Kashmir: Vajapyee regime continues to look to US for approval

By Sumer Kaul

As I write this, more than two weeks after the slaughter of Kashmiri Pandits in Nadimarg, forget about nabbing the cold-blooded murderers, the various central and state agencies on the job have not been able to establish even the identity and affiliation of the terrorists. Another few days and Nadimarg will become just another entry in the macabre chronicle of killings in Kashmir, as did an exactly similar massacre in Wandhama five years ago, as have all such killings before and since then.

Even as we mourn, albeit only fleetingly, the gruesome midnight murder of 24 innocent men, women, children and infants of Nadimarg, we no longer seem to realise, much less really care, that the Pakistan-sponsored bloodbath in Kashmir has gone on for fourteen long years, and that in this colossal and continuing human tragedy no other community has suffered so much for so long and yet evoked so little concern as the Kashmiri Pandits.

Going back in their origin to before the advent of Buddhism and Christianity, not to speak of Islam, they survived the sword of ruthless invaders and proselytizers over the last two millennia, only to lose it all in the span of a decade. Hundreds of them have been killed by terrorists and of those who fled for their lives, hundreds have died and are dying prematurely due to penury and the inhuman conditions in the “migrant camps" in which they have been forced to live all these years. Those who did not join the mass exodus because they were too poor or too trusting are getting killed routinely, often in ones and twos, sometimes as entire families and clusters, as in Wandhama and Nadimarg.

Never mind the silence of the otherwise fiery self-appointed thekedars of “the Hindu Samaj”, where are the ‘human rightists’ and ‘secularists’ of our metros and media who beat their breasts over all kinds of issues and non-issues elsewhere in the country? Why are they silent over what is happening to fellow-Indians and particularly the minorities in Kashmir?

Never mind even this fashionably selective bunch of vocalists, what are the people at the helm doing, people who are duty bound and indeed pledged (and themselves heavily protected) to protect the people? They have proved to be past masters in mouthing inane rhetoric and feigning tough postures, but in terms of actually taking strong and meaningful measures it has been a dismal story of woolly thinking, perennial dithering and embarrassing timidity.

Look at their reaction to the latest terrorist outrage. The prime minister calls a special meeting of his Cabinet. And what does this meeting do? Warn Pakistan of retribution? Send more forces to Kashmir, or at least untie the hands of those already there? Order and ensure proper security in minority areas and pockets? No, they do none of this. They simply issue a statement condemning the massacre, and go home. Except the “iron man”.

Predictability enough, he makes the customary dash to the scene of the carnage. There, according to reports, while assuring the survivors of all help if they wish to quit the Valley he advises them against doing so because their departure would fulfil the Pakistani gameplan of cleansing Kashmir of its religious minorities. Remarkable insight, this, except that with the forced exit ten years ago of more than 95 percent of Kashmiri Pandits, this diabolical objective has already been more or less achieved. But the Home Minister wants the 9000-odd Pandits still there to stay put and defeat the terrorist design!

As an earnest of his own efforts towards that end, on his return Mr Advani summons a meeting of senior babus of his ministry, some military and intelligence officers and the (outgoing!) Governor and the (new) chief minister of Kashmir. The meeting decides to set up a special group to “study” the security situation in the state and submit a report urgently, that  is, in three months! By then presumably the Big Bosses in Washington should have wrapped up their own terror and killing game in Iraq and thus be free to tell us what to do or rather what we should continue not to do in Kashmir and especially against the military-mullah regime in Pakistan which may demonstrably be the fountainhead of subcontinental terrorism but which they have embraced as a “staunch ally” in their phony war against “terrorism anywhere and everywhere”!

So much for the concern and response of our “nationalist” national government. But what about the brand new state government of Mufti Mohammad Syed? Has Nadimarg altered his innocent views (to put it no differently) on how to deal with Jehadi terror and terrorists? Will he undo his hasty decision to disband the Special Operations Group which was doing no mean job of tracking down the Pakistani terrorists and their local agents? Will he review his plan to release jailed militants and secessionists and thereby stop sending wrong signals, even if unwittingly, to their godfathers across the border? Will he provide adequate security to the minorities? Will he ensure that the villages and urban pockets where they live will be guarded by policemen who don’t run away at the first sight of approaching terrorists? To my knowledge the Mufti didn’t say any of this. What he did say, according to newspaper reports, is that the Nadimarg massacre was aimed at discrediting his healing touch policy but he would continue to pursue it.

So, no matter what, it is going to be business as usual in this much-bloodied state. Like their predecessors since the late eighties, neither the old kneelers at the Centre nor the new healers in the state seem overly bothered about the continuing violence and bloodshed, much less about the ethnic cleansing, in Kashmir and the consequent destruction of its age-old democratic profile and social ethos, not to speak of the grave danger all this poses to the secular fabric and territorial integrity of the country.

Much as the Vajpayee government may celebrate its survival in office (for five years in three installments), the people who elected it with great expectations and over whom they rule so smugly are silently seething at the way it has ceded the sovereignty of thinking and decision-making on national issues and interests to extra-territorial powers, principally to the almighty in Washington, particularly on Kashmir and Pakistan.

Despite the string of disaster and humiliations as a result of this subservience, despite the proven treachery of the Americans, despite a series of rebuffs and admonitions (witness their latest arrogant warning to us not to do anything against their protege in Islamabad, and this within days of the Nadimarg massacre!), the Vajpayee regime continues to look to the superbully for help, advice and approval. How many more debacles in Kashmir, how many more deaths of Indian soldiers, how many more Nadimargs before self-respect, sense and reality down on our leaders?

*The author is a veteran journalist, based in Delhi. His writings on contemporary Kashmir have drawn wide appreciation.  

Previous

Index

Next