Gaping fissures

To begin with,why have communal tensions in the region been allowed to boil over? Intelligence reports had warned of imminent clashes and there was sporadic violence through the month of Ramadan. Yet the state government was caught unprepared it had not even provided for adequate security cover. The Omar Abdullah governments failure to read the warning signs,or to politically and administratively counter the forces of polarisation in the region has a longer history. Communal unrest in these hilly areas of Jammu,where Hindu and Muslim populations are more or less evenly balanced,had flared up during the Amarnath shrine land row of 2008. Religious radicalisation,revolving around the regions places of worship,has grown in the last few years,eroding and endangering ties between communities. Religious and regional divides have reinforced each other,as Jammu grew increasingly estranged from the Valley. By all accounts,the state government has done little to bridge this gap.

While local processes of reconciliation are missing in these parts,the village defence committees VDCs continue to play a prominent role. Beginning in the mid-1990s,during the peak of the insurgency,groups of villagers were armed and trained so that they could defend themselves against militants. Militancy has long been on the wane,but the Jamp;K government continues to put off reviewing the need for arming civilian groups,now being partly blamed for this weekends violence. The state government has responded to the Kishtwar violence with the usual knee-jerk responses curfew,information blackout,media bans. The simmering discontents that have been laid bare,however,call for a sensitive and consistent response at the local level,not frenzied damage control in the face of a crisis.

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