Nine Ways Of Looking At A Crisis

Violence embraced Kashmir in the 1990s and in 2008 it has enveloped Jammu in its fold. HARINDER BAWEJA captures the conflicting voices from a state that is on a dangerous precipice. Photographs by UZMA MOHSIN

the reporter

I FLEW INTO the Valley twice this year. On May 28, and again on August 14. In May, it appeared very much the ‘paradise on earth’. Jannat was awash with sunlight, the streets full of relaxed faces and the placid waters of the Dal Lake dotted with houseboats and shikaras full of tourists. The boulevard along the lake was teeming with holiday makers, mostly from Gujarat and Maharashtra, and you had to remind yourself that the hundreds strolling around in saris and bindis — symbols that left the Valley when the Pandits were forced out in the early 1990s — were actually in Kashmir.

Less than three months later, not a single taxi was available at Srinagar airport. The tourism counter next to the baggage area was desolate when, by the state’s own account, four lakh tourists came here in the first six months of the year. The city had clamped down its shutters and the road leading into town was charred black. Tyres were aflame at every crossing and angry protestors raised slogans for azadi at every turn. I had covered the Kashmir insurgency since 1989, when the gun first took root in the Valley, and was not in the least surprised when irate Kashmiris pounded our car, calling me and my photographer colleague Uzma Mohsin “Hindus from India”.

The contrast between May and August is stark and New Delhi is gob-smacked. The mandarins in both North and South Blocks can’t seem to figure out why the crowds are swelling in Jammu, why its women are courting arrest, why the Kashmiris are demanding azadi once again. Why has a mere 40 hectares of land — transferred to the Amarnath Shrine Board and then taken back — brought fire to regions on either side of the Pir Panjal range? Why has the state slipped into anarchy? Why do Jammuites hate Kashmiris and vice versa?

The borders within need to be made irrelevant

The 40 hectares, 800 kanals, of land on the treacherous track to the 13,000ft-high Amarnath Cave has been aptly described by a senior officer as “a wasteland”. It would most certainly not have become Amarnath Nagar, nor seen the demographic change some separatists have suggested. For most of the year, the area is under 10 feet of snow, coming alive for just two summer months when temporary huts and toilets are erected here for the use of pilgrims. In all the sloganeering and hate that have consumed both Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), neither the state’s mainstream parties nor the Centre have bothered to clarify that the yatris have been provided these very facilities on these same 40 hectares not only for the past six years but during this one too, at the precise time that the crowds were thronging the streets, armed not with weapons but communal vitriol. The Cabinet order transferring the land would only have formalised the alreadyexisting arrangement.

Should Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil not have gone to ground zero, accompanied by the state’s politicians and the media, and cut through the propaganda that now has J&K on a precipice? The question of how well the minister is informed of ground realities is important because, even though state inputs put the number of the Muzaffarabad Chalo march at nothing less than 70,000, a smug Patil told a senior politician at the all-party meeting in Jammu that the crowd comprised only 8,000 people.

It is here that the crux of the problem lies. In New Delhi’s procrastination, in its reluctance to read the signals on the ground, in its unwillingness to exhibit a statesman-like leap of faith. At the heart of the crisis lies Delhi’s penchant for treating it as no more than a law and order problem.

SO, WHEN tourists thronged Srinagar’s streets and North Block looked at the figures — a drop in violence, infiltration down to a trickle, the decimation of the Hizbul Mujahideen, an increase in political activity, Kashmiris agitating about civic issues like water and power — it made a critical error. It mistook surface calm for normalcy. It placed J&K at par with Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, or any other state. When the state Cabinet passed the land transfer order, it took the Valley for granted, and when in, a knee-jerk reaction, it revoked the order, it took Jammu for granted.

If both Jammu and Kashmir appear at war with each other, it is because they have only been made hollow promises. Successive state governments promised to personally escort the Pandits back to the Valley. Former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao promised autonomy. “The sky is the limit,” he famously said. “Anything short of azadi,” is how former Prime Minister Deve Gowda worded it. More recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held out the hope of building a “naya Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh”. Make the borders irrelevant, he said over a year ago. Today, now that the fires are raging, New Delhi doesn’t know what’s hit it.

And this time it can’t even blame the ISI. Walk the streets of Srinagar and you will see that the crowd marching with Pakistani flags in their hands comprises a new generation. These boys, most of whom grew up in violence, death and destruction, appear fearless. In 1990, militants openly displayed arms; today, students are walking up to the security bunkers, stones in hand, taunting the men in uniform, saying, “Kill us, we want to become martyrs.” Bravado? Maybe, but factor this in — if in the early 1990s there was romanticism about a movement that was just beginning; today, the protestors are only too aware of the might of the state. They did not know what counterinsurgency measures entailed then, today’s generation has grown up with them.

Ask a senior security officer, an Inspector General of Police who was a Superintendent of Police in 1992 and he will tell you that the frenzy of a crowd of 10,000 equals the might of 40,000. Speak to a Secretary-level IAS officer in Jammu and he will tell you that Jammu has good reason to feel neglected and discriminated against. Spend time at the homes of Pandits who did not migrate in the 1990s and in hushed whispers they will tell you they are now frightened enough to contemplate what they resisted 20 years ago. Speak to migrants in Jammu — they still live in tents and oneroom tenements — and they say, enough is enough; it’s payback time. Hindus in the Valley are housed next to bunkers and Muslims in Jammu have been swathed in a security blanket. Then, Kashmiri women used to ensure their men left home with their addresses in their pockets. In 2008, the women are part of the juloos winding through the city’s bylanes.

Walk around Srinagar and — if you remember the early 1990s — it will strike you that the mosques are making the same announcements, about the march to the United Nations office, about the blackout to be observed tonight to protest the excessive use of force.

Listen to the vocabulary and you will know that in so many ways it is worse today than in the early 1990s, those watershed years when Jammu and Kashmir started its slippery descent. Listen to the Jammuites and this is what they will throw at you: “All Kashmiris are terrorists.” Listen to the Kashmiris and even a six-year-old will say, “Water cannons to dispel crowds in Jammu but bullets for us Kashmiris.”

The state I covered in 1990 was not a communal cauldron. No Muslim had been hurt in Jammu city or in the entire subdivision. Today, it is a tinderbox. The communal fire had almost been lit in Kishtwar in Doda, where the population ratio is at a sensitive 52 to 48. MI-17s packed with security forces were flown in from Jammu to keep the fires from spreading but how long will the men in khaki fill in for a government that is still procrastinating? Chambers of commerce on both sides are willing to “sacrifice” their businesses. In Jammu, they are doing it in the name of astha, faith, and in Kashmir, they are willing to pay the price for what they call azadi.

If Omar Abdullah is threatening to resign his seat in Parliament and if Mehbooba Mufti is marching to the Raj Bhawan holding a placard that says, “Stop the excessive use of force”, they are doing so in recognition of the sentiment in Kashmir. But more than that, their actions also mean this: for the first time, it has become difficult to distinguish the demands of the mainstream parties from those of the Hurriyat Conference who have no problem with being called separatists. The mainstream parties were always considered the bridge between Srinagar and Delhi; today they are part of the Muzaffarabad Chalo call.

The Gujarati tourists will not come back, or may come only intermittently. The stalls selling dosas opposite Srinagar’s Dal Lake may open once again but will shut soon unless Delhi wakes up and realises that the answer will not flow from the barrel of a military gun. Ask army commanders, perplexed by the numbers of jawans killing themselves and their officers, and they will tell you that here they are at best tolerated and at worst are seen as an occupational force. The new generation is brazen in provoking the men in the bunkers. Not once since 2000 has a crowd, however small, marched to the UN office in Srinagar. Never before has any strike, hartal or bandh in Jammu ever gone into day two.

New Delhi will have to engage with the crisis politically, not militarily. Violence embraced Kashmir in the 1990s. In 2008, it has also taken Jammu into its fold. Yesterday, India was taking the peace process forward with Pakistan. Today, it needs to broker peace between Jammu and Kashmir. There are borders within that need to be made irrelevant.

the separatist

THE AGITATION is not about the yatra. Over five lakh yatris came this year and not one of them was harmed. Kashmiris organised

Kashmir is a beautiful prison. Give us the right to self-determination SYED ALI SHAH GEELANI, Hurriyat Conference Leader

langars for them and will continue to do so. Governor SK Sinha misused his powers and got the land transferred. He made another mistake by extending the yatra for two months. What will happen to the environment? In Uttarakhand, the number of pilgrims to the Gangotri are restricted to less than 300 a day, by the BJP-run government. If there are restrictions there, why not here? Today’s Kashmiri youth thinks that India wants them to be their ghulam. They think the military will forcibly take their land away. Why is the namaz not allowed in schools, when vande mataram is allowed? Jammu and Kashmir is not an integral part of India. People are demanding the right to self-determination which was promised by Nehru. You can keep saying Kashmir is an integral part but remove the army and lets see how many people say ‘Hindustan zindabad’. We are not communal; the BJP is. We will protect the yatris with our lives. We don’t want to divide J&K. We will preserve unity because Hindus are our brothers. There is only one solution: we are in a beautiful prison. Please give us our freedom and the right to selfdetermination. If the people decide to stay with India, we will accept that but let India respect our rights.

the chauvinist

Delhi does not understand land is an identity issue MEHBOOBA MUFTI, President, Peoples Democratic Party

WE ARE being projected as an anti-national force when we are the ones who have been pursuing a healing-touch policy. Mufti Saab had the political acumen to stop the land transfer three years ago because we knew it would become an atomic bomb. Understand that Ghulam Nabi Azad conspired with Governor Sinha and kept pressing for the transfer. Yes, PDP ministers were part of the Cabinet meeting allotting the land but then Arun Kumar, the Chief Executive Officer, played a dangerous game. He announced at a press conference that the facilities that would come up on the 800 kanals would be permanent. He also talked of Hindu pollution and Muslim pollution during Haj. Can a government officer talk like this without powerful political backing? Delhi does not understand that land is an identity issue. Everyone spoke up for Nandigram; why not Kashmir? The whole country is siding with a 10- member Shrine Board committee. Surely, the Shrine Board is not above Jammu and Kashmir, above India. What you see right now is a people’s movement, not a militant movement. The immediate solution lies in opening the Muzaffarabad route. If goods can go through Wagah, why not Muzaffarabad? And please, tell Delhi to think about Musharraf’s proposal on joint control. You can’t wish away the problem.

the refugee

Appoint Pandits from the Valley to the Shrine Board. We are not outsiders RATTAN CHAKU, Kashmiri Pandit, Srinagar

WE HAVE lived through the 1990s but today we are crying. Our Hindu brothers who migrated taunt us. They tell us that we have converted, that we have started eating beef. For the first one year after the migration, we did not exchange greetings with our Kashmiri Muslim neighbours but then slowly the ties were restored. Now, the tension is back. We cower when we hear the azadi slogans. This is my janma bhoomi. I don’t want to leave but I am being forced to think about it. I feel sad when I see the national flag being burnt. Mehbooba Mufti’s party is to blame. Why are we not entitled to forest land? Why can’t the yatris be entitled to better facilities? Is this not our country? This crisis can be solved in five months if politicians take their eye off the vote banks. You think Kashmiris want to go to Pakistan. Never. Not one will cross over. Let them go and they will realise the value of Kashmir. Before Jammu and Kashmir gets totally divided, appoint Pandits from the Valley as members of the Shrine Board. That way our Kashmiri brothers will not feel insecure and think that the land is being taken away from them.

the secularist

I blame the previous governor, Lt Gen Sinha YUSUF TARIGAMI, J&K’s sole CPM MLA

ONLY THREE months ago, political activity was at its peak. Each seat had upto four contenders for the October elections. Now there is a question mark on the elections. The issue of alienation has not been addressed. Kashmiris resent ‘Indian’ domination through the security grid and in Jammu the feeling is that it is only the Valley leadership that dominates. I blame the previous governor, Lt Gen Sinha. When he took charge in 2003, he started visiting district headquarters. No governor has any business doing that. I met Prime Minister Vajpayee and complained and also wrote a letter to the deputy prime minister, LK Advani. Why should we have a Muslim chief minister in charge of the Muslim Auqaf Board and a Hindu governor as chairman of the Amarnath Yatra Shrine Board. Sinha has done the greatest disservice by pressing for the transfer of land. The state is now not just regionally divided but communally divided. I was not frightened in 1990 but the situation has changed for the worse. There is only one permanent solution — maximum autonomy for the state. Make regional councils with constitutional guarantees.

the victims

I USED TO have a beautiful house in the Valley and my wife’s family had apple orchards. Those are just memories now and we pay

The only way forward is through dialogue. Kashmir is our watan SHIDAN LAL AND SUNITA KAUL, Kashmiri Pandit migrants, Jammu

Rs 50 a kilo to buy fruit for our sons. How can we forget Kashmir? It is our watan, our janam bhoomi. I am posted in the postal department in Srinagar and have joined my wife and two sons in Jammu because of the agitation in the Valley. I am scared of even stepping out of the General Post Office where we live under Central Reserve Police Force security. In the 1990s, posters had come up in mohallas asking the Pandits to leave. This time, I’m not sure we can leave alive because it has become so communal.

My wife often thinks of home and says, Kashmir toh jannat ka nazara tha (Kashmir was like viewing Paradise). Imagine the tragedy— my children have only been there once as tourists. Now, the agitation has spread through Jammu and everyone says, why can’t the government give us Bhole Nath’s land?

I want peace and security. We are all brothers. The only way forward is through dialogue. I believe they should give us the land and if the two sides sit together, they (the Kashmiris) too will understand that we are not going to construct an Amarnath Nagar there. We just want to offer prayers. Give us the land and we will pray for peace — for both Jammu and Kashmir.

the pilgrim

It’s not about land. It’s about discrimination PRINCE KHAJURIA, Amarnath Yatri

I HAVE BEEN undertaking the yatra to the Amarnath cave for the last three years. My friends and I offer our prayers to Bhole Nath and then go to Gulmarg on holiday. But unlike before, I did not feel safe this time. But that was only after we reached Srinagar where large crowds were protesting. On the yatra route, however, we had no problem at all. The Kashmiri Muslims took care of us. They carry yatris on their backs and rush them to medical camps set up en route. All rescue operations are done by the locals. Even in Srinagar, our taxi driver taught us two Kashmiri sentences — warre chhu (how are you?), so we don’t come across as Hindus to the protestors. When we stayed in a houseboat on the Dal Lake, we were charged Rs 2,000 but others were charged Rs 5,000. When we asked the owner, why, he said, they are Hindus. I have Muslim friends in Jammu but unlike in the Valley, they don’t see us just as Hindus. If it’s only about land, I’ll say, you keep 400 of the 800 kanals and we’ll keep 400, but it’s about discrimination against Jammu. Even Jammu politicians give preference to Kashmir. Jammu has more voters but we have only 37 seats. Kashmir has 46. Kashmir sends three MPs to Parliament; we send two. The last Cabinet had 14 ministers from Kashmir and only five from Jammu. Correct all this if you want the agitation to stop.

the moderate

The Centre will be forced to grant maximum autonomy FAROOQ ABDULLAH, National Conference leader

TODAY, A new generation is out on the streets. Their seniors have realised that the gun failed their agitation but this generation does not fear death. The divide between Jammu and Kashmir is growing dangerously and will have disastrous consequences for the subcontinent. What was the necessity of playing with the Shrine Board? Now, the Amarnath issue has receded. But Jammu is talking of neglect. The economic blockade led to a feeling amongst the Kashmiris that their lifeline was being choked, triggering the Muzaffarbad Chalo agitation. If there was an easy road to Tibet, they would have marched towards that. I begged Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley to not have an all-India agitation saying it will internationalise the Kashmir issue again. I told them it could lead to a Gujarat-like situation. I fear Muslims in the rest of India will be affected. In the last 10 days of the yatra, only those who could afford air travel came to Srinagar. Even in the 1990s, the highway was never blocked. Let the Sangharsh Samiti hold talks with the Action Committee. The only permanent solution is maximum autonomy and the Centre will be forced to grant it.

the agitator

It’s a matter of faith. Restore the land to the Shrine Board BRIG (RETD) SUCHET SINGH, Member, Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti

IT IS a matter of faith. We got together and passed a resolution that all leaders from Jammu will be boycotted if they support Ghulam Nabi Azad in the trust vote. Now, we have Congress and National Conference leaders from Jammu supporting us. The agitation is not Jammu versus Kashmir. We have nothing against the common Kashmiri. We will not talk to the Kashmiri leaders because criminals cannot become judges. Former Governor Sinha kept asking for the land to be transferred to the Shrine Board but of course, everyone is only worried about Kashmir. And now Kashmiris say they extend facilities to yatris. Don’t make it sound like charity. The yatris pay for their tents and ponies. It is a mass movement and has reached every mohalla. Even if we want to stop it now, we can’t. There is only one solution — restore the land to the Shrine Board and change Governor NN Vohra. The governor asked the President of the Chamber of Commerce about economic losses during the hartal and he said, Rs 183 crore. Then stop the agitation, he suggested and the reply was, we want our honour back even if we lose Rs 183, 000 crore.