Opinion | Make Kashmir peaceful by realizing the circumstances

It remains always difficult for the political leaders to assess the  peace in Kashmir due to continuous  battle between insurgents band security forces. Thus, the number of people killed during an insurgency and it  can’t be the true barometer to achieve  success in peace.

 As it has been deep rooted  in the minds of the people that presence of the security forces and their strategy remained normally one of containment in the pursuit  of peace.

Security forces always tried to robust the settlement of insurgents by the application of military  actions such as CASO , crack down, thwarting people etc but it has got negative effect on peace process this results into more uprise of insurgency.

 In counterinsurgency people lost  precious lives and property this fuelling substantially the  recruitment of millitants more and more and  are blood feud and  obligated to take revenge on the security forces. This results in the move of insurgency acts and security forces are made to think to find the alternative ways to curb the worst situation.

Stone pelting has already been converted into a mass ritual with girls and boys as new participants especially at encounter sites and they are well aware  bullets are fired in across way this becomes  visible ways of frustrations to security forces, at oneside they have to face millitants and at other side they have to face angery  stone pelters  .

This means there is Open support by locals to trapped militants enabling their easy escape. This has entirely changed the relationship between the locals and the militants. Many encounters have also led to the death of non-combatant civilians who got trapped in the crossfire.

Death of  civilians  leads to further violent protests and at times a vicious cycle in which every death leads to more deaths.

Funerals of slain militants, which customarily attract a mammoth gathering of slogan-shouting and stone-pelting protestors, have spectacularized death at the hands of state. The presence of active militants at the funerals, where they give so-called gun salutes to their slain comrades, has particularly unnerved the security forces when they see millitants in funerals. This also leads to radicalization of youth and they no more think secure under the Indian rule.

In the prevailing environment of minimal governmental credibility and legitimacy, no public effort would be adequate  to control the youth  from insurgency and convince them of a life beyond compulsive India-bashing.

Though, the government has made several attempts to resume talks with the Hurriyat based on some preconditioning points this step always unnerved the Hurriyat and we’re never ready to talk with them. Same thing happens with Pakistan and all resuming peace talks either with Hurriyat or Pakistan still remains lingering.

This dispute over the region has continued for more than six decades, at huge cost. There has huge loss of life estimated to be at least 70,000 diad and 8,000 missing . Now a days Kashmiris face military presence and ongoing militia operations. Although a ceasefire agreement was made but internally violence largely give way to non-violent protest, the calm is often punctuated by military and insurgent operations from both sides.

It is difficult to assess Kashmiri public opinion, and the region contains supporters of various different solutions to the conflict. Alongside those who align more closely to either the Pakistani or Indian government views, there are also those who favour independence for Kashmir.

Only one solution avails that all stakeholders need to assess all the situations of the conflict and come to conclusion that at least there would be control of unabated killings and resuming peace process. Otherwise time will come when leaders rule over on no man’s land.

Sheikh Arshid Ahmad

PhD scholar

Kuchmullah TRAL

Reach At