Author: Kanchan Gupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 5, 2008
Images can have a profound impact and make
a lasting impression even on the most cynical among us. They can also act
as a force multiplier in a conflict zone. Recall the photographs and television
footage of teenaged Palestinian boys in Gaza and the West Bank confronting
Israeli tanks armed with no more than shepherd's slings; of young men, their
faces half-covered with handkerchiefs and kafiyeh, racing through billowing
clouds of tear gas to hurl stones at soldiers armed with assault rifles; of
middle-aged and old women violating police pickets and defying curfew. That
was the first time we heard of a little-used Arabic word, intifada, which
literally means to shake off but in recent times has come to mean a rebellion
premised on the Biblical tale of David vanquishing Goliath, a relentless mass
protest born of festering anger, deep-seated grievance and overwhelming, uncontrollable
rage.
We are witnessing a similar intifada in Jammu
province where young and old, men and women, are locked in an unequal battle
with the police -- and, since Friday, the Army -- demanding the immediate
revocation of the Government order cancelling the transfer of 800 kanals of
land to the Sri Amarnath Shrine Board. The land was meant for creating temporary
facilities for pilgrims who trek to the Amarnath shrine every year, braving
inclement weather and jihadi attacks. This time, it's a Hindu intifada, an
outpouring of pent-up anger which has brought life in Jammu and other towns
and villages in the province to a standstill.
It's been more than a month that the Hindus
of Jammu have taken to the streets, burning tyres, taunting policemen, braving
tear gas and real bullets, violating curfew and blockading the highway to
Srinagar. The images emanating from Jammu are eerily similar to those that
emanated from Gaza and the West Bank during the Palestinian intifada. More
tellingly, the tactics that have been adopted by the protesters are those
that have often brought Kashmir Valley to a standstill. If you look at the
photographs of the Hindu intifada, you will get a sense of how Jammu has decided
to give Kashmir a taste of its own medicine -- in this case it is Dum Dum
dawai.
The details of the land transfer fiasco are
well-known. The Congress-PDP Government headed by Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad had
instructed the Forest Department to transfer the land to the SASB. Within
days Muslims in the Kashmir Valley, led and instigated by pro-Pakistani separatists,
took to the streets, insisting no land should be provided for pilgrim facilities.
The All-Party Hurriyat Conference spread three canards: First, the transfer
amounted to alienation of 'Kashmiri land'; second, it would lead to intrusion
of 'Hindu culture' in Muslim Kashmir; and, third, it would cause ecological
damage.
The PDP, sensing an opportunity to revive
its pro-separatist -- if not brazenly anti-India/ anti-Hindu -- image in the
run-up to the Assembly election in Jammu & Kashmir, joined the protest
and subsequently withdrew from the Government. To his credit, Mr Azad stood
firm and refused to budge from his Government's decision, till Mr NN Vohra
took over as Governor, replacing Gen SK Sinha. Mr Vohra, in his capacity as
ex-officio chairman of the SASB, wrote a letter to Mr Azad, returning the
land and also offering to relinquish the board's task of organising the annual
yatra, thus making the pilgrimage to the Amarnath shrine subordinate to the
Valley's Muslims über alle politics and Delhi's equally odious politics
of Muslim appeasement.
Mr Vohra reportedly sent his letter to Mr
Azad at 8.30 pm on June 28. "The news of that abject surrender provoked
an explosion of outrage across Jammu," says a senior member of the Amarnath
Yatra Sangharsh Samiti, a broad-based organisation without any political affiliation
which is at the forefront of the protest. "The Governor has violated
the SASB Act. He cannot act unilaterally. Any decision of the board has to
be endorsed by at least five members," says Prof Hari Om, academic and
activist. "He is also in contempt of the High Court which had passed
an interim order approving the transfer of 800 kanals of land to the board
in Baltal," he adds.
For all his efforts to appease the Muslim
protesters in Kashmir Valley by 'returning' the land that had been allotted
for Hindu pilgrims, Mr Vohra was unable to save the Congress-PDP Government.
The PDP pulled out from the ruling alliance on June 28; on July 1, Mr Azad,
obviously under mounting pressure from his party bosses in Delhi, reversed
the earlier decision.
Meanwhile, in Jammu there was a spontaneous
shutdown on June 30. "I don't recall such a massive bandh in recent years,"
says a lawyer who has been involved with the protest; he does not wish to
be named, fearing harassment by authorities. Neither do the protesters wish
to be identified because they fear they will be picked up from their homes
by the police who take their instructions from Srinagar.
So, every morning, afternoon, evening and
night, students, workers, professionals, senior citizens and housewives take
to the streets, engaging the police in dogfights, hurling tear gas shells
back at their tormentors, chasing cops when they are outnumbered, retreating
into narrow alleys when the men in uniform regather, and then surging out
all over again. Their faces masked with handkerchiefs, they hurl stones; their
eyes reflecting their rage. Scores have been shot and wounded; three of them
have died; a young man was chased across rooftops by the police -- he jumped
to his death.
"Each death only makes us more determined.
We are not going to be bullied by the Valley any more. Jammu wants a voice
of its own. Jammu's Hindus will no longer tolerate oppression by Kashmir's
Muslims," says a young protester, still in his teens, from his house
in downtown Jammu. His voice has just begun to crack.
The day after the June 30 bandh, Jammu flared
up with street marches and protest rallies. The authorities responded by clamping
curfew, in an effort to force people to remain indoors, till July 7. Women
came out of their homes and dared the police to shoot them. An enduring image
of the Hindu intifada is that of an aged woman, a Pandit who was forced out
of the Valley along with her family and three lakh other Pandits in the early
days of jihadi terror, threatening a Kalashnikov-sporting policeman at a curfew
picket with her tattered and torn slipper.
On July 7, the Congress-PDP Government officially
exited office; the next day the Sangharsh Samiti suspended its agitation,
giving the Governor a fortnight's time to either have the land restored to
the SASB or resign from office. "Mr Vohra did neither. He only added
fuel to the fire by telling some people who went to plead with him, 'Why should
I bother about Jammu? Does Jammu matter? Does Jammu exist?' He has been insensitive
and his actions have only served to provoke the protesters," says a senior
official in the Jammu administration.
"Years of neglect of Jammu by Kashmir
has resulted in what you are seeing today. The people are frustrated. The
Pandits have at last found a platform to vent their anger. Jammu has more
people than Kashmir, but the lion's share always goes to the Valley,"
says Prof Hari Om.
Jammu province has 37 Assembly seats and two
Lok Sabha constituencies. Kashmir Valley has 46 Assembly seats and elects
three Lok Sabha MPs. Of the 37 Assembly constituencies in Jammu province,
25 have a Hindu-majority population; the remaining 12 have a Muslim-majority
profile. "Our voice naturally gets drowned," says an advocate who
is a member of the Sangharsh Samiti.
The natural beneficiary of the Hindu intifada
would be the BJP. It could end up sweeping all the Hindu-majority seats in
Jammu province and even emerge as the single-largest party in the next Assembly.
The Muslim vote in the Valley would be divided between the National Conference
and the PDP. The Congress could get wiped out -- it has little to claim as
support in the Valley; following the intifada in Jammu, it can't look forward
to winning 15 seats in this province as it did in 2002.
This should have set alarm bells ringing at
the Congress headquarters in Delhi. Strangely, the party's 'high command'
doesn't seem to care. Or so it would seem from the near non-response to the
protest.
Mr Vohra and his patrons in Delhi have "clearly
underestimated the determination of Jammu's long-suffering Hindus who have
had to cope with denial and deprivation for decades as the State Government
focuses only on the Kashmir Valley," the advocate-activist says.
This explains what happened on July 22. Kuldeep
Raj Dogra, in his mid-30s, who was participating in a hungerstrike at Jammu's
Parade Ground, decided to do something tragically dramatic: He consumed poison,
stood up to read out a passionately patriotic poem he had penned, faltered
and fell dead. "It was his way of registering his protest against Mr
Omar Abdullah's speech in Parliament ... he was incensed by the National Conference
leader's duplicity," says Prof Hari Om.
The police panicked. They forcibly took away
Kuldeep's body to his hometown, Bisnah, 15 km from Jammu, and "tried
to cremate it using old tyres, kerosene oil and liquor", according to
a Sangharsh Samiti leader. Kuldeep's widow, Shilpi, tried to prevent the cremation
and raised a hue and cry. The police have been accused of "insulting,
abusing and assaulting" Shilpi to silence her. But a huge crowd gathered
and snatched Kuldeep's body from the police. It was taken to Jammu and the
situation subsequently just went out of control.
Since then, the Hindu intifada has gathered
both force and speed. Curfew has been clamped on all of Jammu and Samba. The
Army has been called out. The Governor has been virtually forced to remain
confined within the Raj Bhavan by protesters who continue to gather at the
gates in large numbers with every passing hour. Mr Vohra's 'eight-point formula',
which included "allowing" the SASB to "maintain infrastructure
during the yatra period", to end the deadlock, has been spurned. The
Sangharsh Samiti is adamant that it will settle for nothing less than restoration
of the 800 kanals of land to the SASB for Hindu pilgrims.
Just how determined the protesters are can
be gauged from the manner in which thousands of them laid siege to the airport
after hearing that Mr Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference and PDP president
Mehbooba Mufti were flying in. They had to be flown from the airport to the
Raj Bhavan in a helicopter after the protesters refused to let them through.
Since Friday night, the intifada has escalated
and spread to virtually every corner of Jammu province. Protesters, defying
curfew, have been relentlessly pouring out into the streets throughout the
night, daring policemen and Army personnel to shoot them. Two men were shot
dead, 35 were injured when the police fired on protesters ransacking the District
Magistrate's office in Samba. By mid-afternoon on Saturday, the intifada was
truly raging in Jammu and beyond.
All trucks headed for Srinagar have been stopped
by protesters at Samba and on the Jammu-Pathankot national highway. No trucks
are being allowed to enter Jammu from Srinagar. Kashmir's Muslims could yet
get to know what it feels like to be at the receiving end of popular fury
and mass anger, as opposed to the Valley's made-in-Pakistan rage.