Chapter 3
Disinformation Compaign
All over the post-independence era,
incessant efforts were always made by the State Government and the Government
of India to conceal the ugly face of Muslim communalism in Jammu and Kashmir.
Deliberate attempts were always made to provide cover to the evolution of Muslim fundamentalist and secessionist movements in the State right
from the time of its accession to India. The various forms of Muslim communalism
and separatism which rampaged the life in the State, during the last four
decades and which imparted to the secessionist movements in the State,
their ideological content and tactical direction, were camouflaged under
the banners of sub-national autonomy, regional identity and even secularism.
Largely, perceptional aberrations, misplaced notions and subterfuge characterised
the official as well as non-official responses to the upheavals which rocked
the State from time to time. More often, the real issues, confronting the
State, were overlooked by deliberate design and political interest, a policy
which in the long run operated to help the secessionist forces to consolidate
their ranks and their hold on the people in the State. The shrill cries
of "Jehad" against India and the Hindu infidels, to undo the wrong they
were accused of having done to the Muslim majority in the State by usurping
its right to join Pakistan, were always underestimated.
The mass massacre of Hindus and the
Sikhs in the territories of the State occupied by Pakistan in 1917, the
uncertainly which followed the exclusion of the State from the Indian constitutional
organisation, the dismissal of the first Interim Government, the virulent
secessionist struggle led by the Plebisicite Front that followed, and the
induction of thousands of armed infiltrators into Kashmir to 1ead a Muslim
rebellion against India, were events which went unheeded. The real import
of these events was deliberately ignored. Even after widespread militant
violence struck Kashmirin 1989, and thousands of innocent people were killed
in cold blood along with hundreds of Indian security personnel and the
whole community of the Hindus in Kashmir was driven out of the valley,
the disinformation campaign to cloud the real dangers the terrorist violence
posed to the nation continued to dominate the flow of information about
Kashmir. Indeed, efforts still continue to be made to sidetrack the basic
problems of terrorism, secessionism and the role of militarised Muslim
fundamentalist forces in the whole bloody drama enacted in the State and
divert the attention of the Indian people to trival concerns, which have
no bearing on the developments there. The disinformation campaign, has
been aimed to confuse the Indian public opinion about dangerous import
of the militarisation of Muslim separatism in Kashmir and its implications
for the unity of the whole country.
There was a subtle effort, which
was coordinated at various levels, both official and non-official, to divert
the attention ofthe Indian people from the menacing threat presented to
the security of India by (a), the militarisation of pan- Islamic fundamentalism
in South Asia with its epicentre in Pakistan and (b) the induction of militalised
fundamentalist flanks into Jammu and Kashmir to wage a war of attrition
against India. The broad scheme of the disinformation campaign spread into
several propaganda formats, based upon the following themes:
-
Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir were alienated
by misgovernment and oppression, which India and the Hindus in Kashmir,
perpeterated upon them.
-
Muslims in the State were excluded from
political participation in the exercise of state power by the Government
of India and the Hindus.
-
The Government of India and the Hindus
deprived the Muslims of their due share in the political processes of the
state by,
-
rigging elections;
-
excluding the Muslims from the administrative
organisation of the State;
-
denying them their share in the services
of the State Government and the offices of the Government of India, in
accordance with the ratio of their population.
-
the Muslims were subjected to economic
deprivations, which resulted in widespread poverty among them and unemployment
among their youth.
-
Hindus in India and the Indian Government
refused to recognise the right of the Muslims in the State to religious
precedence and their religious obligation, polity based upon the law and
precept of Islam.
The disinformation campaign succeeded
to provide a smoke-screen to the war of attrition waged in Jammu and Kashmir.
Evidently the campaign was aimed to obscure a clearer perspective of the
import of the secessionist struggle in the State and obstruct the evolution
of a national response to deal with the danger it posed, effectively and
purposefully.
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