This article looks at the essential conditions for a durable peace in Kashmir and argues that the Valley has been most peaceful only during an active, on-going peace process. The lack of effective and continuous engagement with key stakeholders, especially the people of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), has fostered a sense of deep alienation and enduring distrust. It further argues that counterinsurgency operations need to be simultaneously augmented by an active peace process engaging all stakeholders.
On 8 July 2016, a group of soldiers and policemen surrounded a house in Bumdoora village of south Kashmir. As search of the house started, one policeman was fired at and injured. By the time the encounter ended three terrorists had been killed; one of them was Burhan Wani, a Hizbul Mujahideen leader. Following the killing, Kashmir erupted in a wave of protests.
The distancing of every segment of Kashmiri politics, population and even separatists from the Amarnath pilgrim attack is a clear indication of anger and frustration building up against senseless acts of terrorism.
The growing vilification of the Kashmiri movement by Salafi-Jihadi terror groups is a part of their overt radicalization attempts aimed at hijacking the sub-nationalist insurgency.
The only way forward for India, therefore, is to decouple the Kashmir issue from that of Pakistan, and address the internal aspects: Kashmir's development, unsettled political issues, healing the wounds and alienation of the youth, promptly.
Since 1947, the protracted issue of Kashmir has predominantly underpinned the subcontinent’s security discourse having dictated the trajectory of unsettling ties between India and Pakistan. As old as India’s independence from British rule and the consequent creation of Pakistan in 1947, the Kashmir issue is rooted in the indecisive phase preceding Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) formal accession to India.
It is essential that the dialogue process continues and additional steps are taken to resolve the deep sense of alienation presently prevailing among the civil society in the Kashmir Valley.
Are we witnessing the last gasp of terrorism in Kashmir?
The distancing of every segment of Kashmiri politics, population and even separatists from the Amarnath pilgrim attack is a clear indication of anger and frustration building up against senseless acts of terrorism.