History teaches us there will be peace in the Valley only when Kashmiris’ political rights and aspirations are recognised, the prospect of which appears dimmer by the day
A local girl sits on a bench at a marketplace as paramilitary soldiers keep guard along a street in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on May 4. Pic/AFP
Former Research and Analysis Wing chief AS Dulat recently told a media outlet: “Tourism is not normalcy in Kashmir.” I asked Dulat what his idea of normalcy in Kashmir was. “The happiness of Kashmiris,” he replied, adding, “If you don’t treat them with dignity, if you continue to push them around, violence will occur in Kashmir, now and then.” From Dulat’s perspective, it would seem that unless the “minds and hearts” of Kashmiris are won over, normalcy can’t be Kashmir’s fate—and nor will they be emotionally integrated with India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is mistaken in believing that economic integration alone can emotionally integrate Kashmiris with India. In March 2024, Modi hailed the birth of the “new Jammu and Kashmir… for which we all were waiting for many decades.” The wait for the new J&K, for normalcy, is over because it is now “touching new heights of development… after the removal of Article 370.”
Officials, taking their cue from Modi, cite the dipping graph of terror incidents and casualties since 2022 to harp on Kashmir’s growing normalcy. As a corollary, they reel out the rising numbers of tourist footfall in Kashmir, which jumped from less than 10 lakh in 2022 to over 30 lakh last year. J&K’s 2024-25 economic survey report says investment proposals worth R1.63 lakh crore have been received.
Yet Kashmir remains unhappy and alienated, a sentiment reinforced because of the State’s demolition of family homes of terrorists and the media’s demonisation of Kashmiris following the Pahalgam massacre. History shows economic opportunities don’t ebb the unhappiness of Kashmiris.
It might shock readers to know that the idea of New Kashmir is older than even its accession to India. In September 1944, the National Conference, under Sheikh Abdullah, adopted a 44-page manifesto titled, believe it or not, Naya, or New, Kashmir. It envisioned a J&K that was free from the despotic Dogra rule, with a special emphasis on development.
After J&K acceded to India and Abdullah became its first prime minister (later, redesignated as chief minister), radical land reforms were undertaken. As Abdullah grew wary of New Delhi’s attempts to erode J&K’s autonomy and its backtracking on the right of its people to self-determination, promised in the Instrument of Accession, he became recalcitrant. He was deposed and arrested in August 1953. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad succeeded Abdullah.
Academic Hafsa Kanjwal, in her A Fate Written on Matchboxes (published overseas as Colonising Kashmir), calls Bakshi’s rule, which ended in 1963, J&K’s “Golden Period.” This was because Bakshi implemented the Naya Kashmir manifesto to usher in, yes, development. Then, as now, tourists were encouraged to visit Kashmir, their numbers growing from 9330 in 1951 to 63,370 in 1960. Then, as now, the infrastructure for the Amarnath Yatra was refurbished, a strategy for linking the “sacred geography” of Hindus to Kashmir, thus bolstering India’s moral claim to the Paradise, even though the J&K Constituent Assembly had ratified its accession to India in February 1954.
Under Bakshi, by 1961, nearly eight lakh acres of land were transferred to tillers as against 4.5 lakh acres under Abdullah, benefitting nearly 70,900 Muslims and 25,000 lower-caste Hindus. Since Bakshi opted for Kashmir’s financial integration with India, the Centre’s monetary assistance grew from R3,392.07 lakh in 1956-61 to R7,514 lakh in 1961-65. The Banihal Tunnel’s inauguration in J&K was celebrated, as bridges and train links there are today. Jobs multiplied; the per capita income increased.
Yet the Kashmiris remained unhappy, fiercely protesting against Bakshi under the umbrella of the Plebiscite Front. His Peace Brigade, a rag-tag militia group, hounded protesters. Then, as now, dissidents were imprisoned under draconian laws such as the Public Security Act and the Preventive Detention Act. Then, as now, the local media was controlled—for instance, the editor of Sach was arrested for supporting Abdullah’s plebiscite demand, and Khalid, a newspaper, was booked for its positive review of Pakistan’s policies.
Kashmir’s past shows progressive economic policies do not emotionally integrate it with India, suggests Kanjwal. Their unhappiness grew as their hero, Sheikh Abdullah, did a U-turn on plebiscite in 1975, when he signed an accord with Indira Gandhi. Thus was born an armed secessionist movement, which became full-blown after Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference aligned with the Congress, and allegedly rigged the 1987 Assembly elections. Thousands have died in the conflict thereafter.
More than a decade of horrifying bloodshed tired out Kashmiris and weakened the secessionist movement. But new sources of Kashmiri anxiety emerged after the abrogation of Article 370—such as the demographic flooding of their land and the suppression of free speech. Quite clearly, their idea of New Kashmir, as opposed to that of Jawaharlal Nehru, Bakshi and Modi, pivots around a recognition of their political rights and aspirations, not just prosperity.
This is why the agreement that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was reportedly eager to sign with Pakistan for making the Line of Control redundant was perhaps the prescription that just might have satisfied the aspirations of Kashmiris and made them happy; it was abandoned out of the fear of a backlash. The land of an unhappy people, as Kashmiris are, can never have normalcy.
The writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste
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