Violence in Kashmir :No end in sight
EVERY date to have inspired hope that the cycle of protest in the Kashmir valley might be about to end has instead proved to mark another intensification in the unrest. It was hoped that by the beginning of Ramadan, families would have had enough of living in a state of siege. Since the protests began in June life in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has been disrupted most days by hartals, or strikes, called by anti-Indian separatists and by government-imposed curfews that have shut shops, schools and public buildings. But the movement kept going unabated through the fasting month. Then optimists looked to the Eid festival at the end of Ramadan as a potential turning-point.
So it has proved, but only for the worse. In the bloodiest encounters since the stone-throwing protests against Indian rule began, at least 19 people have been killed. They included a policeman, run over by a lorry, the first member of the security forces to have died in the unrest. About 90 Kashmiris, some of them very young, have been killed.
In a big protest march, some government buildings were set ablaze. The police have accused a separatist leader, Umar Farooq, the Mirwaiz, or hereditary spiritual leader of the valley's Sunni Muslims, of inciting the arson and violence. The Mirwaiz, who is known as a moderate, has denied it, and blamed Indian agents provocateurs. His harder-line rival Syed Shah Geelani, now 81, has come to his defence. One feature of the recent protests is the unity they have forged between the many frequently feuding anti-India factions in the valley.
The latest protests have two new, linked elements. The first is that they were partly prompted by outside events. Up to now, the Kashmiri protests have been self-perpetuating—every time a clash led to a death, it would provoke a new protest. This time one factor was a report of the desecration of the Koran in America. India has banned broadcasts from the Iranian television station that spread the story.
The second is the sectarian cast to some of the violence. A Christian-run school was attacked; and a crowd was stopped from attacking a church. Many Kashmiris pride themselves on the syncretic generosity of the valley's Sufi-influenced Islam. But in recent years less tolerant strains of the religion have made ground.
India's government still seems at a loss as to how to respond. The local chief minister, Omar Abdullah, has appealed for the lifting of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, a self-explanatory, draconian and much-detested piece of legislation in force in 14 of J&K's 22 districts, from four districts in the valley. The army, however, is adamantly opposed to this, as is the main federal opposition party, the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. A cabinet security meeting ducked making a decision, so the law remains in effect.
This will fuel the resentment of many Kashmiris who see the 500,000 or more Indian troops in Kashmir as a force to be feared rather than trusted. Unverified video footage apparently showing detained Kashmiris being stripped and humiliated has been removed from YouTube and other sites. But, as Amnesty International has pointed out, it will do little for India's image in Kashmir that its police seem more interested in finding who was guilty of uploading the footage than in investigating its authenticity and contemplating action against the paramilitaries apparently involved.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2010/09/violence_intensifies_kashmir
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