Deepak Mehrotra 544 days ago

The deteriorating security situation in the Kashmir Valley cannot be delinked from the abdication of political responsibility by the government in Delhi. The security forces have repeatedly restored peace and stability enabling political processes to be activated and more enduring solutions to be found. But each time, relative peace has only bred complacency within the political leadership creating the setting for renewed bout of violence and local disaffection. What is happening in Kashmir is only the more acute manifestation of a national malaise whose symptoms are rising communal, parochial and sectarian confrontations which often erupt into brutal violence. To treat each such manifestation as a law and order challenge is to enmesh the state in action-reaction process where violence born out of disaffection and state suppression follow in mutually escalating and disruptive steps. Kashmir cannot be isolated from the rest of India and its alienated population brought to heel through imposition of ever stricter security measures. We must also acknowledge that external forces will continue exploit the disturbed situation in Kashmir to undermine India’s security. What we need is a strategy which takes into account both domestic and external dimensions of the Kashmir issue. Alas, it took four long years for Modiji to make this voyage of discovery on Kashmir front. It has been a chronicle of wasted time where Modiji chased the chimera of a defining muscularity that eventually proved barren and turned out to be dangerously counterproductive. The giveaway moment was when Modiji , speaking from the rampant of Red Fort on 15th August 2018, promised to return to Atalji’s formula of Insaniyat , Kashmiriyat and Jamhooriyat. In 2014, this would have been a hopeful promise. However, in 2018 , it is a reminder of the deep betrayal and incompetence in handling Kashmir.