Opinion : Kashmir - Summer strategy 2017
So it’s spring again!
Holi, a festival renowned for fun and colour, is being celebrated throughout India. It is one of the best occasions to experience India at its happiest.But in and around the valley spring means, melting of snow, longer days and shorter nights, and when that happens, it’s time for the terrorists from the other side to sneak into India.
They come ready with their suicide belts, weapons and a ration which lasts ’em a month. Ah! Yes. Most of them expire in a month, and I’m not talking about their ration. Infiltration from across the border brings in cyclical waves of violence in Kashmir. Indian government in its attempt to mitigate kashmir violence has tried its hand on everything from military focused-kinetic operations to trying to win hearts and minds of the valley dwellers. But since the revival of insurgency in 1989, de-escalation of violence in the valley has been a constant challenge for our government and military.
Last year’s protests have been very different from the previous ones in its scale and rapid mobilization of anti-India supporters. This brings us face to face with the troubling question as to why has India has been unsuccessful in weeding out terrorism in kashmir?
Ideological appeal of militancy was not built in a day. It was years of social unrest, instability, and incoherent political strategies which lead us to this quagmire.
We have failed to recognise that the terrorists have robust strategies and that we must take action accordingly.
The short term strategies of terrorists have been identified as
1.Targeting the locals who are not in line with terrorist thinking.
2.Targeting the security forces, which is usually aimed at demoralising and weakening our forces.
The more sinister long term strategy encompasses a propaganda targeting the populace to keep them wedded to the idea of sacrifice for azadi,and keep them steadfastly anti-India. With a smaller man power ,enough financial back up so far, they have been successful in executing their plans better than Indian army. Most of their previous strategies have lasted 3–4 years, which prevents them from getting “fatigued”. It’s like brand Toyota releasing a new model every 4 years,which would look nothing like its previous models. But it’s essentially an old wine in a new bottle. But be assured that the “sponsors” of the non-state actors have the same age old agenda of getting J&K by foul or fair. Indian soldiers must prepare themselves for more attacks as General winter takes a leave this year. With an attitude of procrastination from India governments, Indian army was always forced to lay down strategy sans an aim, in the past.It might sound difficult to swallow but till very recently Indian govt didn’t have an aim or even a semi-aim to lay down a good strategy. To add up to the army’s dilemma, our counter insurgency strategy lied on diffused perceptions.
Arrival of Gen Bipin Rawat as COAS is a welcoming change. Hes a man with immense experience of the way this conflict needs to be handled. This can be a great force multiplier, provided he gets enough support from Delhi.
So far Indian strategy has only revolved around countering the first two short term strategies, which gave Indian army only short lived gains. So the first and foremost step towards resolving the K-issue lies in coming to terms with the fact that this is a war that needs to be fought on an intellectual plane than on the actual ground, which has escaped Indian planners and strategists so far. Fighting the Kashmir ‘proxy’ war is not merely Indian army’s responsibility.This war needs considerable political will and resources to fight back and reclaim what is our’s.
The next step is to achieve an influence over the statesmen in Kashmir, while separatists need to be given a royal snub. Starting any discussion with separatists will lead us nowhere since they are fed and fattened by the sponsors who want to keep Kashmir burning. Let us stick to the resolution of 22 February 1994,a golden day in India’s strategic history, when Indian parliament declared J&K an integral part of India, and that it would thwart any attempts to separate Kashmir from the rest of the country by all necessary means.
Third step and the most important step is to cordon-off the disturbed area. It has long been suggested that Kashmir be divided into 3 parts. Ladakh becomes a Union Territory, the area from Poonch to Kishtwar becomes Jammu state and the Valley is Kashmir state. J&K is a huge state of 101387 sq kms of which Ladakh has 58.3 per cent, Jammu 26 per cent and Kashmir 15.7 per cent land.
It is well known that only some part of J&K faces trouble while rest of the state is mostly peaceful. Ladakh and Jammu,as we know it, are neither the problem nor part of the problem, ergo it makes complete sense to divide J&K. Lesser known fact about Ladakh is that it has the 2nd biggest district in India- Leh. The region is of great geo-political significance, so bringing it directly under the central government by giving it UT status should be helpful in bringing progress to the mountainous terrain. At this stage, it is imperative to separate the valley and deal with terrorism head-on, and not let it spread to the other parts. Outlined in brown, in the map below, is the region of J&K state which is relatively disturbed.
Lesson that should be learnt from K-issue is to never underestimate your enemy. Slowly and steadily they have been able to inject the venomous jihadist ideology into the valley. The sooner it dawns on Indian government that this hybrid conflict needs to be studied in its entirety and dealt by shifting the centre of gravity from Pakistan to the people living in kashmir, the faster the kashmir issue can be resolved.
Written by @Levina on Indian Defence Forum.
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