Warlike Situation Could Prevail in Kashmir for Several Months

Armed Forces should be prepared to face hostile situation in Kashmir for next several months, writes David Devadas.

One wishes India’s policymakers and strategists were not always two or three steps behind their opponents. To be one step behind might be acceptable, since the country is generally the one under attack. But not to be able to make out what is afoot even when a crisis is upon one is inexcusable.

The attack on armed forces camps along the river right opposite the Divisional Commander’s residence at Baramulla on Sunday night clearly indicated the path of retribution for which the Pakistan Army has opted - at least one of the paths. This is the tried-and-tested path of high-profile attrition in the heartland of the Kashmir Valley.

Myth of Insurgency Being Under Control Broken

The Uri attack had shifted the world’s attention from a youth uprising to a Pakistani terror attack on the Line of Control. Now Pakistan is trying to convince the world that skirmishes are not only at the borders but that militancy is indigenous to Kashmir. If some of the attackers in such operations can be nabbed, and they turn out to be Pakistanis, that country’s bluff would be called.

At a broader level, it was another indication that India is in for more of a war-like situation in Kashmir. I fear things will get much worse than they are over the next several months.

Such indications have been clearly discernible for the last six years, if not eight. It is a national tragedy of epic proportions that those indications were ignored. Not just that, but most analysts insisted that the insurgency in Kashmir was well under control - indeed, that the situation was improving. Very senior figures in the national security establishment have scoffed at my dire predictions.

Even after the situation took a sudden turn for the much-worse in the second week of July, the country’s strategists (those tasked to strategise, I mean) still could not see how bad it was likely to get. As recently as a month ago, the army brass were all charged up about how they were going to bring the situation under control. By ‘situation,’ they meant stone-pelting on the streets and byways of the Valley - not the clouds of war that they still could not see. They really seemed to think that stone-pelting was the only dimension of the challenge the country faced. It certainly was an important dimension, but was far from being the only dimension - or even the main dimension!

Living in Self-Delusion

The mass arrests they have conducted since then have swept youth distress under the carpet, where it will brew and bubble until it fizzes out into the open again.

Alongside, they have resorted to another short-term solution of which successive regimes and forces never seem to tire - delusional projection. They have held recruitment drives in parts of the Valley over the past few weeks, to show to the world that Kashmiris want to work for the army.

Anyone familiar with the rhythms of Kashmir could have told them that that they would find no dearth of takers for recruitment - or even voters for elections, if those were to be held. But those familiar with the pulse of the place could also have told them that just about the only ones who delude themselves that such very public exercises actually mean stability in political and military terms are Indian policymakers, media hype-artists, and the Indian public at large. At this point, such self-delusion exercises are dangerous.

Army Can’t Afford to Waste its Resources

So, I had a sinking feeling when I first heard someone talking bombastically of preparations for army recruitment. For I was convinced long before that that the army ought to be gearing up for the sort of war-like situations of which we have seen glimpses at Uri and Baramulla over the past couple of weeks - and of which we shall see more. The army just could not afford to waste the slightest bit of its resources on such misguided initiatives.

I had already had a sinking feeling (yes, that seems to afflict me a lot these days!) when the army got enmeshed in policing from the second week of July, particularly in forward areas such as Kupwara. Of course the army officers and men on the ground there deserve high praise for ably backing the police.

From what one hears, the public demonstrations were so animated in Kupwara that every police post in large parts of that district could have been burnt to the ground.

Asleep Over ‘Sleeper Cells’

It was a Catch-22 though. For, infiltration has increased hugely during this period - and we have seen the results in places like Uri. Ironically, it was precisely the lack of infiltration by foreign militants over Kupwara’s Shamsabari range that misguided military analysts had claimed nonchalantly over the past couple of years as proof that things were under control in the Valley. Those misguided armchair analysts tend to be retired brass who convince themselves and several television anchors that they know what’s what.

After Sunday’s attack in Baramulla, some of them have started talking of ‘sleeper cells,’ of which the police is said to have got information. Why did they not have information, and do something about it, before the attack? When I speculated about sleeper cells in places like Downtown Srinagar and Old Town Baramulla three years ago, I was treated with contempt.

We need strategists who can get their act together now. Enough self-delusion and diversionary projection! The best officers must be deployed. Army Headquarters and the Northern Command must engage in war room games and projections to figure out worst-case scenarios. Now!

(The writer is a Kashmir-based author and journalist. He can be reached at @david_devadas. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

Also Read: Army Must Combat Lethal Infiltrators, Not Go After Stone-Pelters