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Opinion
Arnab Neil Sengupta
Arnab Neil Sengupta
India must quit playing politics and change its approach to Kashmir if it wants to end deadly decades-old insurgency
- Arnab Neil Sengupta says New Delhi needs to face facts and stop throwing soldiers at a problem that a considered and coherent strategy could solve
A week after the deadliest attack on Indian security forces in the annals of the Kashmiri insurgency, an informed geopolitical perspective is still missing from the national conversation about what hit the country on February 14.
The collective outpouring of grief and anger over the deaths of 40 paramilitary police officers in one fell swoop was only to be expected. What is on display, though, is more than just emotional catharsis. A subconscious feeling of guilt is also weighing down on India, which does not have compulsory military service, is increasingly addicted to economic populism, and had a score of just 41 out of 100 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2018.
Besides guilt, there is a cacophony of confusing views on the bloodshed in Kashmir, emblematic perhaps of a political discourse that assumes only two countries in the whole wide world matter: Pakistan and China. But the truth is, Kashmir is a predominantly Muslim region with religious and political ties to the Islamic world, especially to the country just across the Line of Control that controls one-third of it. As such, the attitude that the blast in Pulwama was an unprovoked attack by a Pakistan-backed jihadi group is simple-minded and potentially counterproductive.
Suicide bombings are a classic example of asymmetric warfare used by underdogs who cannot defeat an army in conventional combat but are able to capitalise on local discontent to inflict heavy casualties at a minimal loss to themselves. The responsibility for the Pulwama attack may have been claimed by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad, but it was carried out by a Kashmiri youth. Violence-torn Kashmir is today a veritable breeding ground for home-grown militants.
As with so many other flashpoints, the turbulence in Kashmir is partly a by-product of the upheavals of 1979 in the Middle East, notably in Iran and Saudi Arabia, which gave rise to an antagonistic but mutually reinforcing relationship between Shia radicalism and Sunni/Salafi jihadism. Forty years on, there is no dearth of state and non-state actors who use armed Sunni and Shia groups to wage proxy wars against their strategic rivals. Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is not the only player in this geopolitical game, but it is possibly among the most ideologically motivated ones.
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In the two principal foreign theatres where it is believed to be active, Afghanistan and Kashmir, the ISI could not have asked for adversaries more lacking in self-awareness. What probably helps the ISI to keep the pot well stirred in India is a panoply of different factors: a clamorous multi-party political system; surging youth unemployment and discontent; shrill Hindu nationalist voices; sluggish civil and military bureaucracies; and, last but not least, a raucous electronic media that amplifies nationalist jingoism.
To the country’s detriment, Indian politicians – instead of devoting their undivided attention, smartest strategies and best administrative resources to help Kashmiri Muslims overcome their sense of isolation and alienation from the national mainstream – have treated the issue time and again as one of the many headaches they have to deal with as the price of governing.
This attitude of episodic concern, coupled with the policy of throwing masses of men in uniform at the problem year after year, has driven Muslim youths of the Kashmir Valley into the arms of religious ultraconservatives and malign actors. Political passions have been further inflamed since 2010 by accusations of the use of excessive force by Indian security forces in tackling hostile mobs, with thousands of civilians – including little children – suffering eye injuries or being blinded by metal shards from pellet shotguns.
India’s military has produced no David Petraeus-like scholar-soldier who could have put into practice a Kashmir strategy similar to the one the American general successfully employed during the 2007-2008 troop “surge” to divide and weaken the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. On the contrary, the current Indian army chief has actively courted the limelight and controversy with comments about Kashmir such as “this is a proxy war and proxy war is a dirty war”.
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Admittedly, as the world’s largest electoral democracy, with an enviable aggregate score of 77 out of 100 in the latest ranking by Freedom House, India’s security options are not boundless. It does not have the leeway of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, which has crushed rebellious Kurds and political dissidents with a heavy hand; or of Imran Khan’s Pakistan, which frequently abducts and kills Pashtun and Baluch nationalists; and even less of Xi Jinping’s China, who has allegedly held more than a million Uygur Muslim men in re-education camps.
That being said, India does not have to put all its bets on a security-centric policy. It can approach Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two countries on which Pakistan is heavily dependent for financial support, for advice and help in reining in Pakistan-based jihadi groups, deradicalising Kashmiri youths, and countering the appeal of fundamentalist imams. Liberal preachers could, in principle, plant the seeds of a modern Islam in Kashmir that celebrates religious diversity, advocates women’s empowerment and embraces engagement.
In any case, a close watch must be kept on access to religious materials via online and digital platforms. Policing of the net to block sources of radicalisation and monitoring of Friday sermons in mosques is no longer out of line in many countries. Pressure must be brought to bear on imams in Kashmir’s mosques to highlight the Islamic tenets of respect, inclusion and peace instead of the political rhetoric of resistance and confrontation.
Words of enlightened moderation will make no impact on Kashmiris, however, unless India’s governing BJP matches them with actions of its own. That would mean putting a lot of unpleasant behaviour behind them, namely the indulging of murderous cow-protection vigilantes, the demonisation of Pakistan during election campaigns, the elevation of “Hindutva” ideologues to powerful positions, and a gratuitously hurtful policy aimed at changing Muslim names of historic cities, towns and universities.
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To sum up, it is past time for New Delhi to view Kashmir’s Muslims not as a problem to be solved but as a people with distinct religious and cultural beliefs, who crave dignity, respect, educational and economic opportunities, and a large measure of administrative autonomy. If India’s squabbling politicians can resist the temptation to milk the Pulwama attack for electoral gains and vow to address the Kashmir problem firmly but sensitively, they would be paying the best possible tribute to the slain police officers.
Arnab Neil Sengupta is an independent journalist and weekly columnist on the Middle East for Dubai’s Khaleej Times daily and Iraq’s Rudaw Media Network
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