Since July 8, when Kashmir broke into unprecedented protests after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, I persistently argued that Delhi should read the writing on the wall and accept the crisis as the outcome of the denial that it was not a political issue. When I took part in TV discussions I was often confronted by those who represented the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who said that Pakistan-sponsored agitation often lures young men for money. One just took this rhetoric as fire-fighting since Kashmir was burning and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was getting bad press internationally. But two statements made by senior ministers in the Modi government last week made it amply clear that it lacked a basic understanding on what was happening on the ground. This just reinforced the notion that New Delhi is still in denial that Kashmir is a political problem.
The statement made by Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar put even their coalition partner, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to shame and its members confided that they felt they were stuck in a bad marriage. The PDP is leading a tricky coalition in the state and has been trying to restore some order to the streets. It has wrestled with the joint Hurriyat leadership over holding exams for two crucial classes, the 10th and 12th. Schools have been shut for months and students were not able to complete their coursework. Nonetheless, thousands of them chose to sit their board exams to salvage an academic year. The exams were held (with some concessions on the syllabus) with a 95 percent attendance. Students chose to sit them in November over March in order to catch up on their timelines. If they did not do this, their ability to sit the common entrance examination for professional courses next year would have been compromised.
The minister had his own theory to explain this attendance on November 15: “I’m proud of those children and their parents who are the strength of India. Education is the way to progress. They have understood and given this befitting reply. We have seen the surgical strike of the army, but this reply given by students is also a powerful surgical strike.” One can only marvel at the absurdity of interpreting this response from the students as a political statement.
If a minister in the central government has reached this assessment on how people have braved the last four months, one is hardly surprised at the way the government has dealt with Kashmir. Did the minister really believe that the uprising, which is political in nature and in which 96 civilians were killed by the police and paramilitary forces, can be described as terrorism? Rather than talking about the students who were blinded by pellets, he is trying to use the students as cannon fodder to argue the state’s unyielding position.
One can disagree with the strategy adopted since July 8 by the joint Hurriyat leadership but it is important to note that they never asked students not to sit the exams. They did call for a deferment. Those who conducted the exams are also local Kashmiris and their grit and determination to see them through needs to be appreciated. But how can all of this be described as a surgical strike? Only Javadekar and his ilk could reach this conclusion and that too when the original surgical strike against Pakistan had come under a lot of scrutiny.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar made a statement that was just as absurd and just as divorced from reality, especially given the government’s own statistics. As the Modi government was grappling with the fall-out of demonetization, Parrikar boasted of a result that never was. “In the last few days after the PM’s daring move, there hasn’t been stone pelting on security forces. Earlier, there were rates: Rs500 for stone pelting (on security forces in Kashmir) and Rs1,000 for doing something else. The PM has brought terror funding to zero. I congratulate the PM for it.”
To start off with, the stone pelting, according to the state government’s own figures had drastically gone down earlier in October. The truth is that the number of such incidents was higher after demonetization. The state home department says that there were 820 in July and 747 in August. They dropped to 535 in September and went down to a very low 157 in October. Before demonetization on November 8, the number was 48 and from November 9 to 14 it was 15. Even if we were to believe the good minister, there is definitely no zero in sight.
Today I realize that it was futile to ask for a political approach in handling Kashmir. The government is clueless and it perhaps believes that the use of power is the only way to tackle the issue. It is completely misleading itself. It may think that the level of violence has gone down and people are growing tired, but the reality is that protests have erupted in the past and will continue to erupt again and again unless their conflict is addressed politically. If New Delhi believes that the turmoil is only affecting the people in the valley, it is wrong. The way the ministers speak, it only shows how naïve the government is.
Shujaat Bukhari is the editor-in-chief of the Srinagar-based newspaper Rising Kashmir
The statement made by Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar put even their coalition partner, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to shame and its members confided that they felt they were stuck in a bad marriage. The PDP is leading a tricky coalition in the state and has been trying to restore some order to the streets. It has wrestled with the joint Hurriyat leadership over holding exams for two crucial classes, the 10th and 12th. Schools have been shut for months and students were not able to complete their coursework. Nonetheless, thousands of them chose to sit their board exams to salvage an academic year. The exams were held (with some concessions on the syllabus) with a 95 percent attendance. Students chose to sit them in November over March in order to catch up on their timelines. If they did not do this, their ability to sit the common entrance examination for professional courses next year would have been compromised.
The minister had his own theory to explain this attendance on November 15: “I’m proud of those children and their parents who are the strength of India. Education is the way to progress. They have understood and given this befitting reply. We have seen the surgical strike of the army, but this reply given by students is also a powerful surgical strike.” One can only marvel at the absurdity of interpreting this response from the students as a political statement.
If a minister in the central government has reached this assessment on how people have braved the last four months, one is hardly surprised at the way the government has dealt with Kashmir. Did the minister really believe that the uprising, which is political in nature and in which 96 civilians were killed by the police and paramilitary forces, can be described as terrorism? Rather than talking about the students who were blinded by pellets, he is trying to use the students as cannon fodder to argue the state’s unyielding position.
One can disagree with the strategy adopted since July 8 by the joint Hurriyat leadership but it is important to note that they never asked students not to sit the exams. They did call for a deferment. Those who conducted the exams are also local Kashmiris and their grit and determination to see them through needs to be appreciated. But how can all of this be described as a surgical strike? Only Javadekar and his ilk could reach this conclusion and that too when the original surgical strike against Pakistan had come under a lot of scrutiny.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar made a statement that was just as absurd and just as divorced from reality, especially given the government’s own statistics. As the Modi government was grappling with the fall-out of demonetization, Parrikar boasted of a result that never was. “In the last few days after the PM’s daring move, there hasn’t been stone pelting on security forces. Earlier, there were rates: Rs500 for stone pelting (on security forces in Kashmir) and Rs1,000 for doing something else. The PM has brought terror funding to zero. I congratulate the PM for it.”
To start off with, the stone pelting, according to the state government’s own figures had drastically gone down earlier in October. The truth is that the number of such incidents was higher after demonetization. The state home department says that there were 820 in July and 747 in August. They dropped to 535 in September and went down to a very low 157 in October. Before demonetization on November 8, the number was 48 and from November 9 to 14 it was 15. Even if we were to believe the good minister, there is definitely no zero in sight.
Today I realize that it was futile to ask for a political approach in handling Kashmir. The government is clueless and it perhaps believes that the use of power is the only way to tackle the issue. It is completely misleading itself. It may think that the level of violence has gone down and people are growing tired, but the reality is that protests have erupted in the past and will continue to erupt again and again unless their conflict is addressed politically. If New Delhi believes that the turmoil is only affecting the people in the valley, it is wrong. The way the ministers speak, it only shows how naïve the government is.
Shujaat Bukhari is the editor-in-chief of the Srinagar-based newspaper Rising Kashmir