Schofield Victoria. Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War
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The militants’ response to such initiatives was negative. The murder in
March of Wali Mohammed Yattoo, a National Conference leader and
former speaker of the Jammu & Kashmir legislative assembly, was taken to
be a warning against attempts to introduce an unwanted political process in
the valley. The government, however, pressed on with its initiative. Rajesh
Pilot talked about ‘rehabilitation’
16
of the Kashmiri youth; Karan Singh
returned to the limelight by calling for a Kashmir Affairs ministry to be set
up in order to begin ‘a process of reconciliation’.
17
At India’s independence
day celebrations on August , Prime Minister Narasimha Rao formally
announced that a political process would be initiated for the normalisation
of affairs in the valley. In order to commence its dialogue, the government
released some of the top political activists, including Shabir Shah, who had
been in jail intermittently for nearly twenty years, as well as Syed Ali Shah
Gilani and Abdul Gani Lone; detainees were also released. Yasin Malik,
under arrest since August , had been released on bail in May . At
the end of October, however, the militants further attempted to derail the
election process by stealing the electoral rolls for Srinagar from a government
building and setting them on fire ‘sending up in smoke the Indian govern-
ment’s latest attempts to bring peace to troubled Kashmir’ wrote Tim McGirk
in The Independent.’
18
Given the hostility of the militants to the proposal to hold elections, it
was not clear how elections could be a practical option when there appeared
to be no obvious contestants. ‘Firstly, they don’t have the right kind of
infrastructure; there is no support for manning polling booths or acting as
returning officers,’ said Haroon Joshi, an Indian journalist based in Srinagar
in . ‘Normally it is the task of the government employees but they don’t
want to do it; secondly, who will vote? and thirdly, whoever contests, what
will happen to their family and friends?’ Even if the polls were phased,
holding them for one week in Jammu, a second week in Kashmir, and then
in Ladakh, approximately , people (, polling stations with three to
a polling booth) would be needed to man the polls in the valley. ‘But even
if they were to find these officials by bringing them in from Jammu,’ said Joshi
‘there is still no strategy for getting people to stand.’
19
When election speculation was at its height during the spring of ,
one by one the members of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference said they
would not participate. ‘The Indian government has thrust this election process
on us because they want to convey to the external world that they believe
in the democratic system,’ said Yasin Malik. He felt so strongly about the
proposed elections that he threatened to immolate himself:
I am not doing this act against India. If the world conscience will come forward,
they can stop the Indian government in this so-called election process. If they
do not come forward then I will do this act against the world conscience; then
I will be convinced that there is no one who can listen to the voice of the
oppressed people.
20
In , sixty-three interrogation centres where torture has been carried out
were believed to exist in Jammu and Kashmir, mostly run by the BSF and the
security forces as detention centres. One BSF centre was located in one of the
the past intruded inappropriately on the brutality of the present. Whereas an
officer on duty admitted to the necessity of giving ‘a few slaps’ to captured
which was described by the International Commission of Jurists as ‘draconian’,
promises of inquiries into custodial deaths, official investigations are rare.
prohibited not only terrorist acts but also broadly defined ‘disruptive’ activities.
In force until , the act established special courts to try those arrested. The
term ‘disruptive activities’ is defined as including:
Powers Act, introduced by Saxena in , which gave the governor or the
government in New Delhi the authority to declare all or part of the state a
‘disturbed area’ and to use the armed forces to assist the civil power, meant
that the military could be used ‘to suppress legitimate political activity’ and,
according to the ICJ, could not possibly be justified. Since the military had the
‘designated courts’ were in Srinagar and Jammu, but the operations of the
The cumulative effect of such legislation is that the government has been
able to act with relative impunity in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Since
the judicial system is ‘almost dysfunctional’
46
there are long delays in court
proceedings. ‘The judiciary here in the state of Jammu and Kashmir has
almost become irrelevant,’ said Mian Abdul Qayum, president of the Srinagar
Bar Association, in . ‘if they pass any kind of an order, those orders are
not obeyed by anybody. Right now there are some , habeas corpus
petitions pertaining to the people who are detained under preventive laws,
pending in the High Court Srinagar and nobody is going to hear them.’
47
According to the Indian authorities, the state government has responded to
‘ per cent’ of all such petitions ‘despite the tremendous strain under which
the whole legal and administrative system has been put by the continuing
violence and terrorism.’
48
Mind of the militant
In the opinion of the Indian government the real culprits have always been
the militants, whom they hold responsible for terrorising the people of
Kashmir into open hostility against India and committing numerous extra-
judicial executions, amongst whom they list Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq, Professor
Mushir-ul Haq, the vice chancellor of Kashmir University, Dr A. A. Guru,
Maulana Masoodi, aged eighty-seven, a contemporary and colleague of Sheikh
Abdullah who was shot in December allegedly for the part he played
in the state of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India. Through the efforts
of the military, however, the insurgency has now been ‘capped and brought
down to acceptable levels,’ said Brigadier Arjun Ray in .
49
‘More and
more people are coming to realise the futility of the gun,’ said M. N.
Sabharwal.
50
In , the Indian government noted that the level of violence
had declined still further except during the months of May, October and
November, when announcements were made about elections.
51
The Indian government also believed that militancy did not enjoy the
popular support it had in the early s. ‘The militants lost some of their
original élan,’ says Balraj Puri, ‘due to a number of reasons: a continuous
proliferation of groups, confusion and division in their ranks, regarding their
ultimate objective, and Pakistan’s changing policy towards different groups
of militants.’
52
Government analyses estimated that no more than ,
militants were operating throughout the valley, which made the ratio of their
own troops to militants extremely high. Indian authorities also alleged that
young men have been abducted against their will to become militants. In
August The Times of India reported how Indian forces had intercepted
a large group of ‘Kashmiri youth’ who were being taken to Azad Kashmir
at gun point by members of the Al Jehad militant group and that they had
been promised sums ranging from Rs to Rs ,.
53
In contrast to Jagmohan’s assessment of the militants, General Krishna
Rao had adopted a conciliatory approach: ‘We do not consider militants as
enemies, but as our own kith and kin, although they have allowed themselves
to be misled. The Government takes responsibility to rehabilitate them in an
appropriate manner, provided they return to the path of sanity.’
54
The Indian
government assessed the life expectancy of a militant at two years, after which
time they either get killed or lose their enthusiasm for the fight. Militants who
surrender are provided with a rudimentary rehabilitation programme and
sometimes a change of identity.
Like the security forces, the militants have been subject to allegations of
excesses, mainly intimidation and extortion as well as their indiscriminate
attacks on those suspected of sympathising with the Indian government. ‘The
lady next door was approached one night by militants and asked for money,’
recalled a student in ; ‘in the old days, she would have asked them in and
given them food. This time she refused and shut the door in their face. So
they pushed the door in and shot her.’
55
‘The militants would come to your
door and ask for money or a son to fight. If you didn’t have the money, then
you would have to give up a son,’ says a local Kashmiri. ‘In the militants
asked for lakhs,’ said one businessman in , ‘last year it was lakhs; this
year I am expecting them to ask for lakh.’
56
Rich houseboat owners and
carpet dealers have been targeted for money. They have also been afraid to
speak out about loss of business because of the insurgency: ‘They say to us:
“You complain you are losing money, and we are losing our lives.”’
57
Journalists were threatened by the militants for writing reports interpreted as
favourable to the Government of India’s position. In September , a parcel
bomb was sent to Yusuf Jameel, the BBC and Reuters correspondent in
Srinagar. A photographer in his office opened the parcel and died in the
explosion.
In June the JKLF admitted that atrocities committed by the militants
had alienated the people and stated that strict action would be taken against
‘erring elements’ in the movement.
58
The most serious incident of a communal
nature was the murder of sixteen male Hindus who were taken off a bus in
Kishtwar on their way to Jammu on August and shot. Both the JKLF
and Hizb condemned the action. The murder of the vice-chancellor of
Kashmir University in was described by activists as the work of
‘renegades’ amongst the numerous fringe groups which are operative.
Reports of rape by militants also tarnished their image. ‘While it is not
clear that militant leaders have explicitly sanctioned such abuses,’ states Asia
Watch, ‘there is little indication that the militants have done anything to
stop their forces from committing rape. Some incidents of rape by militants
appear to have been motivated by the fact that the victims or their families
are accused of being informers.’
59
In former Governor Saxena rather
surprisingly claimed that: ‘For every allegation of rape by security persons,
there will be a hundred by militants.’
60
In the early days of the insurgency,
attacks were made on women for not adhering to the prescribed dress code,