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| Violent Kashmir: Act, it is already too late | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, July 20: The situation in Kashmir is not showing any sign of improvement. Instead, it is deteriorating with each passing day. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah organized an all-party meeting in Srinagar on July 12 to take stock of the situation and find ways and means to restore peace in what could be legitimately termed as violent Kashmir, but with no result. He has met his bureaucrats and police officials to work with zeal and dedication to achieve the same goal, but nothing appears to have come out of these exercises. He even called out the Army and imposed curfew to bring the fast-deteriorating situation under control, but nothing has changed on the ground. It continues to be on the boil as before. In fact, the situation is slowly but surely going out of control. The situation is dangerous by any standard.
The fundamental reason behind the failure of the official initiatives is the inability of the powers-that be to realize the gravity of the situation and act on time to isolate those who have been willfully and as per a meticulously worked out plan seeking to subvert the very institution of state government and dismember India by taking recourse to violent means. Yet another reason is the failure of the powers-that-be to control themselves while talking to media persons. They are making statements which, instead of producing a moral effect on the subversives and instigators of violence, are adding more fuel to the fire. The statements like "we need to carry forward the peace process with Pakistan or address the external and internal dimensions of Kashmir issue" are only prompting the subversives to heighten their anti-state government and anti-India activities. The subversives are taking these statements as signs of official weakness.
It needs to be noted, and the concerned and rational authorities must have noted, that certain elements in Kashmir have turned totally irrational. They are guided solely by narrow political and religious considerations and personal, as opposed to the public, interests. Their thought process is still influence (nay dominated) by what the genuine democrats and genuine political scientists call "primitive fears and stereotypes." They are arousing popular sentiments by spreading and feeding myths and half-truths. They are distorting facts and they are making mountains out of molehills. They are paining things in lurid colours. In fact, they are simply seeking to create a situation that leads to dangerous/catastrophic results; they are simply carrying on a no-holds-barred anti-India propaganda blitz against India and leading the innocent people to devastating encounters, economic ruin and to what not. They have come to believe that the "crowds" are no more than "wild beasts" that can be very easily "whipped up" and they are doing it with precision. They are following in the footsteps of Pakistan that has its own geo-political interests in Jammu and Kashmir and, perhaps, they are also following in the footsteps of Mussolini, Hitler, Peron and Stalin who applied similar techniques to establish their stranglehold on the people of Italy, Germany, Argentina and the Soviet Union, respectively. It is, unfortunate, that the people, who are the worst sufferers, have allowed the vested interests and disturbers of peace, to control them and make them obey their dictates.
What is all the more disturbing is the freedom with which these disturbers of peace are misusing the right of expression or right to speech. We are, undoubtedly, a democratic country. Our democratic system may be flawed. But no one says that our government should make laws that gag the press, impose restrictions on civil liberties, on the right to speech, on the right to assemble peacefully and on the right of the people to submit a petition against the government to the government to seek a redress of their grievances or to seek better treatment or seek more say and share in the governance of the country. Right to speech and express is one of the fundamental "hallmarks" of any state that calls itself democratic and liberal. Citizens have every right to criticize the government if they feel that it is pursuing wrong economic, political and social policies.
The right to speech and express in a democratic country may be considered as a "straightforward guarantee", but no one can use it for ulterior purposes. Does the right to speech give a vested interest and subversive/radical elements the right to instigate groups of people to take to violent methods, commit murders and throw stones on the security forces? Do they have a right to air views which can endanger the integrity and security of the nation? Right to speech doesn't mean that one can say whatever he wants, whenever he wants and wherever he wants, regardless of the adverse impact. Right to speech cannot be used for propagating dangerous and malicious views. It cannot be used for instigating crime and violence against the democratically elected government or ensuring its overthrow. Nor can it be used for disturbing the public peace.
What has been happening in Kashmir is the immediate fall-out of the freedom the authorities gave to the subversives to preach hatred and instigate violence, with certain elements in the establishment making controversial statements, thus further emboldening the subversives and merchants of death and destruction to carry on their activities with renewed zeal. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah would do well to recognize the lapse on the part of the government and act firmly before it is too late. In fact, at is already too late. Resolute action at this critical juncture is in his own interest, in the interest of his party, in the interest of the state and, last but not the least, in the interest of the nation, which also wants him to act.
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