The Great Trick Which Left Kashmir With Nothing To Lose thewire.in

There is no doubt that Article 370 was a fig leaf put in place to ensure Kashmir didn’t submit to Pakistan’s lure, but snatching away that fig leaf itself exposes Kashmir to searing humiliation. In March 1992, I interviewed Amanullah Khan, then Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief, in a Muzaffarabad hotel across the border. He told me that when he sent a few boys across in 1984 to enquire about kickstarting an Independence movement in Indian Kashmir, they had all returned to report there was indeed alienation – but no one was interested in violent rebellion. “The land was absolutely barren!” he said. “No chance of taking up arms.”

Within just four years – after the toppling of yet another government (1986), communal tensions in Anantnag (1986) and a rigged election (1987) – a violent conflict burst upon an unsuspecting government with shocking speed. It shows no sign of ending three decades later. If there’s a lesson in there somewhere, it is that some things are best left to simmer on the back burner. For 30 odd years, the slow, hard work of thousands of people – state and Central government employees, the Armed Forces, politicians, and ordinary people – had created an elaborate, careful web that demonstrated India’s secular and democratic credentials. Despite the violence and stone-pelting, discreet conflict management and a hard-working foreign policy kept Kashmir on a low-key trajectory.