100 killings in first 100 days, no killing in next 100 days

So, where does the fault lie?

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 21: For a change, rhymes have replaced the slogans in Kashmir. “khoon ka badla June mein lenge” (We’ll take revenge of all killings in June next) and “bootan sale, bab gau fail” (Enjoy the grand sale of shoes as the father has failed at last). This is the fun that keeps this valley of bloodletting alive for decades and centuries of unbroken jinx.

First one describes the despondency that has befallen droves of Kashmir’s stone-pelters who had discovered the battlefield of advantage on the streets in Srinagar this summer. It also denotes desperation among the urban e-Jihadis who had found free-to-all broadcast stations in YouTube and FaceBook. There’s of course a promise of June next but who doesn’t know it would have been January had the blood been ‘danwari’ or ‘kanwari’ in the Kashmiri or Urdu glossary.

The next rhyme indicates an uncanny sense of celebration among the sidewalk vendors who starved for 120 days of shutdown but are now back to a brisk business. Unmistakably ‘father’ in the stanza means the man whose calls of shutdown froze Valley all through the turbulence for five months. Everybody from the great Indian media to bureaucracy called him ‘The Ultimate’. Unlike the poor, diminutive street vendor, leech politicians fattening on the conflict are still in a state of coma. Elections alone can take them out of the slumber but they are far, far away.

The first mortality---rightfully put in the list of the ‘Police killings’--- happened in the death of 17-year-old Tufail Matoo on June the 11^th. The last political killing happened at Palhalan when Police and paramilitaries gunned down four civilians---demonstrators, stone pelters, attackers, whatever---on September 6^th. Later, one more of the injured died at a hospital. Next fortnight, 18 civilians and a Police constable died in firing and lynching on September 13^th but the primary subject of mobilization was neither Azadi nor an incident of human rights abuse by the ‘ruthless’ J&K Police or ‘Indian forces’. It indeed was a controversial act of blasphemy in USA that outraged the religious sentiment in Kashmir.

In an astonishingly sharp contrast to the bloody mayhem for five months across the summer, nobody on the Valley’s streets has died for Kashmir’s Azadi in the last over 100 days. Admittedly, nobody would make the mistake of concluding that peace had returned and the trouble was over for good.

But, what exactly did suddenly bring the thaw? Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s tantrum that Kashmir had ‘only acceded to, not merged into India’ ? Home Minister Chidambaram’s out-of-box confession that Kashmir was a “unique political problem that requires a unique political solution”? Srinagar visit of all-party Parliamentary delegation? Harnessing of a fresh team of three interlocutors who have failed to meet a single leader in the Valley’s separatist camp? Grabbing of nearly entire media attention by Commonwealth Games and 2G scams?

Has the UPA government at the Centre revived the dialogue process with Pakistan and the Hurriyat that the J&K Chief Minister believed had led to the crisis in post-2008 Kashmir? Has the United Jihad Council and Hizbul Mujahideen been engaged in a political process? Has the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) been revoked and the 700,000 troops withdrawn from Kashmir? Or, has acquisition of non-lethal pump action guns and ammunition snatched away the separatists’ advantage of having killings in singles and doubles in all street demonstrations?

Those who justified participation of hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris in elections 18 years after the outbreak of movement with the argument of “sadak, bijli, paani”, are now asserting that the Kashmiris are “simply fatigued” after months of ‘repression from Police”. Earlier, they used to rouse the stone pelters with the epic reference of 1,000 years of war. Could detention of 400-odd youngsters really restore calm in a week’s time? Has Omar overnight removed the “governance deficit” from his government that used to be the staple refrain of many from PDP in Srinagar to the Cabinet Committee on Security in New Delhi?

If none of the above is right, one may be left with the last contention that Bill Clinton’s visit consumed 35 Sikhs in 2000 and BURAQ HUSSAIN Obama’s three-times more in 2010. Faiz had said in the middle of last century: “sheeshoon kaa Maseeha koyee nahi, kyon aas lagaye bethe hau?”

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