Dr Sudershan Kumar
The Kashmir valley also known as the “vale of Kashmir” has been tagged as the “heaven on earth” by many poets and visitors. But over the past few decades it has been reeling under chaos, violence and terrorism instigated by radicalization. Time and again India’s leadership has endeavored to establish peace and tranquility in the area and following in the same steps recently the State election Commission has announced for holding Panchayat polls in Jammu & Kashmir State commencing in November and ending in Dec.2018. This assumes more significance as it is seen as a step forward in empowering people at gross root level. All the elected representatives will not only address the local issues, which the common man is facing in his day to day life but will also play a key role in executing the development projects in health, agriculture, education and other allied sectors in all the three regions viz. Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh of the Jammu and Kashmir state. The polling will be held in state in nine phases covering nearly 35096 segments. This is perfectly in line with elections of urban local bodies (ULB), the dates of which have been announced earlier. But it seems that this democratic process is in peril as some Kashmir centric political parties have decided to boycott ULB and Panchayat elections. Even Rajnath Singh the union home minister has also appealed them to join the election exercise. According to him “the elections are an opportunity to interact with people? Even the governor of J&K has tried to muster support and gave a thrust to these elections by stating that the purpose of holding free and fair elections is to restore back the confidence of youth in system. He made it clear that Kashmir issue, article 35-A and article 370 have nothing to do with these elections. These elections are imperative as it will lead to grass root development and people will be benefited with funds directly reaching to them for utilization in developmental activities. Therefore the skepticism looms as to, what prompted these political parties to toe the line of separatists and militants who are bent upon to sabotage the election process. Hence , one must try to ascertain the real cause of boycott of these forth coming elections. Are these Kashmir centric parties trying to build pressure on center and state government to toe their line and take stand in defending the case of article 35-A, which is under subjudice at present. By not participating in Panchayat and ULB elections, these political parties have not only betrayed the faith of the people but missed the opportunity of having contact with the people, who had voted them to power in 2014 assembly elections. Their attitude for appeasement to certain section of society will further alienate them from the masses who had high expectations from them especially in resolving the local issues which the common man is facing in his day to day life. Their action will further embolden the militant out fits and fundamentalists to further vitiate the environment which is already riddling under the garb of Radicalization and Salafism. An ensemble of factors have resulted in to radicalization and adoption of Salafism among the youth, some of which being unrelenting violence, inflammatory and venomous speeches from the Pakistani soil, brazen corruption of ruling establishment coupled with inability to provide bright future to young minds. Moreover the present day youths have grown up amidst gun culture sowing the seeds of an aggressive mind set and having high expectation from society. Their disenchantment has been fully exploited by Pak. army, its spy agency Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) through patronage of terror outfits like JeM, LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen(HM). Furthermore, the frequent bandh calls, hartals, crumbling infrastructure, faulty strategy of appeasement by both the centre and state governments , aggressive Pakistani propaganda, spreading fake news and fake messages through the extensive use of internet and social media, inflammatory speeches from mosques as well from across the border and unemployment has created disillusionment among Kashmiri youths. This prompted them to pick up guns against the wishes of their parents. Surprisingly even the intellectual and educated youths are driven towards joining terror outfits like LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen without understanding its ramifications. In fact, the present day crisis pertaining to radicalization of Wahhabi Islam or Salafism has a history of nearly 40 years. In seventies itself religious political party in collision with Pakistani counterpart had started working towards the establishment of pristine Islamic society in Kashmir.
Thus Wahabi project of radicalization in Kashmir had started during seventies. Their mission was to destroy Dara Shikoh.(Mughal Prince)’s legacy of happily coexistence of Muslims with Hindus. This was the only Muslim majority state in India, where Muslims had adopted Sufism and looked for spiritual inspiration from other diverse sources. Initiation of this sort of project should have acted as wake up call for the authorities then. But authorities in Srinagar then decided to be oblivious towards the nefarious design of fundamentalists within the country in consortium with Pakistan’s religious fundamentalists. This lapse committed by the then authorities is now proving too costly for the country. Furthermore, the 1987 assembly elections and their results devastated the confidence of local youth on the Indian democratic system and created certain a lacunae which was swiftly filled in by Pakistani army and ISI. They lured Kashmiri youths for armed training and established training camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). Moreover the lodging of Kashmiri youths with hard core foreign terrorists in jails within state and outside further set the pot boiling and igniting the volatile situation in Kashmir valley. Because many disgruntled youths at that time got influenced by the ideology of these dreaded terrorists and adopted Wahhabi ideology and Salafism. Hawks in Pakistan also left no stone unturned in milking from this volatile environment and exploiting the sentiments of innocent Kashmiri masses. Further the free flow of funds through various channels from middle east countries and rogue neighbour provided impetus to this precarious situation. As per unconfirmed reports there are nearly 7500 mosques and seminaries in Kashmir, out of which 6000 are from Hanfi and around 2000 are syncretic Sufi shrines. Around 200 are from Ahl-e-Hadith, Deoband and Jamat. These mosques have been furnished with modern facilities. In less than three decades their number has been doubled. Moreover various terror outfits at the instance of Pakistan, some how have been able to frighten innocent Kashmiri people in the valley and try to muster support in their favour but ironically majority of Kashmiris want to live amicably. At present the percentage of Wahhabi elements along with radicalized youth is less than 20 percent.
Therefore it is high time that centre Government at Delhi must act and take steps to bring the situation under control. Delhi’s strategy of appeasing Kashmir centric political leadership at cost of Jammu and Ladakh regions and soft peddled approach towards stone pelters, anti social elements and against the people who are spreading Wahhabi Islam have not worked so far. Therefore the need of hour at present for both centre and State Government to go in to the root cause of this problem and evolve strategy to eradicate the cancer of radicalization from Kashmiri society. Also a more tough approach needs to be adopted towards our rogue neighbour reprimanding its army. There must be total area dominance on IB, LOC and hinter land. It is apparent that the youth of today do not recognize any old leaders but symbolize with the likes of Burhan wani and taking charge themselves. This paradigm shift with youth taking charge needs to be contained. It is the responsibility of the centre to provide clean, efficient corruption free government to the people so that their faith in democracy is restored. It is a well stated fact that when rulers ignore the problems of people they are doomed. People’s sentiments in all the three regions have been exploited by all factions and the youths have been defied. Beside the organised institutional corruption has plundered the state into darkness. Even the honorable Governor Satya Pal Malik has acknowledged this. In his address during felicitation ceremony of Chinar Youth Festival Hunar -e – Kashmir in lawns of SKICC. Srinagar he said “Corruption is Deep Seated in Kashmir”. Hence those who are handling Kashmir affair must understand and address this aspect also. To help prevail confidence among the youth, good governance is imperative and should encompass diligence,struggle,accountability,responsibility and immediate redressal of people’s problems with implementation and adoption of citizen charter and stringent action against the corrupt officials with total stoppage of photo shoots, lip service and press statements. The author is of the view that although holding of panchayat and ULB elections is just a first in this direction but participation in the process and electing wisely the right type of people who can really deliver is the responsibility of electorates.
(The author is former Director General DRDO & Special Secretary MOD GoI)
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