10 February 2013, 02:22 PM IST
Many questions have been raised about the hanging of Afzal Guru and many answers have been forthcoming on each one of them. Did he receive a fair trial? Was due process followed in letter and spirit to the very end? Why was his execution delayed for eight years? What were the compulsions to hang him now? Why did his execution get precedence over the assassins of Beant Singh and Rajiv Gandhi who were also sentenced to death? Is it right to send someone to the gallows to appease the 'collective conscience' of the nation? Is the continuance of the death sentence on our statute books not a blot on a vibrant democracy such as ours?
Debates on these issues in the media have been far from conclusive. That was only to be expected for the Afzal Guru case has been inextricably linked to a number of contentious political, ideological and psychological factors. These factors are all the more significant in the context of Jammu and Kashmir. The situation in the state has a direct bearing not only on our sovereignty, security and territorial integrity but also, more importantly, on the very idea of India. For, no other state in the union boasts of such rich diversity of ethnicities, cultures, languages, life-styles, religions and levels of development. It is therefore in J & K that the idea of India will either flower or flounder.
For close to a quarter of a century, that idea has come under attack from terror outfits armed and trained by the Pakistani army and from separatist groups based in the Valley. Both claim that they are engaged in a 'freedom struggle.' Both harp on alleged human rights violations by our security forces. Both regard terrorist killed in combats with the security forces as 'martyrs.' And of course both assert that they, and they alone, along with the 'martyrs', represent the 'genuine sentiments' of the Kashmiris.
Maqbhool Bhat, who was hanged 29-years ago this week for perpetrating a terror act, acquired the halo of an icon overnight. The same fate awaits Afzal Guru who was sentenced for masterminding an attack on Parliament – the supreme symbol of our democracy and our republic. The reactions of these anti-India forces to his hanging should leave no one in doubt that they intend to exploit it to the hilt to stoke the fires of insurgency in J & K. They believe that the forthcoming withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan will allow them to divert terror outfits engaged on that front to infiltrate jihadis in the state.
Our immediate concern therefore is to nip any mischief of the anti-India forces in the bud. The measures taken by the security forces to this end are doubtless draconian. But any lowering of the guard at this moment could prove be dangerous. A tight vigil has be kept along the Line of Control and in those areas of the state that are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Terrorist groups based in Pakistan can also be trusted to activate their sleeper cells in the rest of the country. Both the central and the state governments must surely have factored in this possibility when they decided to execute Afzal Guru. The next few days and weeks will put their resolve to counter the threats to a severe test.
None of this however will be of much avail unless New Delhi begins in right earnest to address the genuine political, economic, social and cultural concerns, grievances, interests and aspirations of the people of the state. These have suffered from neglect for several decades. To look the other way every time the elections were rigged up to 1989, governance was slothful, corrupt, opaque and unaccountable, when the special status the state enjoys under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution was seen, especially in the Valley, to have been emasculated, accounts for the deep sense of victimhood that prevails across the state.
It differs from region to region. In the Valley, the separatists, along with their fellow travellers, including sections of the mainstream parties, pine for secession. Opinion in Ladakh and Jammu seek closer integration with India. But that is not the end of the story. People in Shia-dominated Kargil do not want to be dominated by Buddhist-dominated Leh. Likewise, Sunni-dominated hill communities do not want to be at the mercy of people in and around the Jammu region. Add to this the terrible plight of communities uprooted from their homes due to endemic violence: Kashmiri Pandits in particular.
Now is the moment for the central and state governments to implement – as speedily as possible – a large number of recommendations contained in the reports of the Prime Minister's five working groups and in the report of the Group of J & K interlocutor- that this writer headed . Their focus is the people of the state: their diverse, even divergent, interests and concerns. All of them have drawn the Laxman rekha: yes to the special status of Jammu & Kashmir, reviewed in the light of the global, integrating economic trends, and a firm 'no' to any attempt, hard or soft, to force J & K secede from the Indian Union.
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