Omar Abdullah recently stated that he had held a meeting with the Indian Home minister regarding flow of outside funds to protestors in Kashmir. The funds he is talking about even if true amount to peanuts as compared to the actual circulation of money in this area of conflict. It is not even the tip of the proverbial ice-berg! He is probably unaware that Kashmir has become a money minting machine for a large number of vested interests from all sides. The size of funds flowing within and into Kashmir is colossal. There are already enough funds available within Kashmir for all sorts of activities. A large amount is channelled by Government of India for development as well as for various security operations which find many takers other than those for whom these are actually meant. Mohammad Ali Jinnah because of Kashmir being a Muslim majority area contagious to Pakistan is reported to have referred to it as a bearer cheque in his pocket.

For reasons well known now, the cheque bounced and Pakistan instead of cashing it paid heavily for claiming it. On the contrary, Kashmir became an open dated cheque for anyone who knew how to cash it! A lot of people did cash it and continue to cash it even today. Before trying to identify and stop the flow of foreign funds, there is need to check the accountability of funds flowing in from Delhi. The size of these funds is immense. Let us first take the so called Security Related Expenditure also known as SRE. The size of this grant coming from the Ministry of Home Affairs must be around Rs 500 crore or so. This fund is available for wide variety of things apart from security related items. There are 5,000 vehicles of security forces, the petrol for which is debited to this fund. The rent of Government Officers staying in Tourism establishments is debited to this head. The expenditure on the visits of all Home Ministry Officials and their stay in five star hotels is debited to this head. The expenditure on the renovation of Chief Ministers’ official residences amounting to crores and a host of other buildings is also debited to this head of account. In fact, the fund gives lot of perks all around which the concerned are very reluctant to part with. This too has created a vested interest in the status quo of continuous turmoil. In addition, the funds made available to Central Services such as risk allowance etc. also constitute a sizeable amount. If total normalcy returns, all these lucrative channels will dry up. Next come the discretionary grants to various agencies involved in counter insurgency. These too have unlimited funds and are not accountable due to ever green security reasons. The grants given for developmental projects by the Government of India are colossal and all these funds are not necessarily spent on development. These find way into the pockets of all concerned from the top politicians to the petty contractor, not forgetting the officials including the engineers. Because of these funds people are able to buy luxury villas in Dubai and many other places within the country and abroad. One can judge from this what part of these funds actually goes into development? Next are the funds collected by various political parties from within the state and received from outside? These too are unaccountable. Political party funds coming from corporate houses, big businesses, and so on are quite huge in size. These funds are also used quite often for purposes other than normal political activities. In fact, within Kashmir people from all walks of life are cashing the bearer cheques left and right!

Regarding the flow of funds to alleged instigators even if true is an impossible task to check. There is no budgetary limit on these funds coming from all over the world. The first and immediate source of these unlimited funds is the intelligence agencies on two sides. They compete with each other in funding various persons and their activities. Then there is worldwide collection in the name of suffering Kashmiris. It is difficult to say what percentage of such funds collected for humanitarian causes actually reach the concerned? Such funds are rarely channelled through known means of money transfer. The most preferred are the hawala transactions which do not involve any legal transfer susceptible to screening or check.

Now, let us take the two neighbouring countries claiming Kashmir as their part. Both have been using Kashmir as a bearer cheque within their own countries as well as abroad. Kashmir has become the core issue of the perennial conflict between the two neighbours. It is because of Kashmir problem that they have fought two wars and are in continuous state of conflict. Due to this, the major chunk of the budgets of the two countries is allocated for the defence sector. These funds are used for weapon purchases worth billions. Purchase of armaments and other defence and security related equipment from all over the world involves huge pay offs on both sides. Many scandals involving these massive pay offs have been exposed. Even some of the highest political authorities have been involved in these scandals. The Bofors pay-off is common knowledge now! Finally, the big powers have also been using the bearer cheque of Kashmir not only to enrich themselves but to keep the two neighbouring countries on a tight leash. Kashmir has become a massive commercial enterprise. Everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie. There are innumerable beneficiaries of the conflict. They would never like the things to settle down.

Instead of trying to identify the “rogue” funds and stopping these, Omar Abdullah should concentrate on the reasons for the flow of such funds. There is only one way to break this commercial enterprise and that is to remove the basic cause of the conflict. The beneficiaries of conflict will lose all benefits as soon as the conflict stops! All and sundry have been talking about this intractable problem acting as an impediment to the peace in the subcontinent but no body has been engaging in resolving it. All sides have been preferring conflict management rather than conflict resolution. Mere fire fighting is not going to douse the flames unless the basic cause of the conflagration is removed. One has to face the situation head on and remedy the reason causing untold suffering and harassment to the common people. There are no two opinions that there is extreme alienation among the youth constituting the new generation. For last two decades in which the generation has grown, they have seen nothing but harassment and humiliation apart from death and destruction. Getting humoured by the American claim that the unrest is an internal affair of India is not going to solve the problem. Even they have asked the youth to go for peaceful protests which the authorities are not allowing at any cost! The only possible way forward even at this late stage seems to be giving a real healing touch by removing paramilitary from all civilian areas; disbanding the Special Operations Group of Kashmir Police along with their unaccountable “friendlies”; revoking all draconian laws conferring unbridled and unaccountable powers on the security forces, and starting an unconditional dialogue with all sections of the society especially the youth regardless of their affiliations or views. One is not sure whether this too will work now but there does not seem any other alternative to cool down the tempers and get Kashmir out of a situation spiralling out of control.