Commas In A Harsh Sentence

Traffic was back on the roads and shops and schools reo­p­en­ed: the separatists had called for a two-day pause in the shutdown that has brought life to a halt in Kashmir since that day in early July when Hizbul commander Burhan Wani was killed. But it brought no cheer to 35-year-old Abdul Majid Bhat, a driver waiting for passengers to board his bus at Srinagar’s Batmaloo terminal on Sunday afternoon, November 20. The government chose to see the two-day halt as signifying the end of protests, but for the likes of Bhat, only unce­rtai­nty looms. And indeed, public transport was again off the roads on Monday, while schools and shops did not open. This is the new normal in the Valley.

On Saturday, the first of the two days of pause allowed by the separatists after 133 days of continuous protests and shutdown, Bhat had driven from Darigam village in Budgam to the Batmaloo terminal for the first time after four months. Bhat, who used to make around Rs 9,000 every month earlier, earned nothing during that period.

“I have three children to look after and my savings are all gone,” says Bhat, apologising for being unable to offer tea. “I haven’t paid my kids’ school fees. Despite being closed, the schools are not ready to give a concession.” He doesn’t hope to earn much in winter when business plummets almost in sync with the temperature. “If something happens at the political level, we hope the next few years will pass off peacefully,” he says. But the government has so far shown no interest in engaging with the separatist leaders other than sending an “unofficial” delegation led by former foreign minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha.

Yasin Malik, chairman of the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, has no expectations from the Nar­endra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre. He says the opening of markets and resumption of traffic is not a sign of defeat as “this is a people’s struggle and, through prolonged protests and shutdowns, the people have conveyed to the world that Kashmir is a dispute that needs resolution”. “The people of Kashmir started the protests and it is they who showed their resilience in sustaining it,” he claims. “The 2016 summer agitation was an intifada against Indian rule in Kashmir and such intifadas will continue until the Kashmir issue is resolved politically.”

In the early days of the protests, Yasin and other Hurr­iyat leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirw­aiz Umer Farooq had come together in a rare show of unity to issue protest calendars, ann­ouncing shutdowns and calling upon the people to march towards district headquarters and army cantonments. The protest calendar they issued on November 17 allowed for a two-day break. They asked people to use only public transport on these days to support those who make a living from it. Drivers were asked to hoist black flags on their vehicles as a mark of protest, though none were finally seen. Srinagar saw a traffic jam after a long time, though.

Since July 8, according to the police, nearly 75 civilians have been killed and around 10,000 wounded. Hum­an rights groups put the number of civilians killed by police and paramilitary forces at over 90. This was during two months of curfew, and internet and mobile services were banned for most of that time. The police claims there were 200-odd incidents of stone-pelting, involving around 40,000 people, in the very first week after Burh­an’s killing. The protests forced the army to halt its convoy movements until Oct­ober, when the timings were rescheduled and they started moving in the morning.

In the same period, over 7,000 persons have been arrested across Kashmir and 500 political activists detained under the Public Safety Act (PSA), a preventive det­ention law, on charges of stone-pelting or for ‘inciting’ people to pelt stones. Rayees Mohammad Bhat, senior super­intendent of police at Pulwama, tells Outlook that not even one per cent of the stone-pelters have been arrested so far, but even that has had an impact on the ground.

A senior police official, who is not authorised to speak with the media, des­cribed the present situation as “under control”. Admitting that the killings of civilians drive people to protest violently, he says, “The majority in Kashmir want peace, but any incident of civilians being killed sets the clock back. At every meeting of the Unified Headquarters, directions are given to avoid civilian casualties.”

However, it did not take long for the old pattern to play out and for that terr­ible sense of deja vu to return. On November 17 itself, Ghulam Muhammad Khan, a 70-year-old former president of the Secretariat Employees Union, died at the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar. He had gone out for a stroll at Soura on the outskirts of the city on November 2 when a teargas shell hit him in the head. Khan’s death triggered a wave of protests in the area.

The police official predicts business activities will resume in the coming days as transporters can no longer afford to support the shutdown. “People yearn for peace and no one can make an entire population carry on with shutdowns beyond a point,” he says. “That point has been reached. The protest calendar no longer gets implemented as fatigue has set in after four months of strike.”

Senior PDP MP Muzaffar Hussain Baig thinks what made it more difficult for the government was that the protest this year had spread to the remote villages as well, especially in south Kashmir. Baig believes “Palestine-style intifadas” would achieve nothing in Kashmir as the stone-pelting year after year will eventually make the “outside world stop looking at Kashmir as a legitimate political problem”.

The PDP leader, who sees a bigger role for himself in the party, feels the state government has responded adequately to the situation and protests had died down. And yet, on Sunday, hundreds of people attended the funeral of Rayees Ahmad Dar, who had joined the militant ranks just one month ago and was killed by security forces on the afternoon of November 19 at Pulwama in south Kashmir. There were protests as the town went into mourning and observed a shutdown. Dar was the second local militant to be killed in November as the Special Operation Group (SOG) and the army resumed anti-­militancy operations after the hiatus since Burhan’s killing.

With no clarity on how long the separatist leaders would conti­nue issuing protest calendars, there have been calls for making schools ‘conflict-neutral’. “We have proposed to the Hurriyat Conference that school vehicles and education institutions be treated like ambulances and hospitals,” says G.N. Var, president of the Private School Association. The window of two days when schools ope­n­ed has brought the issue to focus. “The separatist leaders have appreciated the idea that educational institutions be all­o­wed to function in all circumstances.”

After the mysterious burning of nearly 27 schools, the government, too, has intervened by conducting matriculation and higher secondary examinations. It has also granted automatic promotion to all students of the other classes.

The tourism sector, however, is seeing little hope for the near future. The hospitality industry in the state has already notched up losses in crores. Nasir Shah, who heads a tour and travel operators association in the Valley, says the tourism business for this year is over. “The two-day relaxation to the shutdown given by Hurriyat Conference will not make any difference in this sector,” he says. “If things remain normal throughout winter, then tourism might pick up in April next year.”

Though no tourists have been hurt during the past four months of protests, it would take at least another three months for the state government and tour operators to instil confidence among prospective tourists to visit Kashmir. “We will watch the situation for the next few weeks and, if no incident takes place, then we will go in for marketing for next year’s season, hoping to attract a good number of tourists in April,” says Shah.

By Naseer Ganai in Srinagar