There is a popular saying that to hide a lie one has to speak a hundred lies. Truth is always solo! If a person in broad daylight shuts all the doors and windows of his house and claims that it is dark outside that is not going to take away the daylight! It is height of naivety to say that everything in Kashmir is orchestrated by separatist and their mentors from across the border. Union Home Ministry’s “sensational” disclosures regarding first the LET (Lashkar-i-Tayaba) and then HM (Hizbul Mujahideen) behind the unrest in Kashmir is not a discovery. What has been happening for last two decades? It is known world over that many militant organisations based across the Line of Control including HM and LET have been alleged to be fomenting trouble in Kashmir from time to time. However, these organisations on their behalf claim to be fighting for a cause. There is nothing new in this orchestrated media hype. Apart from these elements, there are plenty of other non-state and even state actors who have a vested interest in turmoil and continuance of the conflict situation. If the Home Ministry has been intercepting conversations of these elements, why have they not taken any corrective action in time? Why did they allow the situation to go out of hand? It must be an interesting change that these militant organisations are now using stones instead of grenades, rocket-launchers, and rifles. The Ministry should welcome it as it is a climb down from the armed militancy! However, the moot point is why are these elements so successful in creating such a mass upsurge? It is here that Delhi has put on a blindfold. The usual line of Delhi that everything is honky dory in Kashmir and it is only a handful of miscreants instigated from across the border who are creating all the problems. This is the height of self-deception they can indulge into! Miscreants cannot be successful in creating turmoil unless they find the ground ripe for it! Delhi refuses to accept this reality.

Apart from the long standing political problem, Kashmiris for past sometime have been facing excessive oppression and humiliation from the armed personnel supposed to protect them under the constitution. Their protectors have turned into their tormentors. Instead of addressing the real causes of stone pelting, the authorities both in Delhi and Srinagar have been opting for more stringent methods of suppression of free expression and speech. No one is prepared to admit that the stone pelting did not start all of a sudden but it has been a reaction to government’s refusal to allow peaceful marches. It is but natural for the people to come out and protest when massive human rights violations are taking place. Fake encounters in Machil. Killing of innocent youth at different places. When these protests are suppressed with a heavy hand, it is but natural for the youth to revolt. As the resentment builds up, they have two choices. Either they restart an underground militant movement or they come out to retaliate with stones. The hype about stone pelting has been so much accentuated that one gets the impression as if the young boys are not throwing stones but grenades. Stone pelters are projected as dangerous elements posing a grave threat to national security. Instead of accepting this reality that it is a reaction to suppression, it is labelled as agitational terrorism instigated by outside elements. Similar agitation or even worse reactions in other parts of India are taken to be normal! Once the things exceed the limit of tolerance, there is mass upsurge which makes Delhi lose its nerve and turn desperate. This time the desperation is very starkly visible. Maintenance of law and order is a state subject but in Kashmir, it is right now being directly handled by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Union Home Secretary announces curfew relaxation on national TV channel! Local law and order officials are conspicuous by their total absence. Army conducts flag marches of soldiers in battle dress atop armoured cars and trucks with red flags through the streets of Srinagar. This is claimed to be a deterrent to stone pelters and a measure to enforce curfew. Is it a deterrent or a blatant show of “State Terror” to frighten the common people? In spite of having handled Kashmir for last 63 years, Delhi has miserably failed to understand the psychological make up of a Kashmiri. Thousands of years of history of which few hundred years were spent under oppressive external rule have taught a Kashmiri the art of survival. He never gives up and at the same time he never fights to the last soldier and is thus, virtually a born guerrilla fighter. At one time he may appear very humble, docile, and resigned to his fate. Then at the other time he may suddenly explode like a volcano taking his adversary totally by surprise confusing him utterly. Before trying to overawe him by a mighty show of force, the authorities in Delhi should have considered the saying of a glorious son of Kashmir, and the foremost historian of sub-continent, Kalhana in Rajatarangini. “The country of Kashmir may be conquered by the force of spiritual merit, but not by the force of soldiers”! In fact, Sir Walter Lawrence who has written about the character of a Kashmiri in detail says, “Kashmir is a peculiar country, which need not necessarily be administered by the strict pattern adopted in British India, and what is good and necessary in the Punjab is dangerous and premature in this country”. And let us not forget Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru who while outlining the main features of the Kashmiri personality, states, “Do not think you are dealing with a part of U.P., Bihar or Gujarat. You are dealing with an area, historically and geographically, and in all manner of things with a certain background. We have to be men of vision and there has to be broad-minded acceptance of facts”.

One wonders how all the wisdom in Delhi has gone on a holiday. What are they going to achieve by house-arresting the entire population of the valley indefinitely? For the first time in last 20 years or so Kashmir has gone without papers. The entire media has been gagged and Delhi is relying on embedded journalists like the Americans in Iraq. Replicating Israeli tactics in Gaza are not going to help in Kashmir. Both places have different backgrounds. There is also talk of change of guard but the things have gone beyond that! Delhi is already running the whole show at present. The tempers are not going to cool without some substantial measures on the ground. The least they can do is to immediately withdraw Army and Paramilitary from all the civilian areas. As recently stated in an article by famous advocate Zaffar Shah, the State Home Ministry can issue a simple notification declaring that the places like Srinagar, Sopore, and Anantnag etc are no longer disturbed. This will automatically cease the operation of AFSPA and the forces will become accountable! As already mentioned, a Kashmiri is always calm and stoic. He loses his cool and goes all out when he feels his very survival threatened. This happened in 2008 due to Amarnath land transfer when a Kashmiri felt the ownership of the land which he had acquired after hundreds of years slipping out of his hands. Now, he feels his third generation being systematically targeted. The second generation has already been liquidated in last two decades. Unless he is sure that the threat to the young generation has been removed, he will not stop. Will the wisdom dawn on Delhi or it will continue to catch at straws like a drowning person, time alone will tell!