Situation in Kashmir

The claim of the union government that the revocation of Article 370 has done immense good for the promotion of the welfare of the Kashmiris, needs to be seriously scrutinised. The Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 is used to thwart the peaceful protests of the Kashmiris and, of late, the administration in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), is working in tandem with the union to stymie any protests. The People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration has stressed the need for a cautious approach in handling protestors and any violation of the same may lead to a crisis situation. It should be understood that there can never be a military solution to the agony of the Kashmiris. In 2022, although the number of deaths of the militants has increased, the fact of the matter is that there is a steady inflow of militants’ ranks from across the border. After the revocation of Article 370 in J&K, the crisis has turned into a catastrophe. There is a deep freeze, literally, in Kashmir with the heavy-handed implementation of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act. It is high time that there should be a true, real and honest appraisal of the evolution of the root cause of the militancy in Kashmir.

Kashmiri Pandits are paying the price for being the political chessboard of the ruling regime’s calculus in their bid to promote their agenda. Kashmiri Pandits were promised the moon, but what is happening is mainly due to the making of the disastrous policy of the union and the state. The increasing tendency of the militants to target Pandits is to create a sense of uneasiness and more and more of them are fleeing from the Kashmir Valley. Although the present situation in Kashmir is rather bleak, the onus is on the centre and the union territory of J&K to break the present uncertainty, if not the impasse and there should be an inclusive approach to break the deep uneasiness at the present status of coercive measures against the masses in the name of targeting the militants. Moreover, official encouragement to the movies like The Kashmir Files which has actually created a false narrative by abusing the movie-making at a time of high volatility prevailing in the Valley, may aggravate the already fluid situation.