Author: Arun Joshi
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: January 29, 2001
Since July 1988 -- Year Zero in
the calendar of Kashmir insurgency -- any one who has seen Kashmir knows
that there are uncertainties ahead.
What began with small explosions
close to the telephone exchange building and then at the Tourist Reception
Centre in the summer of 1988, has now graduated to suicide attacks and
human bombs.
The novices of Kashmir have disappeared.
Battle-hardened men from Afghanistan and Pakistan have taken over. They
know the war, its tactics and targets. They are ruthless.
These groups are now trying to set
the political agenda for the Kashmiri leadership. The All-Party Hurriyat
Conference (APHC) that came into being in 1992 is unable to devise a course
for itself without talking to the foreign militants. It speaks of the influence
foreign militants have come to enjoy in Kashmir.
It was in November 1993 when militants
holed up in Hazratbal, the most revered Muslim shrine in Kashmir housing
the holy relic of Prophet Mohammad, surrendered unable to withstand the
relentless siege of the Army.
This surrender was a matter of shame
for the people of Kashmir who had suffered for years for these "warriors".
This was also a blow to Pakistan. The men trained and armed to teeth by
Pakistan and projected as heroes, had 'surrendered'.
The failure of these groups to disrupt
the polls in 1996, 1998 and 1999 further angered Pakistan. It pushed in
foreigners and now, barring the Hizb-ul-Mujahadeen and the Jamait-ul-Mujahadeen,
all other indigenous militant outfits have ceased to exist. They exist;
occasionally on paper.
Militancy was to sustain in Kashmir.
Pakistan knew it had to act fast and pushed in Afghans militants. They
came with long beards and weapons. Kashmiris welcomed them with their delicacies.
They had come to fight for Kashmir.
Thereafter, these foreigners made
the local militants serve them. They were reduced to guides who would ferry
ration for the militants. As the differences started emerging, local militant
groups started looking for 'safety nets'. Some reconciled to their subservient
role. Others disintegrated and surrendered to the security forces. Some
of them such as Kukka Parray, Hilal Haider, Nabi Azad and Samad Khan raised
counter-insurgent groups.
Gradually, the men who started the
'freedom call' found no takers. Their violent calls were dismissed as a
manifestation of the unemployed youth.
The afternoon of December 13, 1989
changed everything. Five of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) men
were set free in exchange for Rubiya Sayeed, daughter of the then Union
Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. That was a decision I K Gujral and
Mohammad Arif Khan took at the behest of the then Prime Minister Vishwanath
Partap Singh.
The people saw in the exchange a
surrender of India's might. The terrorists of yesterday became instant
heroes overnight. Pakistan had scored a point: The Indian Government could
succumb.
