Kashmir On Fire

from AEI:

Kashmir on Fire


By Apoorva Shah

Wednesday, August 25, 2010



Filed under: World Watch



Popular explanations for violent protests in Jammu and Kashmir hold some truth, but the reality is much more complex.



This summer, in some of the worst violence in years, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has seen 62 people killed and scores more injured as stone-pelting protestors and belligerent security forces remain locked in a two-month-long standoff. The conflict has been exacerbated by a vicious cycle of raucous protests leading to deaths, and deaths leading to more protests.



The conflagration has hobbled the state’s charismatic Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his National Conference-led state government and has distracted the central government in New Delhi, where the much-awaited Commonwealth Games are less than two months away. While such protests have occurred in Jammu and Kashmir for the last three summers, this year’s are by far the most tumultuous—so much so that they have been coined Kashmir’s “intifada,” after the Palestinian uprising of the same name.



One oft-repeated line is that this “intifada” is a reaction to India’s looming military presence in the state. Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times parsimoniously explains it this way: “For decades India maintained hundreds of thousands of security forces in Kashmir to fight an insurgency sponsored by Pakistan. The insurgency has been largely vanquished. But those Indian forces are still here.” And thus, “an intifada-like popular revolt” has emerged against the Indian military.



The Indian military presence in Jammu and Kashmir is not a result of some conspiratorial desire from the center to wield police power over the state.Another popular explanation is that these protests are a reaction to the lack of economic opportunity and high unemployment in the state—that they are a “cry for help” from young Kashmiris impoverished after decades of violence and bloodshed in this disputed region.



While there is some truth to both explanations, the reality is much more complex.



First, the Indian military presence in Jammu and Kashmir is not a result of some conspiratorial desire from the central government to wield police power over the state, and New Delhi does not necessarily want to keep as many troops stationed in the state. In fact, in 2007, India and Pakistan almost reached a deal to completely demilitarize the Indian- and Pakistani-occupied areas of Kashmir as part of a broader deal to grant “loose sovereignty” to the region. The deal was derailed not only by the ensuing political unrest in Pakistan but also by what a former Indian ambassador to Pakistan calls a “pathological” anti-India attitude among elites in the Pakistani army and intelligence services—in particular General Ashfaq Kayani, who was director of the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) during that time and is now the country’s chief of army staff.



The protests have much more to do ‘the poverty of politics' in Kashmir than the mere lack of economic opportunity in the state.While India has shown its willingness to withdraw troops from Kashmir and make a much-needed strategic shift to the eastern border with China, it cannot do so unilaterally without a settled agreement with Pakistan, which also has troops on its side of the Line of Control. No rational thinker in Delhi would ever consider such a one-sided move, especially considering reports of continued ISI and military support of terrorist groups such as Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami in the region.



Second, the protests have much more to do with what Professor Happymon Jacob of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi has coined “the poverty of politics” in Kashmir than the mere lack of economic opportunity in the state. In 2008, Kashmiris, with a remarkable turnout of 61 percent, decisively voted for the pro-India National Conference-led government of Omar Abdullah. It was a time of ebullient hope that the new government could act on some of the most pressing political issues in the state, from human rights violations to land disputes to calls for more autonomy within the Indian political system.



Nevertheless, Abdullah and the state government failed to deliver on many of these promises, instead blaming Pakistan, the LeT, and the state’s opposition party for its troubles. Following Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s speech to Kashmiri leaders earlier this month, in which he called for granting more autonomy to the region, the opposition People’s Democratic Party President Mehmooba Mufti reminded Singh and the ruling National Conference party that autonomy cannot solve the Kashmir issue and that the real problem is that the present government has “failed to provide good governance” to the state. As they say, all politics is local.



It’s a vicious cycle of raucous protests leading to deaths, and deaths leading to more protests.But unlike what some Pakistanis may like to think, anti-India or anti-establishment attitudes are different from pro-Pakistan attitudes. In a Chatham House poll conducted earlier this year, only 2 percent of residents in Jammu and Kashmir said they would vote to join Pakistan if offered the opportunity.



The barrage of rocks, tear gas, and bullets that have flown through the streets of Kashmir this summer is a consequence of political disillusionment among residents whose land has become a playground for others’ conflicts. In fact, Kashmiris are indifferent to the traditional choices provided to them, and as Chatham House notes, “it is difficult to see how the plebiscite proposed in the UN resolutions of 1948-1949 could play any part today in the resolution of the dispute.”



The human toll of this summer’s violence in Kashmir should raise the urgency for a comprehensive solution to this six-decade-long problem. But as political solutions within Kashmir become more difficult to reach and détente between India and Pakistan seems daunting in the face of a hidebound Pakistani military and intelligence elite, it’s hard to see any other scenario in the near future other than a Kashmir that continues to burn.



Apoorva Shah is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.



FURTHER READING: Shah earlier wrote of a near-deal between India and Pakistan in “A Signature Away,” and of “The Mullah, the Caudillo, and the Terrorist” concerning subversive Iranian activity in Latin America. He also regularly contributes to the Enterprise Blog and published an AEI Outlook exploring “The ‘Idea of India’ after Mumbai.” Ahmad Majidyar discusses “Could the Taliban Take Over Pakistan's Punjab Province?” and Dan Blumenthal offers suggestions on “Stabilizing South Asia.”