India struggles to contain Kashmiri rage

Jameela Akhtar, a Kashmiri housewife, sent her teenage son, Ishtiyaq, to a bakery in their middle-class Anantnag neighbourhood to buy bread. It proved to be a fatal errand.

A kilometre away, teenagers were hurling stones at police on the national highway, part of an upsurge of violent clashes pitting frustrated local youth against the might of Indian security forces across Kashmir.

It is unclear whether Ishtiyaq, 15, joined the agitation or was simply caught in the chaos. But police – chasing protesters through the narrow, twisting alleys of the residential colony – pursued him home, then shot him in his courtyard, where he died in front of his family. A friend and a bakery employee were also shot and killed on the spot.

As India and Pakistan’s foreign ministers resumed talks on Thursday about the disputed territory, Ishtiyaq’s devastated family and enraged neighbours were thinking only of justice. His older cousin, Asif Khandey, an engineer, asks: “How is it possible that they would have shot three people at point blank range? Is this justice? Is this India? Is this democracy?”

The anger in Anantnag reflects the broader rage erupting across Indian-controlled Kashmir – India’s only Muslim-majority province – where authorities have been struggling to control an outbreak of civil unrest led by stone-throwing youths calling for freedom from New Delhi’s rule.

Jammu and Kashmir mapFifteen civilians, including a woman and a nine-year-old child, have been killed since mid-June, with scores more injured, by paramilitaries and police. Each death fuels new protests and more casualties in a region fought over three times by New Delhi and Islamabad, which both claim the picturesque Himalayan valley as their own.

To break the latest cycle of violence, the region’s entire population was put under a six-day de facto house arrest last week as Indian authorities imposed a strict curfew. The region remains tense, with paramilitary contingents patrolling largely deserted roads and public squares and most shops and businesses shut down. Hundreds, including a leading local lawyer, have been arrested for waging war against the state.

While New Delhi blames Pakistan-based militants for inciting unrest, local people insist the protests, including small sit-ins in various Srinagar neighbourhoods on Thursday, are indigenous expressions of genuine anger and frustration.

“People want freedom from Indian occupation,” says Wasim Khan, a 26-year-old university student in Anantnag. “When they take up stones, they are showing how much hatred they have towards these cops. But it is a political problem and it should be solved politically.”

Since 1989 around 68,000 people have been killed in Kashmir in an armed Pakistan-backed separatist insurgency and New Delhi’s harsh military counter-measures. But militant violence has plummeted in recent years, as most Kashmiri fighters renounced armed struggle and Pakistan was pressed to curb cross-border infiltration of Islamist fighters.

Even as insurgency has waned, India’s security forces maintain an overbearing presence. Young, English-speaking graduates can’t find jobs. New Delhi, distracted by a Maoist insurgency in central and east India, has made no serious overtures towards the alienated, politicised population. India’s proposals to give Kashmir greater autonomy gather dust.

The 2008 election of Omar Abdullah – the now 40-year-old grandson of Kashmir’s most popular political leader – as Kashmir’s chief minister raised hopes for change as he promised to crack down on human rights abuses in a “zero tolerance” pledge echoed by Manmohan Singh, the prime minister.

Yet Mr Abdullah, remote and seemingly out of touch with the public mood, has struggled to deliver, as the armed forces have resisted efforts to dilute their legal immunity for rights abuses or excessive use of force in Kashmir.

In the absence of any credible political process, Kashmir remains volatile. Anger was stoked by the alleged killing of three villagers by soldiers, who are said to have falsely portrayed the victims as foreign militants to win promotions.

Tech-savvy Kashmiri youth have kept the mood charged with videos of police brutality and victims’ funerals on Facebook and YouTube.

But while the current unrest has put Kashmir back on New Delhi’s radar, Arif Parrey, a lawyer involved in back channel reconciliation efforts, remains pessimistic.

“Whenever there is dialogue, Kashmiris move two steps forward, and India doesn’t move at all,” he says. “They are afraid if they take some political steps, and offer something for a change, we will take that then demand more.”