Return of the stoning season in Kashmir

The year 2016 was a tumultuous one in the Kashmir Valley. The gunning down of Burhan Wani, a terrorist who built his image by imaginative use of the social media, was accompanied by an unprecedented, but well-crafted agitation using stone-pelting youths to confront security forces.

The winter snows restricted such enthusiastic and carefully financed and planned stone-pelting. The planners, sitting in comfortable surroundings in PoK and Pakistan did, however, achieve their objective of getting wide media publicity, even if it involved disrupting and sacrificing the lives of young Kashmiris. Not surprisingly, the Hurriyat Conference, receiving instructions from ISI handlers, did its bit to inflame public sentiment.

With the Himalayan snows set to melt in the coming weeks, India will have to prepare for yet another summer of disruption and stone-throwing. The ISI will ensure that Kashmiri youngsters who crossed the LoC are joined by new jihadis from the Lashkar-e-taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed to serve as cannon fodder for their ambitions. Enough funds will be provided to get unemployed youth to resort to stone-pelting and getting killed or injured by return fire from security forces. The social media will be used for incendiary messaging to stoke passions.

Meanwhile, a propaganda blitz will be launched by Pakistan calling on the world to intervene and compel India to resume the sterile “composite dialogue process”.

Why does Pakistan place so much emphasis on this so-called “composite dialogue process”? This process, initiated in 1997, was the outcome of one of the worst blunders in Indian diplomacy, matched only by our diplomatic ineptitude during the Sharm-el-Sheikh fiasco. Primary importance is given to what Pakistan wishes to discuss, including Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek, and hydro-electric/river water projects in Jammu and Kashmir, which Pakistan likes to block.

Terrorism features only towards the very bottom of this list. It is rendered even more marginal by coupling it with drug smuggling. This is a format that suited Pakistan fine, as it could unleash terrorism across India and then insist that terrorism could be discussed peripherally, alongside issues such as cultural ties and visas.

The strike by our Special Forces on terrorist areas across the LoC on September 29 had more than mere symbolic importance. It signalled a readiness to strike across the established borders at a time and manner of its choosing. The likes of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim should not ever be allowed to feel secure. To achieve this, the composite dialogue process should be discarded. We merely need to convey our readiness to discuss all issues when the time is appropriate.

To begin with, India should insist that in accordance with the agreement reached between prime ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif at the Ufa Summit, the DGMOs of India and Pakistan should meet to discuss specific measures to seal the borders and end infiltration and terrorism. There could even be meetings between the two army chiefs. While one cannot expect significant change in the strategic aims of the Pakistan army, its present army chief, General Bajwa, does not appear to be a afflicted by megalomania like his predecessor.

The entire dialogue should be exclusively security-oriented and involve meetings between the chiefs of the BSF and Pakistan Rangers. Meetings could be considered between the chiefs of R&AW and ISI. Meetings at the political level should commence only if our concerns on terrorism are seen as being firmly addressed. India should continue to back moves by Bangladesh and Afghanistan to keep Saarc in cold storage while promoting links with our eastern neighbours through forums such as BBIN and Bimstec.

Pakistan does not appear able to deliver meaningfully on terrorism. Sharif is under siege domestically because of a Supreme Court enquiry into his properties and wealth abroad. Pakistan is being torn apart by sectarian Shia-Sunni and Wahhabi-Sufi rivalries and violence. The army is now deployed virtually across the country, fighting insurgencies in Baluchistan and the Pashtun tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Islamabad is being repaid in kind by the Afghans, across the disputed Durand Line, both in Baluchistan and the Pashtun tribal areas. Sectarian violence has reached Punjab and Sind. India needs to ensure that it extends unstinted moral, material and diplomatic support to Afghan efforts to deal with ISI-sponsored terrorism.

While the security and diplomatic efforts to deal with ISI sponsored terrorism continue, New Delhi will also have to consider measures internally, to signal that it means business in dealing with those encouraging, supporting and inciting Kashmiri youths. New Delhi has too long looked benignly on the Hurriyat Conference and its role in the violence.

There is evidence of money-laundering among many Hurriyat leaders. People like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who take the lead in inciting violence based on instructions from across the LoC, need to be charged, moved out of the Valley, and tried. Even Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is said to receive benign treatment, is given to inciting crowds regularly, especially after the prayers he leads. Those inciting and distributing money to stone pelting youngsters should be put behind bars.

The State government and its police force, including the Special Operations Group, should be activated to take the lead in restoring normalcy, with army backing. Terrorists have been emboldened to threaten the families of police officials. The Punjab police reacted very strongly when their families were similarly threatened. There is no reason why the J&K police cannot be similarly motivated.

Proactive measures are needed to curtail facilities for the use of social media in the Valley. The ruling coalition partners should set aside their differences, with the Mehbooba Mufti-led government taking the lead in ensuring that the education of children is not held hostage to the diktats of separatist leaders and their patrons across the LoC.

The writer is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan

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