In Kashmir, some hot potatoes, by Praveen Swami

This is evidence that the secessionist constituency is diminishing. The problem, though, is this: this generation is also disconnected, as never before, from the political system. Two decades of violence strangled democratic politics. New Delhi is now delivering the coup de grace. Little empirical work has been done on the issue, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that young people in search of agency are turning away from organised politics to diverse forms of religious pietism, consumerism, or nihilist street violence.

Kashmir's jihadist movement was, at its core, a form of anti-politics that arose from a crisis just like this. In the 1970s and 1980s, pressures on small farmers — and growing hold of a new class of contractors and urban élites on the National Conference — created a reservoir of discontent among its traditional constituency. The party increasingly turned to religious chauvinism to hold on to its following. The Muslim United Front, representing the urban petty bourgeoisie and the rural orchard-owning elite, did so too. Islam, for the classes which backed the MUF, was an instrument to legitimise the protest of a threatened social order against a modernity which held out the prospect of obliterating it...

New Delhi's policy establishment still imagines it is dealing with a Kashmir that disappeared two decades or more ago: an illusion sustained by the fact that so many key actors are the children of the men who made the deals that propped up the State's dysfunctional political order. Its key instruments remain cajoling and co-optation - and, when it fails, outright bribery. Meaningful political dialogue, least of all the new language of transparency, rights and empowerment Mr. Ahmad represented, simply isn't on the agenda. Prime Minister Singh's government won the war in Jammu and Kashmir, inflicting a decisive defeat on the insurgency. His government's actions suggest it is now doing its best to lose the peace. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article3342926.ece?homepage=true

See also: The Unhappiness factory of Kashmir by Sualeh Keen
http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.in/2012/05/unhappiness-factory-of-kashmir.html


Kashmir - a fragile peace?
http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.in/2012/04/kashmir-fragile-peace.html


And: Who are the real enemies of ‘happy’ Kashmir?
http://www.firstpost.com/india/who-are-the-real-enemies-of-happy-kashmir-285182.html

Also see: Reports from an independent human rights investigation in Kashmir

FACT FINDING TEAM TO KASHMIR by Bela Bhatia, Ravi Hemadri, Sukumar Muralidharan,Vrinda Grover

Since June this year (2010), the Kashmir valley has been torn by mass protests which have been met with overwhelming force by Indian security forces. Curfews and closures have been frequent, often shading into each other. No less than 111 deaths have been registered, of which a large number have been of students and youth in the age group of 8 to 25 years. There have besides, been hundreds of cases of injuries, of both protesters and those who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. An independent fact-finding team went to the Kashmir valley at the end of October to go into the totality of the situation, principally to inquire into the causes for the unconscionably large number of deaths that have occurred in the current phase of mass agitation. The team comprised of academic Bela Bhatia, advocate Vrinda Grover, journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and activist Ravi Hemadri of The Other Media, a Delhi based campaign and advocacy organisation, at whose initiative the effort was organised. Each member of the team spent varying lengths of time in the valley, but in total, roughly about twenty-five person days were put in the fact-finding exercise. In groups or individually, the team met the families of almost 40 persons who had been killed since the beginning of the civil unrest. Several individuals who had suffered serious injuries were also met. The team worked out of the state capital of Srinagar, and visited villages and towns in five of the Kashmir valley’s ten districts: Baramulla in the north (Sopore and Baramulla tehsils); Anantnag (Bijbehara and Anantnag tehsils) and Pulwama (Pulwama tehsil) in the south; Badgam in the west (Chadura and Badgam tehsils) and Srinagar itself. Separate sessions were held with journalists and media practitioners, university teachers and students, doctors, lawyers and activists besides officials in the police headquarters and the civil administration. The findings of the team are being released in a series of short reports beginning with following two sections. Forthcoming reports will deal with various facets of the situation that civilians in the Kashmir valley face in a season of unabated turmoil. http://www.sacw.net/article1689.html