Kashmir: Pacified But Not at Peace

On August 5, 2019, the Indian government abrogated Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, thereby stripping Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) of its special status and revoking its autonomy. The erstwhile state was bifurcated into two entities, J&K and Ladakh, which were made union territories and brought under New Delhi’s direct control.

Nullifying J&K’s special status has been a key item on the agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fount of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for decades. When the BJP returned to power in May 2019 with a massive majority in Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi acted swiftly to abrogate Article 370.

Anticipating violent protests in the restive Kashmir Valley, the Modi government detained Kashmiri political leaders and brought in tens of thousands of additional troops in the run-up to the announcement.

For months thereafter, Kashmir was under a brutal lockdown. Thousands of activists and civilians were rounded up and thrown into jail; telephone and internet services were suspended; and scores of journalists were harassed and threatened with dire consequences.

Two years later, New Delhi has stamped out the protests. A sullen silence pervades the Kashmir Valley. Badly battered by police crackdowns (and then by COVID-19 lockdowns), Kashmir is quiet, but far from calm. Alienation from the Indian state has never been more intense.

So what has the Modi government achieved since it abrogated Kashmir’s autonomy two years ago?

The move to fully integrate J&K into India evoked jubilation outside of Kashmir, boosting support for the BJP and the popularity of Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah in the rest of India.

But otherwise, the Modi-Shah gameplan for Kashmir does not seem to have gone according to their script.

Kashmir’s politicians were placed under house arrest for months on end, several of them under the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA). They were vilified and blamed for all of Kashmir’s problems. Kashmir’s political dynasties – the Abdullahs of the National Conference (NC) and Muftis of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as well as the Gandhis of the Indian National Congress – were systematically discredited.

With political activity in Kashmir stamped out, the BJP government was hoping that an alternative leadership, ideally its own creation, would fill the political vacuum in J&K. In March 2020, the J&K Apni Party was set up with more than a little nudging from New Delhi.

Meanwhile, Kashmir’s older parties, including bitter rivals the NC and PDP, came together in October 2020 to form the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD).

In the elections to local bodies held in December that year, the PAGD won the most seats and took control of 13 of 20 district councils. The failure of the “King’s Party,” i.e. the Apni Party, to perform credibly in the elections signaled the spectacular failure of the Modi-Shah strategy to take control of Kashmir’s politics.

The Modi government’s plans for Kashmir failed in other ways too.

In his first speech in Parliament after announcing the decision to revoke J&K’s autonomy, Shah said that Article 370 was “the root cause of terrorism” in J&K and that it was an impediment to its economic development. Full integration into India, he said, would enable people to buy land in Kashmir. It would pave the way for “investments from private individuals and multinational companies and give a boost to the local economy.”

However, Kashmir’s economic situation has gone from bad to worse over the past two years. A Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries report last year said that the months of lockdown, imposed to quell protests, resulted in the economy losing 400 billion Indian rupees.

While a part of the reason for the deteriorating economic situation was the COVID-19 lockdowns, it is a fact that revocation of Article 370 did not lift the floodgates to investment from outside. Although the government has plans to attract investments worth up to $4 billion in the next few years, locals invested only $120 million in industry; outside investment was nil between August 2019 and August 2020. Abrogating Article 370 did not provide the motivation for outside investment that Shah had predicted.

As for militancy, it did decline over the past two years; there were no major terror attacks. “The number of terrorist incidents in J&K had reduced significantly,” India’s Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy told Parliament in March. The number of such incidents in J&K dropped from 594 in 2019 to 244 in 2020.

Security forces were also successful in eliminating top commanders and fighters of the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM). Indeed, they were able to wipe out militancy in south Kashmir, the epicenter of militancy in recent years in J&K. Additionally, stone-pelting, an important source of civilian violence in Kashmir, was reduced. In 2019, there were 1,999 incidents of stone-pelting, of which around 1,193 happened post-August 5. This fell to 255 in 2020, an 87.31 percent decline, according to J&K’s Director-General of Police Dilbag Singh.

However, the fall in stone-pelting and militancy cannot be interpreted as signaling a return to normalcy. While it is true that the security forces broke the back of the HM’s operations in south Kashmir, the group relocated; its base shifted to the northern districts.Furthermore, the lull in militant attacks may have been due to the restrictions on movement and on mobile phone and internet activity. The situation could change once the restrictions are lifted fully.

The Modi government’s severe crackdown on those opposing or even questioning its unilateral decision to revoke Kashmir’s autonomy has triggered enormous anger in Kashmir. Its use of force may have worked to put down protests and put a lid on militant attacks, but has triggered a tidal wave of anger that can be expected to erupt in violence and terror in the coming years. That a growing number of local boys are picking up arms should alarm New Delhi.

The Modi government’s unilateral revoking of Kashmir’s autonomy and especially its use of excessive force to quell protests also served to damage India’s image abroad. Over the years, the international community – and especially the Western powers – had come around to viewing the Kashmir problem as one of cross-border terrorism fueled by Pakistan. Now for the first time in several decades, India’s brutal handling of political protests came under the global spotlight and was censured. Indeed, for the first time in 45 years, Kashmir was discussed in a series of meetings in the United Nations Security Council.

On June 24, Modi met with Kashmiri political leaders in New Delhi to discuss their participation in the delimitation of electoral constituencies and in J&K assembly elections. After months of bad-mouthing Kashmir parties and politicians – its campaign in the December 2020 local bodies elections saw BJP leaders refer to the PAGD as the “Gupkar Gang”– a desperate Modi shook hands with the PAGD at the June meeting in New Delhi.

This is a tacit admission that his muscular strategy vis-à-vis Kashmir over the past two years was an unmitigated disaster. Modi may continue to believe in unilateral moves, but he cannot hope to restore normalcy in Kashmir without the help of Kashmiri leaders.

Two years after the abrogation of Article 370, Modi’s political outreach to Kashmiri leaders is a step forward, albeit a very small one. Still, it is in the right direction.