India and the world need Kashmir resolved

SRINAGAR, India // Writing last week in a popular Indian newsweekly, Michael Scheuer, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief, warned India against “doing an America” following the Mumbai attack. He advised New Delhi to be firm with Pakistan, take responsibility and turn northwards.

“The Kashmir issue clearly incites Pakistani and Indian Islamists, as well as those associated with or inspired by al Qa’eda,” Mr Scheuer wrote. “Whether those Islamists are right or wrong is irrelevant. India’s positions on and actions in Kashmir motivates them.”

Since its disputed accession to India in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought three wars over this predominantly Muslim region of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. A bloody insurgency against Indian rule began in 1989, leading to more than 60,000 dead yet little progress regarding the territorial tug-of-war.

After the Mumbai attacks, analysts and observers from Washington to Waziristan have suggested ways to cut the Gordian knot that both binds and repels India and Pakistan. Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terrorist group and the prime suspect in the Mumbai attacks, sprung from the Kashmir dispute, along with about a dozen militant groups – a handful of which the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies have armed as part of a death-by-a-thousand-cuts policy against India.

Some advisers to US president-elect Barack Obama argue that solving Kashmir will help solve Pakistani terrorism. Others warn against such simplistic reasoning. But Mr Scheuer distills the point down to its essence: India’s stance in Kashmir incites Islamist terrorists. Their al Qa’eda-style insurrection threatens to rock the foundations of the Indian state, to topple Pakistan and Afghanistan and endanger western targets as well.

If the world’s terrorism nexus is Pakistan, its roots lie in this lush, war-torn Himalayan valley, which may be more ripe for resolution than at any moment in recent memory. Violence has plummeted, dropping steadily every year since 2001. Although still only a trickle, travel and trade between the two sides of Kashmir – Indian and Pakistani – have further reduced tensions. And last summer, mass pro-freedom marches outlined a new movement of Gandhian non-violence, less hard line and perhaps open to dialogue.

Finally, over the past month Kashmiris have turned out impressively for state assembly elections – double, even triple the 2002 turnout in some districts – suggesting that many have moved beyond their tired separatist leadership and are amenable to a lesser, more India-friendly form of freedom.

Further afield the outlook is also bright. Both houses of the US Congress passed resolutions urging Pakistan to root out extremist groups and prevent its territory from being used to launch attacks. The UN Security Council has banned the Lashkar front, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and is applying strong pressure on Pakistan to crack down on terrorism. And the incoming Obama administration has hinted at a regional approach to Afghanistan that will include resolving Kashmir as a crucial element of ensuring Pakistani military support.

India could use this domestic and international consensus as leverage to pressure Pakistan – not only to root out terrorism, but to hack at the roots of regional terrorism by moving towards a resolution on Kashmir. Yet presented with this golden opportunity, India has buried its head in the sand.

“The attack on Mumbai has nothing to do with India-Pakistan relations or with Kashmir,” the Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said at a press conference in Srinagar last week.

As the dispute’s more powerful party, India has long been satisfied with the status quo and has therefore seen little reason to allow international intervention or to negotiate openly with Pakistan. But after the devastating attack on Mumbai, the Indian state must realize that the Kashmir dispute is no longer a stable, self-serving stalemate but a malignant tumor. Both parties now have an urgent interest in finding a resolution; India and its people will gain security, as will Pakistan and the world beyond.

Led by Asif Ali Zardari, the president, Pakistan’s democratic government has acknowledged that the greatest threat to its integrity is not India but locally based, state-supported terrorism outfits. The jailing of dozens of alleged terrorists and a ban on Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a good start. But the real test will be the Pakistani military, which has controlled the levers of power and wielded terrorism as a proxy for decades. Its leadership may be getting the message as well.

“The civilian and military leadership has to do some serious introspection about the cost-benefit ratio of these outdated and failed policies,” Talat Masood, a retired lieutenant-general in the Pakistan army, wrote in the Daily Times last week.

“Has Pakistan come any closer to achieving its objectives in Jammu and Kashmir by supporting militancy and proxies?” he asked. “The best option for Pakistan is to strictly confine its support to the Kashmir cause to the political and diplomatic domain.”

Kashmiris widely cheered the election of Mr Obama as the next US president, perhaps with good reason. At the urging of advisers like Mr Scheuer and a soon-to-be-published report from Gen David Petreaus, the architect of the Iraqi surge now overseeing the war in Afghanistan, the Obama administration is likely to prod India and Pakistan to come to the negotiating table on Kashmir – with or without international assistance. Considering the grave threat exposed by the Mumbai attack and the golden opportunity before it, New Delhi would be wise to heed the call.


-- published Dec 21 in The National, www.thenational.ae.

Kashmiris Hope for Christmas Poll Gift

Srinigar // Waiting for Santa Claus will be particularly excruciating for Kashmiris this year.

After Wednesday’s vote, Kashmir has gone to the polls six times since mid-November, and six times they have turned out impressively. The seventh and final vote – on Christmas Eve here in the state’s winter capital – will put a new state government in place, bring an unsettled populace into focus and perhaps put an end to a virulent yet non-violent pro-freedom movement that seemed to trouble New Delhi more than militancy.

Since a bloody insurgency against Indian rule began in 1989, more than 60,000 have died in this landlocked and predominantly Muslim region of Jammu and Kashmir state. Violence has slowed in recent years as more than half a million Indian troops have imposed New Delhi’s will.

Yet when blockaded roads threatened local traders during a land row late last summer, hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris thronged the streets in a furious mass catharsis – releasing almost two decades of frustration and rage with chanting, dancing and the crying of pro-freedom slogans.

The central government banned the marches, beefed up security and called for snap elections. Although separatists say voting strengthens New Delhi’s hand, turnout in the early phases of polling hit nearly 70 per cent in some districts and has remained high despite daytime curfews, occasional police clashes and ubiquitous checkpoints on polling days.

The ground has shifted in Kashmir, but exactly how remains unclear.

“Everything has changed,” said Malik Sajad, 21, a student and political cartoonist for the valley’s leading daily newspaper. “That time you had people on the road. Now there are troops, and people are either inside or getting beat – I feel my childhood days are returned.”

Some of the 1990s danger has returned – security forces killed two commanders of militant group Hizb-ul-Mujihadeen in a shoot-out on Wednesday – even as voters went to the polls. In embracing Indian democracy and turning against what so many demanded so vocally so recently, have Kashmiris betrayed themselves?

“People going back and forth, protesting and voting, is not unprecedented in Kashmir,” said Zarief Ahmad Shah, a political analyst and retired government servant, citing historical antecedents in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Pointing to the continued presence of hundreds of thousands of Indian troops and the poor strategies of the separatist leaders, he said: “People are confused, not sure of what they want.”

Individuals seemed sure during Wednesday’s polling, as south Kashmir’s hilly Anantnag district saw 57 per cent turnout in a chilly drizzle. Kashmiris as a group, however, did not.

“We don’t have schools, good roads or a hospital, and there is unemployment,” said Khaleda Sheikh, a 37-year-old mother of two, while waiting to vote in the riverside village of Kashiteng Zarpara. “The government will help us.”

At a polling place a few kilometres away in the village of Kanalwan, a group of men had another perspective.

“We are voting so that they solve the Kashmir issue,” 58-year-old farmer Haji Mohammed Abdullah Shah said to murmurs of approval. “All this other stuff – roads, education, jobs – that’s nothing. This is about solving Kashmir.”

Queueing to vote nearby, Ghulam Nabi Karchoo explained. “There are several types of azaadi,” said the 45-year-old father of four, using the local word for independence. “There’s complete independence, but there’s also the ability to move freely, to cross borders and not deal with so much security.”

Others believe the quest for azaadi must remain pure. Outside a polling station in Anantnag, the district capital, several dozen men gathered to protest the elections.

“People in the government are puppets, and the strings are in Delhi,” said Mohammed Asim, 26, a computer engineer sporting sunglasses, a long beard and a black, leather jacket. He was surrounded by a group of agitated men. Some had voted, but they broke into anti-India chants at the slightest urging.

“These people who are voting – they don’t realise what they are doing,” said Mr Asim, a supporter of hard-line separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. “Voting gives India the power to say we are with them.”

The accuracy of that stance will be tested with the final vote in Srinagar, which represents a fifth of the valley’s five million population. Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, a key separatist politician and religious leader, has called for a boycott and pro-freedom march.

Shops will be shut, streets will be silent and security forces will patrol the city. Turn out is expected to be low, between 15 per cent and 30 per cent.

“The results of these elections don’t mean anything,” said Mr. Shah, the political analyst. Their apparent success, however, “is a big blow for separatists”, he said.

“If people lose heart, India has won.”

The city’s urbane youth are aware of greater international scrutiny post-Mumbai; familiar with popular YouTube videos such as “Bleeding India”, which depicts the deaths of several young Kashmiris at the hands of security forces; and frustrated by restrictive government dictates, such as a ban on text messaging, ongoing since July.

They were also at the head of the nonviolent campaign for self-determination this year.

“I don’t think I will vote because there is nobody who can represent us,” said Mr Sajad, the cartoonist. “I don’t think the protests are over. They will be over only when the government starts listening.”

For many, such meaningful dialogue is a long way off.

“The protests sent the message that we will accept nothing less than independence,” said Mr Asim, the Anantnag computer engineer.

“Are we willing to embrace violence again? We don’t want to, but if that’s the only way.”

Mr Asim raised his eyebrows. The men around him began nodding their heads.


-- published in The National, www.thenational.ae, on Dec 19.

Ideals collide in Kashmiri elections

Patelbagh, India // Asadullah Bhat is no stranger to polls, but he is not sure why he keeps coming back.

“My wishes have not been met, change has not taken place,” the 45-year-old paddy farmer said while waiting to vote for the seventh time in 25 years, all in this village a few dozen kilometres south-west of Srinagar. “But we have to vote because the government will be formed either way – so I keep hoping.”

Voters in parts of Kashmir went to the polls amid heavy security on Saturday in the fifth phase of staggered elections to choose the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly. Protests and deadly violence flared and accusations of vote-rigging flew as the people of this war-torn Himalayan valley continued their conflicted duet with Indian democracy.

The predominantly Muslim region has been gripped by conflict since 1989 when separatists took up the gun against India. About 60,000 have died and although violence has slowed in recent years, separatists see elections as a show of fealty towards New Delhi.

Yet turnout in the early phases of polling had reached nearly 70 per cent in some districts. Though numbers have begun to droop as voting moves into less India-friendly regions, Saturday’s results – nearly 50 per cent turnout in two Kashmir districts – represent significant increases from the previous elections in 2002.

Observers see an emerging line of thinking that separates independence from day-to-day governance.

“Why not delink voting from azaadi?” said Shabir Hussain, editor and publisher of a local daily, Kashmir Newsline, using the Urdu word for independence. “Unless we make ourselves a party to these elections, India will continue to thrust jokers and tricksters upon us. We have to consider what kind of damage we are doing to ourselves.”

That damage has been visible throughout the elections — in beefed up security across the valley, in empty streets every Friday and every polling day as bands of Indian troops enforce daytime curfews and in violent flashes from police, who beat up a handful of journalists attempting to cover an anti-election rally on the previous day of polling, Dec 7.

Kashmir election days rarely pass without trouble. On Saturday an early morning protest in Koil village escalated to stone throwing, prodding security forces to open fire – killing a 21-year-old student and injuring two others.

Yet thousands of Kashmiris stood in slow moving lines under cloudy skies to make their mark. Their differing voices revealed the complexity of Kashmir.

Saba Settar, 18, was idealistic about her first vote. “I hope I can choose a candidate who will solve our problems,” said the Pampore resident.

Ms Settar placed education before independence, saying “of first importance is our future”.

Naseer Ahmad, 22, a university student, participated in the mass anti-India protests this year but saw no contradiction in voting.

“I support independence first, but I also vote,” he said, queuing up with friends in Pampore. “We can’t let Jammu get all the government attention.”

In Patelbagh village, Abdul Rahim Yattoo, 70, a farmer, seemed to contradict himself.

“I don’t want all our men that have been killed in the last 20 years to have died in vain, so I want azaadi,” he said. “But I’m happy with India, so I’m voting.”

In traditionally separatist Shopian and Tral, locals are less happy. Several dozen young men chant anti-India slogans outside a Shopian town polling place. Inside, a Congress party poll minder was roughly ejected after accusing an opponent of helping burqa-wearing women to vote twice.

In the village of Nikas, near Shopian, villagers said soldiers had come the previous night and urged them to visit the polls. By noon Saturday voting stood at 12 per cent.

“This is democracy, we have the right to boycott,” said Arshad Hussain, a Nikas resident who did not vote. The 28-year-old is unemployed despite a master’s degree in history from Kashmir University. “India is taking only our blood, not giving anything in return.”

Yesterday, Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, spoke of giving back at a Congress party campaign rally near Shangas, in Anantnag district, which will vote on Wednesday. He announced a reconstruction programme of 26 billion Indian rupees (Dh1.97bn), along with planned power projects, roads and colleges.

“Autonomy and self-rule is also possible if the Congress is brought back to power,” he told a crowd of less than 1,000 supporters. Mr Singh congratulated Kashmir for its participation in the elections, saying “this proves that you have full faith in democracy”.

Mr Hussain, the Nikas resident, foresaw a dark future. “People are not joining together, taking one line,” he said. “Sometime they are with India, sometime azaadi.”

Mr Bhat, the Patelbagh paddy farmer, may have hit on why.

“The mainstream politicians cheat people and among the separatists there are no good leaders,” he said. “[Politicians’] children are studying in another country, in the US, but look at ours — they have no education, no future. What kind of leadership is that?”


-- published in The National, www.thenational.ae, on Dec 15.

These Jokers Are Serious

India's terror tally: 6 days. 58 bombs. 3 cities. 53 dead.

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Just before he kills his victims the villain of The Dark Knight, this summer's white hot Hollywood blockbuster, likes to ask them a question: "Why so serious?" The Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger, does not expect an answer. But as the victims realize the end is near, he relishes their rising fear – it suggests they hadn't been taking him seriously enough.

The terrorists who set off dozens of bombs in Bangalore and Ahmedebad last weekend and scattered handfuls more around the Gujarat port city of Surat seek a similar response. As with the Joker, the horrors have come rapid-fire, yet each has lingered longer than the last. Bangalore's eight blasts occurred over 15 minutes, killing 2. In Ahmedebad the 21 explosions took more than an hour, and have now killed 51. Surat residents discovered 21 slow-ticking bombs across the city over a period of nearly 30 hours.

A few of the Surat bombs were found in public garbage cans. One was placed behind a hoarding under a traffic flyover. Another had been secured in a low-hanging tree branch. Nobody knew where or when the next might appear, or whether it might reveal itself more rudely than the others. Was that part of the plan? Unsure whether the bombs were intended to explode, the police have theorized that they may have been a distraction, or a test to measure response times. Whatever the case, Surat may have been saved from physical damage but by all accounts the city is psychologically shattered.

Ahmedabad, too, has been scarred. Monday commuters leaped from a smoking city bus, later found to be suffering from an overheated engine. In the Ghodasar neighborhood an unclaimed tiffin prodded locals to call the police, whose investigations revealed the offending lunch case had been forgotten by a young boy. Residents have been phoning in false bomb alarms and mental health professionals in both cities report a spike in anxiety and stress disorders.

A Joker-like strategy of inciting fear is not the only cinematic homage hidden in this week's terror. The pattern of the Ahmedebad blasts closely follow the Bollywood film Contract, which arrived in local cinemas the previous week. In the movie a terrorist leader details his plan for a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai, followed an hour later with several blasts at city hospitals. The Ahmedebad bombs followed this very outline – with an extended first round of strikes followed by blasts at two major area hospitals, with the latter doing the lion's share of harm and ratcheting up the horror.

Dozens of analysts have outlined detailed policy proposals on the editorial pages of India's daily newspapers. Most cite the need for a unified central intelligence agency and various multi-pronged initiatives intended to redouble surveillance and security, increase Muslim development and foster community awareness.

Fine ideas all, but we should first grapple with what we are facing. These terrorists have three objectives: to incite widespread fear and make over a billion Indians ill at ease; to throw a wrench in India's widely lauded economic progress, its rise to superpower status; and finally, to sew religious enmity, particularly between Hindus and Muslims.

On the first score their success has been obvious and widespread. The fear has even reached Delhi, where the Japanese embassy was evacuated and shuttered Wednesday after receiving an anonymous bomb threat via email, and the southern state of Kerala, where a bomb-warning phone call panicked police.

On the second point the bad guys have made decent headway. Bangalore is a global IT hub. Ahmedabad is one of India's leading manufacturing centers. Surat operates one of the country's biggest and busiest ports. All three are now less attractive to local and international investors and businesses. Foreign trepidation has already risen its head; Japan recently warned its citizens about traveling in India. And in an email from Indian Muhajideen received minutes before the Ahmedabad blasts began, the attackers put leading businessman Mukesh Ambani and four major Muslim film stars in their crosshairs. These targets are well chosen; India's global profile has grown due in large part to its business dynasties – with the Ambanis, Tatas, and Birlas in the vanguard – and Bollywood celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan.

The third and most combustible objective has not yet come to pass, despite the seeming efforts of the opposition BJP. Party leaders have called the ruling UPA government "soft on terror," and a spokesperson said the problem "requires a Kashmir-type operation to tackle terrorism and root out the outfits supporting it." Strange choice of model, because India's war against a Pakistan-backed insurgency there has droned on for nearly two decades and resulted in some 50,000 dead. Further, this week the BJP urged residents of Jammu, the state's predominantly Hindu winter capital, to create a blockade in order to keep crucial goods such as meat, vegetables and dairy products from reaching the mostly Muslim Kashmir Valley. This in a region rife with long-simmering religious tensions.

The Dark Knight climaxes with the Joker's most insidious stunt. Two ferries – one full of criminals, the other full of law-abiding Gotham citizens – have been wired to explode. The Joker gives each boat a detonator for the bombs on the other boat, then gleefully announces to all passengers that if neither pushes their button for 30 minutes, both boats will blow. It's a moral dilemma, a deadly game of chicken, and Gothamites find it in themselves to stay calm and embrace life.

Can India do the same, or will its impressive progress be stalled by fear and communal rage? A good question, and just cause to get serious.

-- published in Aug 4 Tehelka, an Indian newsweekly.

Up From The Ashes

SRINIGAR, INDIA: Surging China is a dragon, roaring India a tiger. But what is Rising Kashmir? It's a sleek new daily newspaper, for one, launched here last Monday with all the pomp of the latest Apple gadget. Despite predictable jeers, the hopeful moniker might apply.

For 18 years this emerald-green Himalayan valley has been ravaged by fierce conflict between the Indian Army and independence-seeking insurgents, resulting in over 50,000 dead. But the uprising lost steam last year, with a third fewer violent incidents leading to 777 conflict-related deaths, a steep drop from the 4500 of six years prior. Indian authorities estimate only 450 insurgents remain, down from about 4000 a decade ago. And that number is dwindling as nearly every week a few haggard militants clamber down from mountain redoubts to surrender for lack of manpower and funding.

Meanwhile the siren song of progress has gained voice. Protest marches remain frequent, but these days locals cry for development as much as azaadi, or independence. Just last week hundreds of road transport employees demonstrated for increased wages and benefits and dozens of doctors marched for enhanced security and better-trained assistants. Both won a measure of success.

Kashmir's economic growth – 6 % and gaining speed – is slower than that of broader India but impressive for a disputed region. “The change is quite obvious and visible,” says Kashmir University Business Professor S. Fayaz Ahmad. High-profile national banks HDFC and ICICI recently opened Srinagar branches. Sleek mobile phone shops have popped up in the central business district. Construction of commercial complexes as well as overpasses and apartments has real estate prices soaring. A 500 sq. ft. space along increasingly posh Residency Road now sells for $250,000, about 80 times what it cost before the violence flared and double the rate of just a few years back. With its hopeful new flying-dove logo, the J&K (Jammu & Kashmir) Bank is the flagship of the local economy and one of India’s fastest growing financial institutions. Its $75m profit through three-fourths of fiscal 2008 points toward 35 % annual growth.

For students, the lure of lucre has overtaken the appeal of militancy. Prof. Ahmad points to a sudden keen interest in business courses, and with good reason. The first graduating class of KU’s popular new two-year Master's in Finance course recently passed out with 100 % high-level job placement, against 10 % for all graduates.

For aid and development organizations the region is safer and more responsive. NGO's Save the Children and Action Aid India ramped up their local efforts last year and the Asian Development Bank recently began a $250m Valley-wide infrastructure rehabilitation program.

For outsiders Kashmir is a paradise reborn. A 1970’s Bollywood film was not complete without a giddy duet set against a vertiginous Kashmiri backdrop. But Indian filmmakers shunned the Valley during the conflict – only two major productions visited from 1989 to 2003. Now Bollywood is returning, with five films shot locally since 2004 and more in the works. Perhaps consequently, Kashmir welcomed nearly 420,000 tourists in 2007, the highest total in nearly twenty years. In Kashmir, tourism is the tide that lifts all boats. Lodgings, restaurants and handicrafts all feel the boon, and a gorgeous early spring points toward a banner 2008.

One boat may be taking on water. The livelihoods of thousands of locals are under threat as India’s Geographical Indications Registry debates whether to award Kashmir sole ownership of the pashmina brand. Sheared from the downy coats of Himalayan mountain goats, the impossibly soft fabric originated in Kashmir and is now among the world’s most coveted. With increased global demand over the past decade -- annual sales now approach $125m – production has proliferated. Pashmina is made across the Line of Control in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, as well as in New Zealand, Nepal, and China, often with automated machines that undercut the time-consuming labor of Kashmir’s expert hand-weavers. Without a Kashmir-specific patent a significant segment of the local economy remains under threat.

Local spirits seem unbowed. Rising Kashmir, that new daily, flew off newsstands this week; several downtown hawkers were sold out by noon. Could be a passing fancy, like many signs of progress here. Could also be a phoenix taking wing.

-- sold to Economist in April 2008.