A stronghold of the PDP and the Jamaat-e-Islami, it is also home to
remote stretches of mountain where the army has never ventured.
6 hours ago
Updated an hour ago
Ipsita Chakravarty and Rayan Naqash
Over the last two years, Kashmir watchers have trained their gaze on
four southern districts of the Valley – Pulwama, Anantnag, Shopian,
Kulgam. Since 2014, there has been a rise in the number of local youth
taking up arms. Encounters between militants and armed forces are
frequent and the local population does not shy away from expressing
support for the rebels. In the local as well as the national media, a
consensus has emerged: a new wave of local militancy is gathering
strength in South Kashmir.
It is certainly a visible militancy – the cohort that gathered around
Burhan Wani, the 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander killed in an
encounter on Friday, was skilled in using social media to mobilise
support. But the theory has to be treated with caution. “Calling South
Kashmir the new hotbed of militancy is a misnomer,” said an officer in
the Criminal Investigation Department, speaking on condition of
anonymity. “It was created first by us [the police] and then the
media. In 2009-2010, the theatre of militancy was in the north, but
one did not discuss it then. There were no selfies, no social media.”
A few caveats
To begin with, the phenomenon is not, as yet, a wave. According to the
CID, there were 89 local militants active in the Valley this year, 60
from South Kashmir. Compare this to the thousands who joined in the
early 1990s, at the height of the militancy. According to government
figures, 550 alleged militants were killed in 1990. The casualties
kept increasing every year for the next decade. In 2001, when the
armed movement was winding down, 2,020 were killed.
Second, it is no longer restricted to the south. “Till December 2015,
that might have been true,” said the CID officer, “but now in 2016 it
is not.” Militancy is spreading in the northern regions of the Valley
as well. However, Central Kashmir, places like Srinagar, Budgam and
Ganderbal, remains a buffer zone between the north and the south, said
another senior police officer. Militancy is not picking up in these
areas.
Third, local militants are a diminishing majority. According police
estimates, there are 70 foreign militants active in the Valley at
present – 20 to 25 in South Kashmir, 10 in Baramullah and Sopore, 10
to 15 in Bandipora and the rest in the frontier district of Kupwara,
mostly in the jungles. Recent reports spoke of a 65% rise in
infiltration this year, and the police claim that Pakistan plans to
push 300 militants into the Valley. About 120 have made it so far and
50 have been killed. Even these figures may be a modest estimate.
“Foreigners are not in our radar,” said the CID officer. “We don’t
know them. We are in a much better position to quantify local
militants.
The game changer?
With Wani's death, of course, the picture could change. Over the last
few days, the Valley has erupted in protest, vast crowds gathered at
his funeral in Tral and at least 21 people have been killed in firing
by security forces. As former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar
Abdullah commented recently, "Burhan’s ability to recruit in to
militancy from the grave will far outstrip anything he could have done
on social media." People also recall how the death of Ashfaq Majeed
Wani, a militant with the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, led to
local youth joining militancy in large numbers after 1990.
Moreover, police sources claimed that even foreign militants crossing
over in the north tend to head south. “Militants lack the kind of
support they have in the south, barring Sopore and Palhallan,” said
the senior police officer.
What makes the south fertile ground for militancy? Police and other
experts claim there are no specific regional factors. The protests of
2008, 2010, and the crackdown which followed, left an angry Valley in
general. Human rights violations by security forces, a major cause of
disaffection, were spread across all regions. The rallying cry of
“azadi” is heard in all districts. Yet the south is defined by certain
historical and political factors that the north is not.
A militant's funeral in Kakapora in August 2015. Credit: Danish Ismail/Reuters
A militant's funeral in Kakapora in August 2015. Credit: Danish Ismail/Reuters
A stronghold of the PDP
“The towns of South Kashmir have always seen a lot of mainstream
political mobilisation,” said Gul Wani, who teaches political science
at Kashmir University. “In Tral and Pulwama, the People’s Democratic
Party, wearing the cap of soft separatism, was able to draw in
followers of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Hizbul Mujahideen. It did so in
the last state elections as well.”
The region has been a PDP stronghold for close to two decades.
Anantnag, in particular, has become something of a family seat for the
Mufti family. Most recently, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti won the
by-polls for the Anantnag assembly constituency by a large margin. But
there is palpable anger over the PDP’s tie up with the Bharatiya
Janata Party, which has fed into a disillusionment with mainstream
politics in general.
“No one thought the PDP would become a supplement to the BJP,” said
Gul Wani. “The PDP-BJP alliance is a radicaliser. It is not religious
but political radicalisation.” As a section of the youth loses faith
in political systems and the hope of finding representation in
mainstream politics, Wani felt, they may be tempted to take up the
gun.
And of the Jama'at-e-Islami
Another theory, asserted with varying degrees of certainty by security
officials, experts and local journalists, is that militancy has grown
and thrived in pockets where the religio-political Jama'at-e-Islami
organisation is strong.
In South Kashmir, the organisation has traditionally had broad swathes
of influence. Tral and Kulgam, in particular, have been Jamaat
bastions. The party is said to draw its supporters from the richer,
more influential sections of society here. According to the CID
officer, a large number of the youth who joined militancy belonged to
Jama'ati families.
The Jama'at started life in Lahore in 1941, as “the party that stands
for complete Islam”, and the Jammu and Kashmir branch was formally
established in 1953. The party website recounts how it faced
opposition for “raising the voice of revolutionary change in the
social and political set up of the state in accordance with the
principles and teachings of Islam”.
In the early decades, the Jama'at established schools and even fought
elections to the state assembly, where it brought up the question of
self-determination, until it was banned by Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi in 1975. With the rise of militancy in 1989, the Jama'at became
prominent again, coming out in open support of the Hizbul Mujahideen.
It was banned again in 1990 and, over the next decade, Jama'at leaders
were targeted by both security forces and rival factions of the
militancy. The organisation was decimated and one faction drew closer
to the mainstream, choosing to support the PDP in assembly elections.
But 2008 proved to be a major inflection point, says Ata Hasnain,
former general officer commanding of the Srinagar-based XV corps. It
marked a transition to street protests, where the Jama'at played a
leading role. And the PDP’s alliance with the BJP is also believed to
have disappointed many of its Jama'at supporters. “I don’t know if the
Jamaat is feeling alienated,” said Hasnain. “It’s time to start
engaging with them.” But the onus of engagement fell on the political
establishment, he added.
Credit: Sameer Mushtaq
Credit: Sameer Mushtaq
Military focus
In the past, military attention has been unevenly divided between the
north and the south. The army’s efforts have primarily been directed
at checking infiltration through the Line of Control in the north and
securing Srinagar, said Hasnain. “All robust army operations have been
in towns like Sopore, Handwara, Bandipore, Pattan,” he said.
The army also conducted operations in the south, “cleaning out” the
Lidder valley and adjoining areas, as he put it. But through the
1990s, Hasnain says, the one place they could not touch was the Tral
area of Pulwama district, home to Burhan Wani and stronghold of the
Jama'at. “Tral was always alienated, always a nerve centre [of
militancy],” said Hasnain. "Maybe I should have tried more soft
measures with Tral."
Even after the first wave of militancy was wiped out by the army in
2001, said the CID officer, there were militants in Tral. The area,
veined with cool streams and covered with apple orchards, is bordered
by the Dachigam forests and gives way to mountains that are contiguous
to the Sindh and the Indus Valleys. These remote reaches are believed
to harbour militants. But for some reason, the army never went in
there, said Hasnain.
Today, the main town of Tral is garrisoned with security forces.
Outsiders going in are stopped and questioned at a checkpost. But the
town remains an angry, impregnable fortress within a fortress, girded
with barbed wire and watched at all times, yet refusing to give up its
secrets.
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