to which allusion has been made above), the report of the representative of the Secretary General observes in paragraph 73:

Ethnic cleansing” is never admissible. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in its concluding observations on the report of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CERD/C/247/Add. 1), condemned “ethnic cleansing” because it constitutes” a grave violation of all basic principles underlying the international convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination.” (E/CN.4/1998/53/Add. 1 page 17). Kashmir Sentinel January 2004  Panun Kashmir Publication.

We have already stated that by April 1990 over a thousand members of the Pandit community had been gunned down by the armed Islamists. In regard to genocide, the report of the representative of the Secretary General states in paragraph 74 as follows:

Certain forms of forced removal, in particular in the context of “ethnic cleansing” or extreme suppression of ethnic or indigenous peoples may amount to genocide. Genocide constitutes an especially grave form of violation of the right to life, as discussed in detail in the Compilation and analysis of legal Norms (para 73-74). Article 1 of the Genocide Convention recognizes genocide, committed at any time, to be an international crime. Article 11 of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as “….any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, such as ;

• (a) Killing members of the group;
• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (E/CN.4/1998/3/Add.1 page 18).

Despite this ground reality, the Government of India has, so far, refused to declare the Pandits of Kashmir as IDPs. Indian National Human Rights Commission seems to toe the policy of the government. We do understand that response to internal displacement worldwide, frequently resulting from civil war, is, in the words of the representative of the UN Secretary General, “often constrained by ruptured sense of national solidarity and identity.” This could be a reason for the Government of India’s reluctance to declare the Pandits as IDPs in terms of the UNHRC’s definition. But apart from this, the Government of India might be averse to the involvement of a UN agency or its nominee or reputed human rights agencies like Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) or any other of high credibility to address within its competence and legal jurisdiction the human rights violations of the internally displaced persons from Kashmir. Conceding the right of the states to sovereignty, it would be apt to refer at the same time to the concept of “sovereignty with responsibility” as enunciated in the Guiding Principles of the representative for the IDPs. In that sense it does not seem justifiable for the Government of India to obstruct, as it has hitherto done, the affected IDPs from enjoying the rights and privileges that are provided by the international community through various UN instruments and treaty bodies. It is tantamount to disregard of international obligation if not violation of human rights of the IDPs when they are segregated and deliberately kept outside the ambit of Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) designated by the UN Secretary-General as the UN’s focal point on internally displaced persons (See UNHRC Resolution para 9 of E/CN.4/2003/86/Add. 6. page 6.).

Among other serious deprivations caused by refusing to declare them as IDPs would be the denial of their right to seeking asylum in a foreign country. This is gross violation of human rights and the right to freedom of movement.

It is a matter of regret that neither the Government of India nor the Government of the Jammu and Kashmir State (the State in which ethnic cleansing and genocide of a religious minority have occurred and where from the mass exodus of the community members has taken place) has instituted a Commission of Inquiry into the rise of religion-based terrorism allegedly with full connivance of sections of local authorities, political groups and segments of majority community of Kashmir.

Five major massacres of the members of the community’s residual members in Kashmir and adjoining areas have taken place during last one decade and a half.  No inquiry into the rise of armed insurgency in Kashmir in 1990, recurrent massacres of the minority community members, its full scale exodus, and vandalizing of their immoveable property  has been instituted by either the state or the union government nor has even an official statement been issued on the floor of the Legislative Assembly in regard to these pogroms. This shows the State and the Union government’s lack of concern about a blatant case of human rights violations.

Now there is much talk about the return and resettlement of the IDPs. The talk has become a cliché with the State and the Central government and some pseudo-human rights organizations. Observers feel that real ground situation does not support practicability of any such plan at least for the near future. We expect the Indian authorities to be in full knowledge of the observations, recommendations and resolutions of the UN, the Human Rights Commission and other UN subsidiary bodies in the matter of rights of Internally Displaced Persons.

In the context of the return of Pandit religious minority, the ground situation and its harsh realities are decisive factors. Indian security forces are locked in heroic combat against the committed jihadis and Islamic suicide squads who strike suddenly and at vulnerable places or soft targets. Most of Kashmiri Muslim bureaucracy and administrative structure abhors broad nationalist and secular orientation. A senior minister of Mufti cabinet was indicted by security agencies for known involvement in the Akshardham temple attack but he has been cleared by Mufti and given a “healing touch” by restoring him to his cabinet post. Mattan and Khirbhawani, the Hindu religious sites in the Valley, are being projected as future habitats of the exiled Pandits. This is not for any real love of the minority. Mattan is the constituency of Mufti himself and Khirbhawani is the constituency of Qazi Afzal who was a cabinet rank minister in Mufti government (Kashmir Sentinel,  January 2004, Panun Kashmir Publication).

He had no qualms of conscience in publicly announcing that he won election through the support of militants. Millions of rupees officially earmarked for the rehabilitation of Pandit IDPs are actually spent to bolster vote bank syndrome of these two constituencies.

There is little sense in making Hindu religious places in the valley as focal point for their concentration. Are the exiled people to become mendicants and monks at their shrines or are they to be activated as equal partners in our nation’s political and social construct?

In these conditions, return of the IDPs becomes a secondary issue. The primary issue is of reversing the Illumination of Kashmir. It is re-establishing and reinforcing the primacy of secular democratic dispensation. It is providing constitutional and institutional cover to physical security. It is recognition of the right of the minority group to become partner in nation-building process. It is re-interpretation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution in the light of ongoing jihad. Above all, it is recognizing the sacrifices made by the community first as nuts and bolts of freedom movement, then as sufferers of discrimination and finally as the victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

It is moral, legal, administrative, constitutional and humanistic duty of the Government of Indian Union and the Indian civil society to advise state authorities to desist from employing wearing away tactics in the case of ethnically cleansed people. The report of the representative of the Secretary - General on IDPs, the Special Rapporteur on Minorities, and also of the Chairman of Working Group on Minorities – the important subsidiary of the UN Commission on Human Rights that has defined the Pandits as a clear example of “reverse minority” - should form the basis of any blueprint for Pandit return. The blueprint has to be implemented only when de-communalization of Kashmir along with wiping out terrorism is brought about in letter and in spirit. Whether the Indian State has the capacity of transforming violent and aggressive Kashmiri jihadi activism into peaceful coexistence among the people of different faiths through the current policy of appeasement and concessions is the crux of the problem.  So far the Indian experiment in Kashmir has yielded only the extirpation of the minuscule Hindu population of the State and the collapse of Indian projection of Kashmir as its secular symbol. New Delhi will have to redefine its secularist prognosis. Principle 28 of the Guiding Principles in Section V relating to Return, Resettlement and Reintegration of the IDPs’ states:

• 1. Competent authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to establish conditions, as well as a provide the means, which allow internally displaced persons to return voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle voluntarily in another part of the country. Such authorities shall endeavour to facilitate the reintegration of returned or resettled internally displaced persons.
• 2. Special efforts should be made to ensure the full participation of internally displaced persons in the planning and management of their return or resettlement and reintegration (E/CN.4/1998/53/Add. 2. page 14).

From this principle, the following inferences become self explanatory:

• a) The IDPs will not be coerced into return. Return will be their free choice
• b) It is the responsibility of the State authorities to care for their “return, resettlement and reintegration”
• c) The returnees have the freedom of resettling in their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle voluntarily in another part of the country/state
• d) Internally displaced persons will be involved actively in the decision of planning their return, resettlement and reintegration.

In the light of these inferences, it is logical if the internally displaced Kashmiri Pandits are demanding concentrated resettlement in one part of the Kashmir valley. This is what the right to freedom of movement and the right to freedom of resettlement embody. These being the human rights cannot be denied. Again there is full justification for the Pandit IDPs to ask for adequate political empowerment and full participation in the decision making and planning process in the State. This is their constitutional, political and human right. Additionally, the right to compensation is equally important as substantiated in the Guiding Principles.

Ultimately, the Pandits have to return to the Valley. Ultimately secularist dispensation has to be the basic philosophy of Indian nation. But this return is not an ordinary one. It is the return of the ethnically cleansed minority. It is the return of the indigenous people to their homeland. It is the return of a religious minority, which has been persecuted by the majority community. It is the return of a community abandoned by the democratically elected government. It is the return of a community portrayed by the Indian State as its secularist model in Kashmir. Naturally, return, rehabilitation and re-integration of this community has to be under very clear terms and conditions. Its survival, development, integration and future concerns have to be insulated through constitutional and institutional guarantees in the light of re-interpretation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India.

In this connection some suggestions could be made:

The Union Government constitutes a Commission of Inquiry with the following clear terms of reference:

• (a) Probe the causes of the rise of extremist religion-based armed insurgency in Kashmir in 1990
• (b) Probe the causes and events of selective killings of Pandits followed by their ethnic cleansing in 1989-90.

The report of the inquiry into 1986 Anantnag attacks on Pandits should also be made public (Kashmir Sentinel, January 20, 2004,  Panun Kashmir Publication). Constituting this commission is essential for preventing recurrence of communal pogroms in future and also for strengthening secular democracy of India. It will pave the way for the return of the IDPs. It must be understood that return of an ethnically cleansed minority to its homeland essentially depends not only on the quantum of security provided by the government but also in reversing the factors which led to ethnic-cleansing. No amount of rhetoric can be a substitute.

- The End -

(The writer is the former director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

While elections for the state assemblies in five states will be held according to the schedule of the Election Commission of India, J&K has been left out of the process. Normally elections in this state should have been announced around 10th of September and the polling would have taken place sometime in November 2008.

By not announcing whether elections in J&K will or will not be held on time, the Election Commission has created a situation of suspense and uncertainty. Deferring elections for a specific period of time for the state assemblies or for parliament is nothing new or extraordinary. Deferment of elections owing to some specific reasons and for specific time is generally happens on the advice of the government. Nevertheless, the Election Commission has the discretion allowed to it by the Constitution to decide about the dates.

There has been something mysterious and inexplicable about the J&K elections this time. Two mainstream political parties, namely National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party had an objection to holding elections according to schedule in November 2008. They argued that the ground situation in the state was not conducive for holding election.

The Congress measured its steps with more caution. In the beginning it came somewhat closer to other two regional parties and did not think it feasible to be categorical on the subject. Later on, with some unknown factors interacting, PCC came out in favour of holding elections on time. This re-activated its cadres but only to find cold water poured over their expectations. This speaks of deep division within the party decision making apparatus.

As days rolled by, Congress began to drag its feet. In a hyperbole, its spokesman said that the decision of holding or not holding elections on time was in the hands of the Election Commission. Though the buck was passed easily, but everybody understood that the Congress-led government wanted to hunt with the hound and run with the hare.

The Election Commission visited Srinagar to assess the ground situation. It met with political leaders of different hues including the Hurriyat separatists and their other groups. It passed no verdict on ground situation, but was engaged in a crucial debate on what the ground situation was and what should be the proper approach meaning whether to defer elections of hold them on time. At the end of the day, differences within the Commissioners came to surface. Such is the complicacy of Kashmir situation and such is the mess of Kashmir elections.

At last, after a long spell of silence and inaction, the EC came out with the statement that it did not consider ground situation conducive for elections in Kashmir. However, strangely it did not specify the “ground situation” though we do understand what they mean and why.

Why do NC and PDP ask for deferring elections? Why does Congress play seek and hide? Why is EC tormented and riding the horns of dilemma? And why is BJP insisting on holding the elections on time? These are very interesting questions.

First let us try to analyse what is meant by “ground situation not conducive”. Ground situation has seldom been conducive in Kashmir region. But the leading political parties would manage it and giving a false impression of normalcy to the rulers in New Delhi, find themselves catapulted into the seats of power through the charade of elections.

If the ground situation was conducive during the long spell of National Conference rule, then late Afzal Baig, the Deputy Chief Minister of Sheikh Abdullah and the then president of Plebiscite Front had no need to publicly display a green handkerchief and rock salt cube to the audiences in his election rallies. Kashmiris know these two things symbolize Pakistan.

The formation of Muslim United Front (MUF), which took part in the elections of 1986 but was cheated and bruised, explicitly showed that the ground situation in Kashmir was far from normal. In 1990, entire Kashmiri Pandit community was forced out of its habitats in the valley. They live in Jammu camps and elsewhere in the country ever since. Did it show that ground situation in the valley was normal? Not at all, yet elections were held in 1996 and 2002. Therefore, it is presumed that all elections in Kashmir have been held in a state of abnormal conditions. As such the plea of National Conference and the PDP that conditions are not conducive is a vague and politically motivated statement. If the Election commission defers elections in J&K on that plea then one may feel unhappy with it for its failure to be of independent views.

The separatists never accepted elections in the state as legal and popular. Their stand is clear and unambiguous. They are in favour of sharia-based Islamic political system, which does not recognize either secular or democratic dispensation stipulated by the Constitution of India. We should have no complaint against them.

The fact of the matter is that two-month long Jammu agitation on land row has changed the complexion and contours of J&K politics. It has a bearing on center’s J&K policy as we4ll. In the first place, Jammu agitation exposed all political parties feigning secularism in the state. It unmasked those political groups and personalities who had been wearing a mask and misleading the people during last six decades. It struck at the credibility of valley-based political groups that have been managing to grab votes by fair and unfair means and assume the reins of power. In a sense Jammu agitation led to the deepening of polarization, a prospect that was there ever since accession but had been put under wraps by demagogues.

Now the people in Kashmir valley feel driven to the wall. They have come to realize that all evils lie in voting mainstream political groups to power. The mass march to Muzaffarabad, though aborted, did convey a message to the common voter in Kashmir that his no-exercising of vote would change the course of events. That is precisely what keeps the mainstream parties like NC, PDP and Congress alienated from the people.

Therefore these parties want to gain time so that they can convince their constituencies about the legitimacy of their political stance. How they will do it and to what result is something which only time will decide. The gap may or may not be filled.

The dilemma is about Kashmir valley voters only; it is not true about the voters in Jammu and Ladakh regions. However, the people of these two regions are made a hostage to the whims and whimpers of the valley leadership, which has takers in the UPA run government. But BJP stand aloof in this melee.

BJP’s stand is much more clear and unambiguous. Its argument that deferring of elections means giving a wrong signal to the ultras and separatists is quite weighty. Giving time to traditional, but much discredited, political groups to regain lost ground means indirectly supporting a stupendous campaign of further misleading the people of the state. If national interests are to be served, then people should be spared the harangues of entrenched ambivalent political parties.

The fears of the UPA government and the Congress are that the true ground situation in Kashmir Valley will get exposed once people refuse to come out of their homes to cast the ballot paper. In other words, Kashmir Valley is now in the process of a Satyagraha or civil disobedience. This is of immense disadvantage to the Indian State. Conducting fair and scheduled elections and returning a representative government is the only cogent argument to legitimize India’s presence in Kashmir. If this is scrapped, India’s position in Kashmir is exceedingly vulnerable.

(The writer is the former Director of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

The fact of the matter is that during the national struggle for freedom led by Congress, our leaders did not give any serious thought to India’s frontier policy once power passed into their hands. Perhaps they were pre-occupied with a host of baffling internal problems and with the framing of the constitutional structure for the independent country.

Within weeks of freedom, the first signals of vulnerability of India’s north-western frontier were in sight. Pakistan-sponsored incursion of Kashmir by NWFP tribesmen in October 1947 should have prompted Indian policy planners to think beyond Kashmir and beyond the tribal invasion.  Alas, they did not.

If there had been a serious thinking on new situation arising on our north-western frontier after the departure of the British, we would not have gone to beg peace at the doors of the United Nations. It was a clear sign of our weakness and lack of vision about our frontier policy. Our adversaries exploited this weakness to the hilt.

One cannot stop ruminating over Nehru’s naiveté of expecting the US to support us on Kashmir case at the Security Council. Outright rejection of the option of going to the Security Council, as had been suggested by Sardar Patel in a cabinet meeting, would have, consequently, forced our policy planners to take up the question of re-drawing our northern and north-western frontier policy on long-term basis.

Sixty-two years down the line, history has shown that we are still kidding with an issue, which is now threatening our national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Three wars with Pakistan over Kashmir, one war with China over border dispute, two-decade long armed insurgency in Kashmir, massive intrusion by the Bangladeshis on our eastern border, Pakistan’s subversive tactics in our eastern region to destabilize peace and constitutionally elected governments, using Nepal as a base for anti-India subversion and now the widespread radical Islamic threat within the country resulting in large scale innocent killings, all flow from our unpardonable lack of vision and absence of an effectively deterring  northern and north-western frontier policy.

A frontier policy does not mean only the use of deterring muscle power though that is the basis of any parameters supporting a definite line of action. It is diplomacy in essence, throwing up new ideas and implementing some apparently unsavoury but surely unavoidable steps to secure the country against foreign intrusions and subversion. The first thing to understand in planning a foolproof policy is to understand the neighbours who are sitting on our borders east and west.

Secondly the question of securing vulnerable frontier against intrusion needs to be de-linked from regional politics. It has to be guided by supreme national interest clearly identified on a long-term basis.

Conceptualizing a policy of extraordinary importance to national security will also take into account its ramifications in national and international spheres. All sovereign countries have a right to conceive, plement and stand by a policy that they think ensures their perpetuity and progress.

Indian constitution provides for an elected government and the parliament to take any steps that are considered necessary and feasible to ensure the security of our frontiers. But a government cannot expect to carry the parliament with it if it has neither a vision of renewed foreign policy nor the ability to sell it to the nation and win its support. The Indian Constitution enjoys sanctity which is not to be challenged. But the sanctity has to be subject to the exigencies that stare into the eyes of the nation. In a balancing act between constitutional propriety and national exigency, the latter has precedence over the former.

It has to be reminded that in view of communist shadow looming large over the Central Asian underbelly around 1930s, the British Indian policy planners had carved out Gilgit Agency from the largely mountainous Gilgit district of the Dogra Kingdom of Kashmir. The newly carved Agency was placed under the control of a British Commander designated as Resident, but actually closely connected to security and intelligence agencies of the British government. The purpose of this part of British Indian frontier policy was to have a foothold close to the frontier wherefrom they could maintain efficient surveillance and also devise means and methods of checkmating subversive plans of their rivals. For more than one decade, up to the freedom of India in 1947, the Gilgit Agency administration successfully pursued its objectives and kept the enemy at bay.

This political landscape in the northern frontier of India was totally overlooked by the policy planners in New Delhi with the accession of the J&K State to the Indian Union. They remained fully engaged in only two aspects of Kashmir, namely constitutional, legal and administrative aspects of accession and fighting the Pakistan intruders along the western front. They refused to move beyond these parameters.

Kargil war of 1998 opened the eyes of Indian policy makers for the first time. Though the Chinese incursion of 1971 should have served a catalyst to New Delhi to revising entire spectrum of her northern and north-western frontier policy, it reacted only half-heartedly. Then came the thunderbolt of Kargil attack, which India did succeed in repulsing but at a heavy price and demoralization.

If the on-going armed insurgency in Kashmir, too, is treated a casual happening along the border between two unfriendly countries, which India is fighting with a stick and carrot policy, we shall be heading towards a disaster. The uprising which we are witnessing in the valley for last two months or so, or for that matter for last two decades, is the direct fall out of absence of a deterring frontier policy with New Delhi planners. A clearly defined and well-planned frontier policy, that transcends political and other constraints, may be unwelcome step to sections of people in the beginning, but when its repercussions become visible its angularities will dissolve in thin air.

Geographically re-structuring of sensitive regions and areas, resetting of administrative mechanism that eliminate chances of internal subversion,  involving local population in full support of defence strategies, reducing dependence on political class particularly of proven ambivalence, formulating a civil-military administrative set up for the evacuated strips along the border wherever necessary, and designing a well-thought of development plan for the evacuated strips are among the components of upgraded and re-vitalized frontier policy for the north-western frontier of India.

On military side, many changes are desirable. After all it is the muscle power that lends credibility to any drastic reform especially when local political class is to be given restricted space.  India has to plan for a high mountain security system extended over a vast rugged terrain of the Karakorum, the Pamir ranges and the Pir  Panchal. This asks for the creation of a new Himalayan Command with headquarters somewhere along Madhumati River basin eastward between Tithwal and Guraiz.

This Command has to be different from other three Commands in terms of equipment, armour, communication, strike power both on ground and in air and warfare tactics. It calls for a network of mountain roads and link roads over which heavy armour can be carried. This will be a snow-bound Command and it has to be of a standard to meet the hostile climate and the enemy both at one and the same time. A tunnel at Baltal underneath Zoji La could be considered to establish rail link between Srinagar and Leh. This would feed the entire frontier defence establishment. We should not forget that China has built the Karakorum Highway linking her territory with that of Pakistan over the high altitude ranges of Karakorum. It has the strategic value and we have nothing to counter it.

One could suggest that the defence ministry constitutes a North-Western Frontier Strategy Committee of experts from various ministries and institutions with the terms of reference to devise a revised frontier policy, creation of Himalayan Mountain Command, a new communication system and viable supply line.

We know that any planning of this type will evoke criticism and even opposition from the US because it will be a deterrent to the mischief of Pakistan along our border line. Washington would not like to see balance of power tilting towards India. But New Delhi has a strong argument to disarm the US. The question is of will to do.
(The writer is the former Director of the Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

Behind this argument lies the fallacy that elections mean legitimizing Indian presence in the state.

Election Commission is about to declare the dates of election in Jammu and Kashmir despite the separatists, PDP and NC demanding deferment.

In the beginning Congress showed signs of vacillation but now it appears to have recovered its confidence.

Those demanding deferment till political climate of the state becomes conducive argue that memories of recent upheaval in the valley are still fresh in the minds of the people. Behind this argument lies the fallacy that elections mean legitimizing Indian presence in the state.

Separatist groups including both factions of Hurriyat and their collaborators are averse to a democratic dispensation under Indian Constitutional provisions. Hence, their denouncing of November elections under one pretext or the other is not unexpected.

But two mainstream political parties, PDP and NC, are ostensibly on the horns of dilemma. This situation is one which they created for themselves.

Not participating in the elections means leaving the field open for others to grab power. That will leave them no space even to function as formal opposition group in the assembly — something unthinkable for them.

PDP patron has remained tight-lipped on the issue after his return from the US. Its garrulous chairperson, too, has maintained silence thus facing the embarrassing question of to be or not to be. Nevertheless rumblings within the party on the issue are become louder day by day.

After some vacillation National Conference patron has toned down his ire considerably. He got a wind that Congress was inclined to stick to the schedule for assembly elections in J&K.

Its re-thinking can throw up the option of a Congress-NC alliance, a grouping that has its past history albeit not very encouraging.  Having gone through the nightmare of recent protests in Jammu and Srinagar, both may begin their relationship with a clan slate. PCC has hinted at dropping “tainted” leaders of the party and creating space for younger workers. Induction of Saifu’d-Din Soz as PCC chief  at a point of time when the term of Ghulam Nabi Azad-led government was about to complete its tenure, was a clear indication that the pilot and his main oarsmen had to be dropped.

PDP will have to stop hurling threats and diatribe if it wants to play a constructive role.  It has to understand that the aftermath of land row has sealed the option of hunting with the hound and running with the hare. Issuing hollow threats is a sign of frustration.

Separatists and secessionists, too, are not a compact group.  Ali Shah Geelani tried to project himself as the leader of the masses but it is unlikely to work. Sharp differences remain.

National Conference is bogged with the younger segment of its leadership drifting away from its traditional policy. This faction’s interpretation of “Kashmir nationalism” differs from party’s traditional interpretation. Omar Abdullah’s immature statement in the parliament on Amarnath land row was meant to play down the traditional leadership of the party but Farooq Abdullah quickly realized the magnitude of the damage it did, and sought to control it. Thereafter, he handled the situation with more caution and pragmatic statesmanship. How far will his new posture help retrieve National Conference in Jammu and Srinagar remains to be seen.

PDP is not without the din of internal dissension. Its constituency has shrunk after its dubious role in land deal case.

Finally, BJP’s electioneering will remain limited to Jammu province because of massive anti-BJP propaganda unleashed by almost all other mainstream political parties in the valley to malign it.

Considering Sangharsh Samiti’s secular and non–partisan conduct of Jammu agitation, which threw the three mainstream political parties in a state of dilemma, the BJP stands to gain considerably in the forthcoming elections. If it is able to capture 20 to 23 seats, that would form a solid opposition in the assembly. Much depends on what will be its election manifesto, and to what extent will that reflect achievable aspirations of the people of Jammu region.
(The writer is the former director of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).