Kashmir: A year after Burhan Wani

The other day, when 13-year-old Yasin Manzoor’s mother fell ill, he rushed to the slain Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani’s grave in Tral’s “Martyr’s Graveyard”, picked up a fistful of soil, ran back and applied it on her face. The mother soon felt better.

“Whenever there is an illness or a problem in the family, I bring some soil from Burhan Bhai’s grave. It invariably helps,” says Manzoor, underlining the saintly status to which people in south Kashmir have elevated Burhan, whose killing on July 8 last year tipped Kashmir into a six-month-long unrest in which around 100 people were killed and several hundred blinded. “He is a shaheed (martyr) and shaheed’s grave has healing powers,” asserts Manzoor.

This unwitting interface of the Valley’s Sufi tradition and militancy is so seamless that no one appears to notice the contradiction. At the same time, it adds nuance to the understanding of the Valley’s renewed recourse to jihad, otherwise deemed to be aided by the rise of conservative Islam.

Burhan’s grave lies among those of 45 other militants, 12 of them foreigners. The rectangular piece of land on which these are laid out in two rows has been staked out from the rest of the burial ground. A green headboard erected on the grave has Burhan’s name, parentage and date of death.

The sprawling Eidgah adjoining the graveyard was crammed with mourners on the day Burhan was killed, as was the road alongside it and the nearby lanes and bylanes. Young men climbed the branches of surrounding trees to catch a glimpse of the coffin as it was lowered into the grave.

“Nimaz-i-jinaza was offered more than a dozen times to accommodate people from surrounding and far-off villages,” says Zahid Rasool, 22, who was present at the ground that day. “More jinazas in absentia were offered all across the Valley and also Pakistan.”

The Eidgah is now hauntingly empty and silent. But people turn up frequently to offer fateh at Burhan’s grave and visit his home nearby. On Burhan’s first death anniversary, thousands of people are expected to converge at the Eidgah to offer prayers and hold a public rally. That is, if the government doesn’t impose security restrictions to prevent a large assembly of people.

The people at the bustling market nearby are hesitant to let on anything of the plan. But they know the coming days will be tense. “Burhan is our hero. He revived a moribund azadi struggle,” says Rafiq Ahmad (name changed), a shopkeeper. “And we owe it to him — to pay homage and express allegiance to the Kashmir cause on his day.”

A day like any other

Sitting at his home, Muzaffar Ahmad Bhat, Burhan’s father, has little to say about the anniversary events. He isn’t willing to be drawn into the politics of his son’s “martyrdom” nor does he want to talk about the cause for which he “sacrificed” his life. He points out the “distortion” and the consequent contentious fallout his earlier statements caused. Bhat reiterates the boilerplate opinion about the long-standing conflict over Kashmir and the urgent need to resolve it.

Did he disagree with his son’s choice when he was alive? He didn’t, as the son was adamant. “When he went missing and I learnt he has picked up arms, I didn’t file an FIR for a week as I expected him to return. I thought, maybe he will tire of a tough life,” says Bhat. “And when he didn’t, I went along with his decision, steeling myself for the time his body would come home.”

However, before Burhan was killed, Bhat lost his eldest son, Khalid, who was killed by the forces when he was returning after a meeting with his militant brother in a forest. “I was not ready for Khalid’s killing. He was not a militant,” says Bhat. “Thinking about that pains me a lot.”

Bhat says Burhan didn’t call him when he was eventually tracked down by the security forces at Bamdoora, in neighbouring Anantnag district. “No, he didn’t call me before his death,” says Bhat. “I realised he had been killed when villagers started gathering in my compound.” The first anniversary of the death, Bhat says, will be like any other day for him. “People are welcome to visit my home and I will serve them water,” he says.

But ‘quietly’ is not how separatist and militant groups in Kashmir are gearing up to observe the day. They want it to be a week-long affair and have chalked out an elaborate schedule of hartals, marches and protests

Anniversary itinerary

Importantly, it was not the Hurriyat which issued the protest roster this time, but Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)-based Hizbul Mujahideen supremo Syed Salahuddin, who was recently declared a global terrorist by the US. He did so with a 4.39-minute video meant for social media, albeit leaving scope for the Hurriyat to make “any amends modifications” it deemed fit. The programme — Hafta-e-Shuhada (martyrs’ week) — includes two hartals, one on Burhan’s death anniversary and the second on July 13, long observed as “Martyrs’ Day” in memory of the civilian killings during a protest in 1931.

“Hafta-e-Shuhada would be observed beginning July 7 on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC),” Salahuddin, accompanied by an associate, declared in his video message. “Resistance leadership and clerics should start the programme on July 7 and explain the significance of martyrdom to people during Friday sermons,” he added.

Conferences will be organised across PoK as well as in Pakistan. “Massive public rallies will be held in Muzaffarabad and Rawalakot on July 8 and 13 to pay homage to Burhan Wani,” he stated.

However, the Valley perceived Salahuddin’s issuance of the itinerary as a rebuff to the separatist political leadership, pre-empting their prerogative to issue calls for protests. Hence, Salahuddin later clarified that the programme schedule issued by him will be observed only in the base camp (Muzaffarabad), and that the Hurriyat was free to issue a parallel protest roster in the Valley. And which the Hurriyat did — albeit making no changes in Salahuddin’s schedule.

Burhan and Kashmir militancy

When Burhan took up the gun towards the end of the 2010 unrest, militancy in the Valley had been reduced to a few scores of militants. South Kashmir had no more than a dozen and Burhan’s neighbourhood had just three — one of them was Aamir Bhat, his father’s cousin. But in his six years as a militant, Burhan ushered Kashmir militancy from near-extinction into a new phase. When he was killed, south Kashmir had more than a 100 militants, and a majority of them were local youth.

His distinctive exploits as a militant — according to J&K Police, “he hadn’t fired a single shot” — didn’t bring about this change. But his use of social media did. Soon after his elevation as the Hizb commander in 2012, Burhan opted out of anonymity and posted videos and pictures, both of himself and his colleagues, on Facebook.

This was a game-changing move. By doing so, he made militancy, an otherwise underground phenomenon, visible to people and lent drama to a militant’s obscure life. He turned himself into an engaging story, a living myth, and told it himself. The image of a Kalashnikov-wielding callow young man emerging from the lush picturesque hills held a powerful appeal for a millennial Kashmiri generation that hadn’t experienced the horrors of the ’90s. It evacuated militancy of its inherent perils and invested it with moral glamour. It also created an illusion of empowerment for a population which felt emasculated by the local politics and harboured fears of the Centre interfering with the State’s special constitutional position in the Indian Union.

Burhan was soon joined by scores of new recruits. In 2015, for the first time in a decade, local militants outnumbered foreigners. Of the 142 active militants in the Valley, 88 were locals and the rest from Pakistan or PoK — though still a far cry from the early ’90s when thousands of local and foreign militants roamed the Valley. This foreign-local equation still holds, even though the numbers have since doubled. According to the latest police estimates, there are around 300 active militants in the Valley. Since Burhan’s death, 104 more local youth have picked up arms in south Kashmir and a few dozens in central and north Kashmir. They join the ranks after some desultory training in the hills. Though many of them have been killed in encounters with the security forces, new recruits continue to replenish the ranks.

In this sense, Burhan has proved more of an inspiration in death than he ever was in life. In death, he has transcended his identity as a militant, and become eternally credible and infallible, a reputation that every living leader in Kashmir, militant or political, or for that matter every ordinary person, struggles to retain in an environment rife with anger, grief and suspicion. This makes Burhan a formidable symbol. In mundane terms, he is a role model for the youth who consider the gun the only option.

A year after his death, streets in the Valley are rallying to the call to arms. Protests, for the first time, comprised college students including girls, forcing the government to frequently close down schools to maintain peace. Besides, a troubling absence of fear of the local police and the Army has begun to characterise protests led by the youth. Curfews are being wilfully violated and encounter sites are attacked with little more than a stone in hand. In some cases, young protesters block armoured vehicles and dare the personnel to open fire. Slogans extol the armed struggle, while peaceful resistance is deemed to achieve nothing in the face of New Delhi’s continued intransigence.

These developments though are evoking deep concern among those who point out the futility of a renewed jihad, considering how soon it gets subsumed under the rubric of terrorism. A significant section of younger Kashmiris though seem to think otherwise.

“The only reason that is stopping more youth from joining militancy is the lack of weapons,” says a police officer dealing with counter-insurgency. He cites the growing instances of militants snatching the weapons of security personnel. “The fencing along the LoC has dried up weapons supplies from across the border. But if more weapons are available, the number of militants could rise steeply,” he adds. This was proven during the recent killing of three militants — Majid Mir, Shakir Ahmad, Irshad Ahmad — at Kakapora in Pulwama, and only one of them was found to have a Kalashnikov.

A split in the ranks

In the past year, the nature of militancy in Kashmir has changed in more marked ways than it has before, since its advent in the early ’90s. Or so it appears. For this change is still in the process of playing itself out. Apparently, a bitter tussle is underway in the militant ranks over the ideological mission of Kashmir militancy. While one section, led by a still unknown cadre, considers the creation of an Islamic State and the implementation of Sharia the purpose of the armed struggle, the other considers Kashmir an inherently political problem.

The fraught contestation unfolded when Zakir Musa, who succeeded Burhan as the Hizbul Mujahideen chief in the Valley, released an audio clip in which he threatened to chop off the heads of Hurriyat leaders should they continue to insist that the struggle in Kashmir was political. After the PoK-based Hizb leadership termed his statement “unacceptable”, Musa quit the outfit to strike out on his own.

Announcing his exit in an audio clip, which included sayings of al-Qaeda leaders such as Imam Anwar Awlaki, Musa said though he had nothing to do with the ISIS or the al Qaeda, he did not oppose them either. He also stuck to his opinion that the objective of the Kashmir movement was to turn the State into a Caliphate. He vowed to fight the advocates of a secular State now, rather than after ‘azadi’. He pledged no allegiance to Pakistan, and spoke against hoisting Pakistani flags and adorning it on the coffins of militants. Instead he wanted flags emblazoned with Kalima to be waved and draped on slain militants.

Ever since he made these observations, Musa’s profile has risen and more banners are going up for him in parts of Kashmir. Eid-ul-Fitr witnessed banners with Musa’s image competing with those of Salahuddin, while Burhan figured in both. Significantly, none of the banners displayed images of any Hurriyat leaders. New slogans hail him, and those such as “Zakir Musa ka kya paigam, Kashmir banega darul Islam (What is the message of Zakir Musa? Kashmir will become the abode of Islam)” reverberate across Kashmir on Lailatul Qadar, Eid and even during a big cricket match, such as the Champions Trophy final.

“When Pakistan won the Champions Trophy, hundreds of youth hit the streets in Tral shouting pro-Musa slogans,” says a young man at the market in Tral who did not want to identify himself. “It was ironical. They were happy about Pakistan winning, but were shouting slogans in favour of Musa, who is trying to chart a militant course independent of Pakistan,” he points out.

The dominant discourse in Kashmir, however, remains sceptical about the azadi movement gaining a religious colour, and is inclined to look at it as an invisible design to tarnish its global image. In the everyday discourse, being Islamist or political is only incidental to the Kashmiri struggle. The ideologisation is considered extraneous to its spirit, and hence deemed “politically motivated”.

“The aspirations on the ground are very basic and legitimate, a resolution of the lingering political conflict over the State,” says commentator and political analyst Gowhar Geelani. “People tend to look at the conflict in terms of its huge humanitarian fallout and want an end to the killings and suffering. In such a situation, a discourse about the ideological orientation of the movement is like poetry for them, an abstraction and also a manipulation.”

Where do we go from here? It appears nowhere. The situation, it seems, is likely to continue as it has so far. Though militancy, for all its ferocity, remains manageable, the swelling public support for it has disproportionately magnified its impact. According to South Asia Terrorism Portal, 90 militants have been killed in encounters with security forces so far this year. The number includes those killed in encounters on the borders. The intensity of the killings has increased in the recent past, with 47 militants losing their lives in May and June alone. But alongside them, 20 civilians have also died in protests near encounter sites.

“If public support wanes and there is no replenishment for the slain militants, we could tame the current runaway situation in the State sooner than later,” says a police officer. “But such expectations have often been betrayed in the past. The trouble in Kashmir has not only managed to survive but also grow stronger. Ebbs have led to flows. Let us hope we are lucky this time round.”

Riyaz Waniis a journalist based in Srinagar

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