Kashmir is in a state of churn. Will 2020 mark a new dawn?
That India and Pakistan escaped
coming to blows twice over during the year tells us much of the trend into the
coming year. In the first instance, in the Balakot-Rajauri they did exchange
aerial punches. In the second, to its credit, Pakistan refrained from hasty
action in response to India’s early August constitutional initiatives on
Kashmir.
That Kashmir continues in a
partial state of lock down into its fourth month indicates it is not out of the
woods as yet. Extension of detention of Farooq
Abdullah by another three months betrays the government’s thinking that it
needs working through winter to avoid the seeming stability unwinding in case
of any premature letting up on its part.
Since by then spring would be at
hand and the year’s cyclical campaign set to begin that would also unlikely be
the time the government would seek to ease up. It has elections
to prepare for through summer, the dates of which are not out yet since their
proximity will likely get the Kashmiri gander up.
This would be cue for Pakistan to
get its act together. It appeared outpointed by India’s deft footwork over the
Kashmir initiative. It was not able to upset India’s apple cart not only
because of careful Indian security preparedness but also since its economy was on the rocks and it was
not
able to secure its western flank timely through brokering a deal between
the Americans and the Taliban for a dignified American withdrawal.
It almost seemed as if the
Pakistani army was doing a repeat of its 1971 act. Then, it had promised to
save East Pakistan by attacking in the west. In the event, Yahya Khan developed
cold feet. This time round when its ‘jugular’ – Kashmir - was yanked out of reach,
it left the rhetoric to civilians, in particular its selected
prime minister, Imran Khan, while presumably holding its powder dry for a
better day.
That day appears nigh. Pakistan’s
economy was elevated in Moody’s
ratings on from a negative status to a stable one, even as India’s went in
the reverse direction. It received its thirteenth
financial bailout from the International Monetary Fund. Geopolitically, the
Americans are back to resume
talking to the Taliban, even as Trump hits election year stride to deliver on
his promise of draw down from America’s longest-ever war.
For its part, absent civilian
deaths in Kashmir as ready evidence of repression, India got away relatively
unscathed internationally. International opprobrium has expectedly been muted.
Though India has been prickly towards their criticism, it has not been able to
readily brush off the observations of the international
media and watch dog human
rights bodies.
However, India’s continuing down
a right wing ideology-driven path, most recently by enacting the dubious
Citizenship Amendment Act, it is losing
its political capital. This is to be followed by a nation-wide citizen’s
register, which can only lead to further dwindling
of its secular-democratic image, opening up Kashmir, that it considers an ‘internal
matter’, to nettlesome external interest.
Its security measures in Kashmir
while yielding short term dividend of buying India time have diminishing
marginal utility. A central police force analysis
reportedly has it that the tight grip down to mohalla level in Kashmir is unsustainable, particularly as it
continues to be ad-hoc, with troopers roughing it out through the harsh winter.
The paramilitary is already being pulled
out for firefighting elsewhere, for now in the north east.
Its army has suffered 20 casualties
from snow related accidents, purporting to extant alert levels whereby it is
unable to withdraw troops from inner anti-infiltration tiers timely off
ridgelines in depth areas where it does not maintain posts as along the Line of
Control (LC). Along the LC itself, even if it is drawing more blood than the Pakistani
military and mujahids, it has little
to show as different from the time two decades back when similar ordnance
exchanges and stand-off action as sniper fire were routine.
Thus, while Pakistan appears
poised for a proactive turn, India appears jaded. Its newly appointed
lieutenant governor – a bureaucrat - is busy with non-essential
activity, such as house listing, at a time when major political and
developmental initiatives should have been unleashed as part of a political
strategy to defuse the pent up anger in Kashmir over its demotion.
The political decapitation of
Kashmiris in the incarceration of every shade of their leadership from
mainstream through separatist to local stone thrower ring leader has not
resulted in lack of innovation on their part. There is utter stupefaction in
the government on how to tackle the campaign of non-cooperation
underway by common folk, resulting in a perception ambush in which it appears
the lock down continues even in face of the administration’s denials.
Even if the government manages to
get a new
leadership supposedly under manufacture currently under a Bhartiya Janata
Party government headed by a Jammuite Hindu in place, continued restiveness
coupled with renewed Pakistani interference may yet set up the region for the
proverbial perfect storm over the coming year.
