A major challenge ahead

The security situation in Jammu and Kashmir has gone from bad to worse since the last "surgical strike". We now hear about the Pakistan army's plan to train a new breed of radical jehadis for special offensives against India.

The country's establishment does not seem to have learnt much from the spate of terror strikes on military bases despite the fact that over 40 soldiers were killed and several others injured in a dozen such incidents in Jammu and Kashmir since 2014.
Even some of the social measures proposed by a triservice committee headed by retired Lt Gen Phillip Campose following the terror strike on the Pathankot air base in January 2016 remain to be implemented by the government.
In March 2015, there were two terror strikes in the region. On March 20, a fidayeen squad of militants in army fatigues stormed a police station in Kathua district killing seven persons. On November 27, 2014 three soldiers and four civilians were killed in a day-long encounter with militants at the border village of Kathaar in the Arnia sector, close to the international border of Jammu district.

mains of the father of Mohammad Iqbal Sheikh, an Indian army officer, who was killed in the militant attack on Sunjwan Army camp

In the Nagrota strike on November 29, 2016, a suicide strike squad targeted the army base killing seven personnel, including two officers. One can go on in details with the number of fidayeen attacks. But the moot question is: what answers the Modi government has for the deteriorating Kashmir situation as the terrorists from across the border are even getting help and support of home-bred militants.
According to official figures as many as 289 civilians, security forces and police personnel have been killed in the state due to militancy or law and order and border firing incidents from 2015 to 2017. Besides, 110 civilians and two police personnel were killed in 4,376 incidents of stone-throwing in the Valley in the same period.
Chief Minister Mahbooba Mufti has admitted in the state Assembly that the number of local Kashmiri youngsters joining terrorism has been steadily going up. She said that 126 local youth took to the gun in 2017, while the number was 88 in 2016 and 66 in 2015. The number of militants killed in 2017 was 212, the highest in seven years. However, what is worrying is a 44 per cent jump in locals taking up guns.
True, 363 militants were killed in the past two years. Of them 244 were non-local militants. In the past two years, 119 local militants were killed by the security forces during gunfights in the state. Of them, 86 local militants were killed in 2017.
Let us not get lost in the numbers game. The big challenge before the nation is: how to reverse the process ?
This proposition looks difficult since the three-year-old PDP-BJP alliance is under pulls and counter-pulls. Though the PDP and the BJP appear to be pulling apart, they seem "determined to stick out." No wonder, BJP general secretary Ram

Past blunders of Kashmir policy are certainly manifold. What is disquieting is that our leaders tend to go on adding to the blunders by repeating them periodically. The tragedy of the country is that most leaders indulge in big talks without fully grasping historical facts and changing ground realities. They formulate ideas, evolve concepts and air them publicly without examining their implications.

Madhav says, "the two parties are working in perfect tandem." Well, there are policy and functional contradictions galore, both in words and on the ground.
It is clear that the PDP-BJP stalemate will continue. As a senior PDP leader puts it, "the BJP won't take any steps, at least for another year. Their priority is (2019)Lok Sabha elections. We hope they find an issue other than Kashmir for their campaign." Otherwise, he fears, the situation will get worse on the ground to the advantage of the Hurriat and Paksponsorsed militants.
Amidst prevailing complexities, Dineshwar Sharma, a former IB chief, has a very limited scope for success in his peace mission.
The country has been paying a heavy price for the failures of our leadership. The question here is not of ifs and buts of history or of Jawaharlal Nehru vs Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, as Prime Minister Modi raised the issue recently by simplifying the post-partition history narration from his political angularity.
Past blunders of Kashmir policy are certainly manifold. What is disquieting is that our leaders tend to go on adding to the blunders by repeating them periodically. The tragedy of the country is that most leaders indulge in big talks without fully grasping historical facts and changing ground realities. They formulate ideas, evolve concepts and air them publicly without examining their implications.
Our security forces are doing their job admirably well within the set political framework. Problems are mainly political in nature. Take the case of filing of FIR against Major Aditya Kumar in the Shopian incident of stonepelting. General V P Malik (retired) has rightly said: "He was hit by a stone. To lodge an FIR against him is unacceptable and wrong. The FIR should be withdrawn", adding, "If a citizen has human rights, why not an army jawan or officers?" I agree with the General.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has restrained the J & K police from taking any 'coercive steps' against Army officers, including Major Aditya Kumar, in the Shopian firing case.
As far as Mahbooba Mufti is concerned, she is keeping her constituency of anti-India sentiments intact, to activate them, as and when required while keeping her alliance with the BJP going to keep the Centre virtually "on leash" on critical issues.
It is, of course, for the Prime Minister and his close team to view things in a larger national frame and apply the necessary correctives and salvage the situation. He is on test of history. If he acts firmly and decisively and puts the country on the right track, he would win the people's heart for his next poll battle. But if he allows vote bank politics and petty calculations to come in the way of his objective rational thinking, he will have a lot to answer to the countrymen.
The choice is grim. For, time does not solve problems. Political will can. If he means business, Modi has to act now on critical security challenges like destroying the Pakistanrun terrorists' training camps in PoK and across the border. The Prime Minister needs to appreciate the fact that tomorrows are shaped by today's bold steps and not by merely decrying past blunders of Congress leaders.
PM Modi has also to keep in mind that today's complex diplomacy cannot be conducted by 'no dialogue' postures. Nor can any problem be solved or simplified by dubbing 'differing voices' as anti-national. All that needs to be decided by South Block is how to go about the business of dialogue with Islamabad.
We know that the military calls the shots, and not the civilian government, in Pakistan. So, any dialogue without keeping the Generals in the loop would be a futile exercise.
This is not a prestige issue. Indian diplomacy vis-à-vis Pakistan has to be conducted keeping in view harsh ground realities of Islamabad.
Finally, I wish to state that any pro-active policy need not be a matter of public announcement. It has to be practised on the ground and seen in action. Mere rhetoric can hardly improve the security environment. This is common sense.

--Hari Jaisingh