J&K: Find new ways to counter insurgency

Possibly the most important lesson that may be derived from the security forces’ action in the Chadoora area of central Kashmir, not far from Srinagar, on Tuesday in which three stone-pelters were killed, is that politics is still not in the forefront from the side of the state while it trumps all else from the side of the state’s opponents — the extremist/terrorist outfits and their patrons within the Kashmir Valley and across the Line of Control.

The next in importance to this primary consideration is that the security grid — comprising the Army, paramilitary forces and the police — might do well to revise its anti-insurgency strategy.

Both priorities must go hand in hand. That is the best-case scenario of course. But politics must retain the upper hand in any case, and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti appears to be less than mindful of this. She has been pushed into the corner to such a degree that she now appears amenable to do every bidding of the PDP’s coalition partner, the BJP, to last out the remainder of her six-year term. That’s the road to perdition.

If the PDP chief gives the impression to the public — as she has done, specially at the height of the months-long militant campaign last summer and autumn — that she is ready for her party to give up its regional characteristics and toe the Centre’s line wholesale, she would risk long-term rejection.

And the Centre, which seems to be pushing her in that direction through its unremitting Hindu nationalist rhetoric and demagoguery, would succeed in ensuring the shrinking of the middle ground in the Valley to the advantage of the extremist forces, and eventually of Pakistan. It’s high time Ms Mufti began to speak up for the Valley’s needs, political and not just so-called development-oriented, to restore her own credibility even if this means leaving the government. She must openly urge the Centre to begin a dialogue, embracing all sections of opinion. There is no other way forward.

The security forces were right to send the message that they meant business when a stone-pelting mob tried to interfere with an anti-terrorist operation in order to help the trapped extremist escape. But the tactic of surrounding and challenging even a single militant who seeks to hide in a building — a home, a mosque, or inside an institutional structure — in front of television cameras just makes no sense. It should be consigned to history. Drama of this nature gives mobs a chance to gather, raising the probability of civilian deaths, which gives a further momentum to the spiral of protests and security action. It’s time the government moves to a new politics and an innovative counter-insurgency doctrine.