Perhaps, by the time this piece is published, whatever is supposed to happen in the state of Jammu and Kashmir will have happened; or not. That something is definitely underway in Kashmir is a no-brainer; only no one except for a small and tightly knit bunch of people at the very top – Prime Minister, Home Minister, National Security Advisor, maybe the Defence and External Affairs ministers and probably the Army Chief – know what is happening, or is being planned, or is being anticipated and apprehended. Outside of this small circle, everyone else is only guessing what’s cooking. While keeping things close to its chest is one of the hallmarks of the Modi administration, the tell-tale signs of something huge unfolding in Jammu and Kashmir are impossible to brush aside.
Officially, the government has been maintaining that nothing is happening, that it is all normal, and that people should ignore the wild rumours doing the rounds. Maybe this is the case and routine stuff like beefing up presence of security forces has been blown out of proportion. While the possibility that everything will settle down within a few days cannot be entirely ruled out, for now at least the air is pregnant with talk of some tectonic, even cataclysmic, developments unfolding. And this is because much of what is happening is not normal. The advisory to curtail the Amarnath Yatra, the emptying of hostels in Srinagar’s National Institute of Technology, asking all tourists to return to their homes post haste, airlines being asked to accommodate the returning tourists, the deployment of an additional nearly forty thousand para-military personnel - none of this suggests normalcy.
Add to this heightened air force activity, the presence of the NSA, army chief and other top brass in the state to evaluate the situation coupled with the frequency of their visits to Kashmir in the last week or so, the reports of consultations and confabulations on Kashmir both at the political level as well as the security and administrative level, is hardly routine. The ambiguously worded assurances from the Governor’s office, and the joint presser of the Corps Commander and police chief have only added to the suspense and sense of disquiet. Nothing that the officials are saying is adding up to explain the sort of activity that is being seen.
Broadly, there are four possible explanations for the frenetic actions and orders of the government. The first is that there is an apprehension of military adventurism from the Pakistani side. Emboldened by what they see as US President Donald Trump’s interest in Kashmir, the Pakistanis could be wanting to raise tensions to invite international intervention. But this explanation appears a little farfetched because unless the Pakistanis have completely lost all sense of reality (it won’t be the first time this is happening) their international image and the economic condition doesn’t allow for adventurism which would easily boomerang on them.
Second, there is some intelligence of a mass armed uprising in the Valley. The lull in the security situation witnessed since the general elections is the one before a storm. But if this was the case, then there would be some signs of things boiling over. There are none. The third explanation is that the authorities fear major terror attacks. Reports of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists infiltrating have been doing the rounds. But these infiltrations aren’t a massive incursion that would require curtaining the Yatra, evacuating tourists and students and taking other emergency measures. Nor do a handful of terrorists require forty thousand additional security personnel.
This brings us to the fourth and most likely explanation: a big political and constitutional change, one that could see a major law and order situation for which additional forces are required. There is wild speculation ranging from Trifurcation of the state to making the Valley and Ladakh Union Territories and giving Jammu full statehood, and from abrogating Article 370 to scrapping Article 35A, to announcing a homeland for Kashmiri Pandits. If indeed something like this is on the anvil then chances are that it won’t be announced before August 15. By then, the Yatra would be over, the evacuation of all out of state persons would have been completed, the security structure would have been put in place, Eid would have passed, and the occasion would be appropriate – Prime Minister making the announcement from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day.
Needless to say, there are huge risks involved in such a daring political move. It could precipitate a crisis which could consume this government. Plus, there is a international dimension that cannot be ignored, even less so at a time when there is a massive flux and realignments taking place in the region. On the other hand, this is a now or never moment. It will be impossible for the Centre to take such a step after state assembly elections. Not doing anything now will also mean paying a political cost because the air is thick with expectation among core constituency of the ruling party that the government will take the first step on delivering on its core agenda of ‘integrating’ Kashmir with rest of the Union.
This commentary originally appeared in Mail Today.
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