The politics of condemnation

Both incidents were shockingly brutal. In both cases, the victims were ordinary Kashmiris. But the way the country, especially the top leadership, reacted to these two incidents points to the genesis of the Kashmir problem.

Nadimarg was strongly condemned and rightly so. J&K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was summoned to New Delhi and categorically asked to review his healing touch policy.

He was not only asked to act tough on militancy but the massacre provoked a review of the entire counter-insurgency grid in the state. A senior Union home ministry official was tipped to co-ordinate the counter-insurgency operations. Senior leaders from Deputy PM L.K. Advani to Congress president Sonia Gandhi rushed to Nadimarg to show solidarity with the survivors.

Advani told the Pandits who still live in Kashmir that the Centre would make all possible arrangements if they wished to migrate. Meanwhile, he promised that his government will do everything to provide adequate security to them, though he forgot to acknowledge the way the Muslims had come out to show solidarity with their Hindu neighbours in Nadimarg. Sonia Gandhi was equally concerned, but again she forgot that it was essential for her to compliment the Muslim neighbours in Nadimarg and around Kashmir who had come out to register their protest, especially as she had come as the chief of a party that claims to be the custodian of the country’s composite culture and secular ethos.

Ghulam Nabi Azad made two trips to Nadimarg, accompanied by all the senior Congress ministers in the Mufti government. The media camped in the otherwise godforsaken village for days.

But the six villagers of Panihad — whose noses were chopped off and faces disfigured because they were suspected of helping the security forces — mourned alone.

This is not new to Kashmir. Tragedies have always been compartmentalised here. The Panihad villagers don’t form part of Advani’s or Sonia Gandhi’s constituency. If the victims were sympathisers of the militants or were killed by security forces like in the Gowkadal, Khanyar, Bijbehara or Sopore massacres, the absence of a reaction may have been understandable.

But when Muslims are killed in the name of India, it exposes a pattern of selective condemnation, where the religion of the victim influences reaction to the tragedy.

Such examples lie scattered from Kupwara to Surankote. One night a few years ago, a group of unidentified gunmen descended on Sheikhpora village at Ganderbal. Fourteen men were massacred leaving behind 30 orphans. Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh’s family lost all its men, so did many among his neighbours.

Reason: several of the village men had been actively involved in the counter-insurgency operations of the security forces. Nobody from South Block ever came rushing here with even a cosmetic condemnation.

The Kashmir problem is more complex than the twin narratives of militant violence and security force atrocity would have us believe. It is bigger than the failure of democratic process and the rigging of elections. Its epicentre is perhaps in the people’s sense of belonging to the country and its power structures. If the Panihad villagers or the widows of Sheikhpora fail to relate to India, the situation doesn’t call for a POTA. The problem lies elsewhere.