Fresh Wave of Targeted Killings in the Kashmir Valley
By Manik Arora and Mritunjai
On May 12, 2022, the Kashmir Valley witnessed the killing of a Kashmiri Pandit employee in the local Land Registration Office with two militant gunmen opening fire upon him within his office premises.
The killing has since snowballed into an ominous trend with nine civilians, including a Hindu school teacher from Jammu and a bank manager from Rajasthan, falling prey to this militancy in the past month. Many fear this will usher in a fresh wave of violence akin to the mass exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit and Hindu community from the Valley in the 1990s.
In the two decades following this exodus, a concerted effort was made by the Indian Government to rehabilitate the Pandit community with a special economic package being rolled out for this purpose in 2008. The package, among many things, envisaged giving 6,000 jobs to migrants and creating additional posts; as of now, 5,928 persons have been employed.
Thus, the recent spurt in violence signifies a sudden break from the established fragile peace of the region. The causes for this desecration can be traced back to a change in outlook towards the valley by the Union Government since 2014, wherein the previous administration’s diplomatic approach was substituted with a more hostile ‘iron fist’ approach towards separatists. The abrogation of Article 370 which accorded special provisions for governing the region could be seen as the culmination of this approach. This abrogation led to a disintegration of the valley’s local administration and cessation of control directly to the Government of India. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act of 2019 has converted the State into a Union Territory to be directly administered by the Central Government. This has resulted in a major void of power and leadership as well as allowed separatist and anti-government narratives to flourish, providing an open door for Pakistan-backed militancy to fill this void. The same can be witnessed through the rise of militancy with Indian Security Forces killing 118 militants from January to May this year, twice the number compared to the same period in 2021. This is coupled with ex-Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) Chief A.S. Dulat’s belief that there exists a professional independent terror cell directly linking Pakistan to the city of Srinagar.
Another key consequence of the abrogation has been an upheaval of demographics in the valley. As India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir has always been extremely sensitive regarding its demographics, especially in the Kashmir Valley. This is witnessed through the repeal of the controversial Roshni Act of 2001 which gave ownership to people in possession of state land, with a cut-off date of 1990 (later relaxed to 2004) as against a payment determined by the government. This resulted in 30,000 cases of land transfer in the state government order, out of which over 25,000 cases of land procurement were from the Hindu majority Jammu, and only 4,500 from Kashmir.
Another illustration of the demographic sensitivity of the region is the protests against gerrymandering of the Hindu and Tribal majority Rajouri/Pooch districts with the Muslim majority Anantnag district. Similarly, the provision of six additional Legislative Assembly seats to the Jammu Region, as opposed to a mere one for the more populous Kashmir Valley, by a Delimitation Commission set up by the Government of India demonstrates the importance accorded to the population in decision-making in India.
It is for this reason that the demographic refashioning consequent to the abrogation has been particularly unwelcome. This modification has included the provision of domicile certificates to non-natives of the State who have resided in Jammu and Kashmir for 15 years. In fact, Satpal Nischal, the man believed to be the very first recipient of such a certificate, was shot dead mere weeks after receiving it in an attack claimed by The Resistance Front terror group.
Protests have also erupted due to the linking of the Anantnag Rajouri district of South Kashmir directly to the border with Pakistan by the Delimitation Commission, which created a South Kashmir-controlled political domain. A new online portal was also established by the Union Government providing a means through which abandoned property in the valley can be claimed.
The situation in the Valley bears an eerie resemblance to the peak of the conflict in the 1990s and that is why the Government of India cannot allow history to repeat itself. The hostile approach to separatism has backfired and the revamp of the region's sensitive demographics has been met with resistance. The Indian government must borrow a page from its international counterparts looking to engage with hostile forces—such as the United States administration negotiating with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan—and look to reason with separatist forces in order to bring security back to Kashmir.
Faith in the Union Government is at an all-time low in Indian-administered Kashmir, reflected in the results of the first local body elections conducted in the now Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Despite turnout as low as 7.4% in some parts of the valley, there was an overwhelming rejection of the Central Government’s agenda with the ruling party facing a landslide defeat to a coalition of Jammu and Kashmir Political Parties known as The People's Alliance for a Gupkar Declaration.
The Union Government must make concentrated efforts to win over trust in the Union Territory, and to do so it must engage diplomatically with all parties involved in the conflict. The two decades of relative peace in the Valley following the exodus saw the then-Union administration bring separatists who were not averse to dialogue, such as Yasin Malik, to the negotiating table resulting in far lower numbers of militancy compared to recent years. Instances of militancy reached 1667 in 2006, which had fallen to just 24 up to March 2014. Far from negotiating with these elements, the policy of the current administration has included the conviction of influences such as Malik.
The Government needs to take small steps to chip away at the resentment it has garnered in the region, and thus should look to include Kashmir further into the Indian cultural fold. A spring in the Valley’s economy with the establishment of infrastructure projects, such as national educational institutions and recreational facilities such as multiplexes, would be a welcome start.
This would also help indulge the Kashmiri youth and steer them clear of falling for separatist narratives. The provision of multi-fold economic opportunities will supersede the temptation for rebellion and could prove to be the exact ingredient for integration that the administration is searching for.
The authors, Manik Arora and Mritunjai, are penultimate year law students at Symbiosis Law School, Pune. The two are enthusiasts of Human Rights Law, Legal Theory, and International Relations and hold an expertise in Public International Law. Their educational experience includes participation in prestigious Moot Court Competitions such as the IBA ICC Moot Court Competition and the Oxford Price Media Moot Court Competition as well as extensive research in the aforementioned fields. The authors are open to academic collaborations and may be contacted at: 19010126030@symlaw.ac.in and 19010126131@symlaw.ac.in for Manik and Mritunjai respectively.
Kashmir Unrest is by is by Kashmir Global and is licensed under CC BY 2.0
