Chapter 2
Muslim Militancy
WAR OF
ATTRITION
It is still premature to say that
the militant violence has not made any impression on
the defence structures of India. One thing, however,
is certain that the militancy in Kashmir has prepared
ground for a future intervention that the armies of
Pakistan may plan to undertake in Jammu and Kashmir.
Besides the strategic advantages the secessionists
have achieved in Kashmir there are several other
objectives which Pakistan has achieved so far. They
are:
- the militants have established
their hold on the major section of the Muslims in
Kashmir by ideological indoctrination and by force
of arms;
- they have destroyed the
confidence of the Hindus in the ability of the
Government of India to protect them and thus
alienated them completely;
- By eliminating the Hindus they
have destroyed the population balances which
formed the bases of whatever esemblence of
secularism there still was in Kashmir and
communalised the entire society in the State;
- they have demolished all the
stable support bases India had in Kashmir;
- they have succeeded in
intimidating the Indian Government into a
profileless resistance, which has so far been
self-defeating; whereas the militants have
enhanced their ideological appeal and acceptance;
- they have achieved a large
measure of Muslim approval for the religious war,
they are waging against India and the Hindus;
- By their lactical maneuvers of
using the Muslims as a shield for their guerrilla
warfare they have involved wide segments of the
Muslim population in their operations.
In one respect, the secessionist
forces have failed to achieve the desired results.
They have not been able to attract as much
international interest in the State with a view to
create conditions for third power intervention. They
had presumed that the recession of the Soviet
influence from Europe and the reduction of pressure in
Afghanistan would provide Pakistan an international
context, dominated by the United States, and a more
confidant American administration would be decisively
helpful to Pakistan than it had ever been. Perhaps,
because the world is no longer divided on the basis of
bipolarity and the cold war interests no longer govern
foreign policies of the major international powers,
the response to the crisis in Kashmir has been
qualitatively different than it was before Soviet
Russia has ceased to exist and the interests of the
major powers in central Asia, have shifted to new
alignments, other than those on which Pakistan had
based its policies towards Kashrnir.
Except the official versions, much
information about the damage the militants have
inflicted on the security forces in Kashmir is not
known and available. If the local vernacular press and
the wall posters the militants issue, are taken into
account, the extent of damage the security forces have
suffered, is considerable. The militants have followed
a hit-and-run strategy, in which the local Muslims act
as a shield to protect them and provide them logistic
support. The so called searches are a part of the
pressure tactics, the paramilitary forces have so far
been employing to limit the advantages the militants
have in using the Muslim population to provide them
cover. Otherwise, the idea of using civil procedures
in combing operations and in a situation of civil war
which has involved high military manoeuvers, is
ludicrous The Indian paramilitary troops are fighting
a war with the armed militia, which the Pakistan
trained Muslim terrorists constitute and which receive
its armour and direction from the military
organisation of Pakistan.
The Government of India continues
to harbour a number of erroneous impressions about the
objectives the militants are expected to achieve. They
still believe that the commoner Muslims are a factor
in the widespread military regime the militants are
organised into, and the militants, therefore, have not
established a support base among the Muslim masses in
the State. Secondly, they still presume that the
militant operations in Kashmir are civil eruptions,
which must be met with action under civil procedure.
Thirdly, they believe that even after hundreds of
Hindus have been murdered, their property looted and
destroyed, their temples burnt down and bombed, and
their entire population uprooted and pushed out of
Kashmir, the violence in Kashmir does not represent
Muslim communalism and separatism.
In utter-self deception the Indian
leaders still believe that the secessionist forces in
the State have not accepted Pakistan as a factor in
whatever differences they have had with India and a
readjustment in power equations, flow of finance and
economic advantage, reached with them would end the
present crisis. In their self-conceit, the Indian
leaders still presume that Muslimisation of the State
was complementary to Indian secularism and a balance
could be struck with the Muslims, even if it was at
the cost of the Hindus.
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