Chapter 2
Muslim Militancy
WAR OF ATTRITIONIt is still premature to say that the
militant violence has not made any impression on the defence structures
of India. One thing, however, is certain that the militancy in Kashmir
has prepared ground for a future intervention that the armies of Pakistan
may plan to undertake in Jammu and Kashmir. Besides the strategic advantages
the secessionists have achieved in Kashmir there are several other objectives
which Pakistan has achieved so far. They are:
-
the militants have established their
hold on the major section of the Muslims in Kashmir by ideological indoctrination
and by force of arms;
-
they have destroyed the confidence of
the Hindus in the ability of the Government of India to protect them and
thus alienated them completely;
-
By eliminating the Hindus they have
destroyed the population balances which formed the bases of whatever esemblence
of secularism there still was in Kashmir and communalised the entire society
in the State;
-
they have demolished all the stable
support bases India had in Kashmir;
-
they have succeeded in intimidating
the Indian Government into a profileless resistance, which has so far been
self-defeating; whereas the militants have enhanced their ideological appeal
and acceptance;
-
they have achieved a large measure of
Muslim approval for the religious war, they are waging against India and
the Hindus;
-
By their lactical maneuvers of using
the Muslims as a shield for their guerrilla warfare they have involved
wide segments of the Muslim population in their operations.
In one respect, the secessionist forces
have failed to achieve the desired results. They have not been able to
attract as much international interest in the State with a view to create
conditions for third power intervention. They had presumed that the recession
of the Soviet influence from Europe and the reduction of pressure in Afghanistan
would provide Pakistan an international context, dominated by the United
States, and a more confidant American administration would be decisively
helpful to Pakistan than it had ever been. Perhaps, because the world is
no longer divided on the basis of bipolarity and the cold war interests
no longer govern foreign policies of the major international powers, the
response to the crisis in Kashmir has been qualitatively different than
it was before Soviet Russia has ceased to exist and the interests of the
major powers in central Asia, have shifted to new alignments, other than
those on which Pakistan had based its policies towards Kashrnir.
Except the official versions, much
information about the damage the militants have inflicted on the security
forces in Kashmir is not known and available. If the local vernacular press
and the wall posters the militants issue, are taken into account, the extent
of damage the security forces have suffered, is considerable. The militants
have followed a hit-and-run strategy, in which the local Muslims act as
a shield to protect them and provide them logistic support. The so called
searches are a part of the pressure tactics, the paramilitary forces have
so far been employing to limit the advantages the militants have in using
the Muslim population to provide them cover. Otherwise, the idea of using
civil procedures in combing operations and in a situation of civil war
which has involved high military manoeuvers, is ludicrous The Indian paramilitary
troops are fighting a war with the armed militia, which the Pakistan trained
Muslim terrorists constitute and which receive its armour and direction
from the military organisation of Pakistan.
The Government of India continues
to harbour a number of erroneous impressions about the objectives the militants
are expected to achieve. They still believe that the commoner Muslims are
a factor in the widespread military regime the militants are organised
into, and the militants, therefore, have not established a support base
among the Muslim masses in the State. Secondly, they still presume that
the militant operations in Kashmir are civil eruptions, which must be met
with action under civil procedure. Thirdly, they believe that even after
hundreds of Hindus have been murdered, their property looted and destroyed,
their temples burnt down and bombed, and their entire population uprooted
and pushed out of Kashmir, the violence in Kashmir does not represent Muslim
communalism and separatism.
In utter-self deception the Indian
leaders still believe that the secessionist forces in the State have not
accepted Pakistan as a factor in whatever differences they have had with
India and a readjustment in power equations, flow of finance and economic
advantage, reached with them would end the present crisis. In their self-conceit,
the Indian leaders still presume that Muslimisation of the State was complementary
to Indian secularism and a balance could be struck with the Muslims, even
if it was at the cost of the Hindus.
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