What The Papers Said: The Indian Army in Kashmir - India Real Time - WSJ
By Krishna Pokharel
This weekend, India Real Time offers a roundup of opinions and analyses from Indian newspapers, magazines and websites on a key news events: the deployment of the Indian Army in the streets of Srinagar and other parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir as anti-government protests intensified and the state police and paramilitary forces appeared insufficient to maintain order.
Strategic analyst and former Indian senior bureaucrat, B.Raman wrote on the website of Outlook magazine: The current movement started due to some anger against the security forces. Perceptions of political indifference to that anger have led to the anger turning against the political leadership. We find ourselves caught in a vicious circle. The more the publicly expressed anger against the security forces, the more the force used against the agitators and the more the force used against the agitators, the more the anger against the security forces.
Mr. Ramans proposal to reduce the anger in Srinagar: Better methods of street control to avoid the use of firearms, prompt and satisfactory attention to the complaints of the people regarding excessive use of force and violations of human rights, greater interactions between the government and the agitating youth, greater control over our rhetoric to avoid demonization of the agitators and attempts to remove the impression that the government tends to bat for the errant elements in the security forces and not for the people are some of the immediate steps required. The use of the army against the street agitators would be unwise unless the situation turns desperate leaving no other option.
In its take, the Hindustan Times turned to the criticism of the administration of Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, saying Srinagar had been deaf to Kashmir. It further said in its Friday editorial:
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has lost control of his state. The question now is whether he can recover it. Unfortunately, going by the facts on the ground that have culminated in the deployment of the Indian Army as a deterrent to enforce peace and order around, if not in Srinagar, for the first time since at least 15 years,
it doesnt even seem that Mr. Abdullah is too keen to wrest control. [Giving in to inevitability?]
Writing on the op-ed page of Thursdays Hindustan Times, Amitabh Mattoo, professor at New Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University, opined what is immediately required is for New Delhi and Srinagar to fully understand the anatomy of the uprising and then craft policies that can quell this rage.
He further wrote:
Unlike in the past, the writ of the state is not being challenged primarily by a popular insurgency or by militant organizations or even by a separatist cartel. Instead, its the anger of a new generation of young men and women who have grown up in these two decades of conflict, which is translating into resilient protests in many parts of the Kashmir valley. And tragically, most of those killed over the last weeks have been young people, often in the prime of their life.
Mr. Mattoos advice to the government in New Delhi: But all is still not lost. Much, as has been indicated, can be done unilaterally and immediately to respond to the deep yearning of the young people of the state for security in all its dimensions: that is freedom from fear in the physical, political, economic and cultural spheres.
The Pioneer newspaper in its editorial Thursday said, Theres clearly a pattern to the protests engineered by the separatists with more than a little help from their masters in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
The Times of India editorial on Friday said the latest spiral of violence in Kashmir essentially showed the failure or the lack of political leadership there.
When children and teenagers turn out to lead protests, it exposes a glaring leadership vacuum in society, the paper said. J&K is a political issue. A long-term settlement would require bringing Islamabad on board. While efforts should be made towards this, there are plenty of things to be done independently.
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