Kashmir: Moving Ahead

The political landscape and the narratives in Kashmir are moving at a scale and speed never seen before. A new clarity is emerging that Kashmir’s future is secure with India. The emphasis that Kashmir is secure within the Union of India is manifestation of the changed situation.

Now when the fear of violence and writ of the separatists are fading, it has dramatically increased the capacity of the ordinary people in driving the narrative of peace and future. This is where the separatism and the institutions that it had set up have started looking irrelevant to those who were once protagonists.

Today these leaders are looking for Kashmir solution through dialogue. Though it is also true that their pitch for dialogue evoked hostile response and action from gunmen who believed that talks and the movement don’t go together. There are numerous examples of violence directed against them. But they failed in spelling out the futility of the guns and the objectives that were being pursued.

They were living in fear of being labeled as traitors. And they knew who were directing violence against them and with what purpose. They were scared to speak out, and they discarded the channels that could have made them relevant. They lived in a fear-driven dilemma.

Bilal Lone, one of the faces of the Hurriyat Conference (M) is not a debutant in realizing and broadcasting the irrelevance of the separatist conglomerate that he was part of. There have been many, in the post-Article 370 abrogation period, to say the similar things.

It is after many years that a normal way of life has visited the people and they are identifying with it to showcase themselves as the reformed class of people; having shunned the interest in separatism and secessionism for all times to come.

Kashmir’s separatism is not 36 year-old. It manifested in its violent form in 1989-90, but it had its pockets of influence since 1950s. Today, it is not on back foot, it is close to collapse. Yesteryear’s separatist faces are making strategic retreat to show that they have become warriors of peace in Kashmir

Here, one is reminded of the then “Commander-in-Chief” of Hizb-ul-Mujahadeen Majid Dar, who in July 2000, had made the revolutionary statement that time has come to give up arms and seek reconciliation with Delhi. His line of argument was more pragmatic than what is heard today. He had called for ceasefire that would yield peace and future for generations to come.

Majid Dar had stated, that guns have given graveyards in the past 10 years-1990 is reckoned as the zero-calendar year of extremist violence in Kashmir - and even if we fight for another 10 years, there will be nothing but more graveyards. His words were prophetic.

The essential difference between what Hizb commander said in July 2000 and what is being stated in July 2025 is the distance in time and space. Hizb was the strongest military group in Kashmir fighting for “accession of Kashmir to Pakistan,” and the Indian state had not demonstrated its hard power as it has done in the recent years.

The groups, like Hizb-ul-Mujahadeen and many others in array were never any match to the military might of India, despite Pakistan’s strong backing. But realizing and amplifying the vision of future was an act of bravery at that point in time. The Hizb leader, next in rank to Pakistan-based group supremo Syed Salah-ud-Din expressed his thought at a press conference, not in private or interview.

Majid Dar’s efforts were killed by Pakistan. It coerced Pak-based Hizb leadership to call off ceasefire. Then Home Minister L K Advani had observed: “The ceasefire was announced in Srinagar and it was withdrawn in Rawalpindi.” This summed up the cycle of events. Some of the Hurriyat leaders had warned Dar against what they called his “misadventure.” They called his move as an act of meek surrender. This was pre-9/11 time.

In both the cases, 25 years apart, it was admitted that the violence and separatism and its backers were against the peace and future of Kashmir. That is too late in the day.

The violence did not kill the people only, it inflicted wounds on the ethos of the Vale. Terrorism invites counter-terrorism operations and in between Kashmiri youth became cannon fodder.

The comparative statics is not the barometer to define gains and losses. Thousands of sons of the soil were buried in graveyards. Mourning had become a norm. The graves were the only sign that they were alive once. Then, we have seen body bags going to homes in the Valley and various states in the country.

These words may sound very familiar; these have been written and spoken tens of thousands of times, but they are relevant even today. The only thing, we should remember is that the change in behaviour because of a certain situation has a flip-side; that these sound less natural. The only natural thing is that Kashmiris are getting disillusioned by the forces who once claimed to be their benefactors. The Pahalgam of April 22 exposed them fully.

Kashmiris are realizing that moving ahead is the only way out, but they want the process to be natural.