Dr Ajay Chrungoo
The security challenges in Jammu and Kashmir can be properly dealt with if the underlying messages of the recent terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir are properly understood. People are cooperating with the government in the most vulnerable areas knowing very well that each citizen is a target of terrorism and security establishment cannot provide all round security to each and every citizen. However do they actually feel that the situation is normalizing? The answer to this question is no. Violence regularly targeting them has created a lurking fear inside their hearts that is deepening and not fading away.
Government Assessments
As per J&K police only 31 local terrorists- an all time low-are left in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Recruitment of locals into militancy has witnessed a drop of 80 percent in 2023. In 48 anti-terrorist operations 76 terrorists have been neutralized. Out of the total neutralized terrorists 55 have been foreign terrorists.
The expositions with regard to falling levels of militancy by the top most security officers and the political leadership at the helms seek to impress upon the people to appreciate the deepening and widening ambit of Normalcy and not panic; killings of civilians and the security persons here and there are very minor developments; Terrorism in the Union Territory is hitting a record low and is on its death bed and tourism is hitting record highs; 20-25 militants should not scare up the population.
The data and assessments shared by the government many times miss or distort what is happening on the ground and deep inside the society.
As per Police assessments the locals that joined terrorism was 131 in 2022 and only 22 in 2023. This makes the total number of local terrorists as 152 during 2022 and 2023. 76 terrorists were killed till December 30, 2023 out of which 55 were foreign terrorists. If we correlate the figures provided by the police we easily come to the conclusion that number of active local terrorists is at least more than double of what government otherwise claims. Add to the number of these active terrorists 36 terrorists more that have been declared as proclaimed offenders who are operating from Pak Occupied Jammu and Kashmir we get an alarming picture. The situation becomes grimmer when we incorporate the estimates of BSF that 300 terrorist infiltrators are waiting to intrude into this side from the launching pads in POJK.
The Bigger Picture
The bigger picture about the ground realities is conveyed by the declared achievements of the security forces on the ground. During 2023 there have been 48 anti-terrorist operations in J&K and 291 terrorist associates, who in reality are also terrorists, were arrested. 201 over ground workers were booked under the Public Safety Act in J&K during 2023. 89 terror modules which include 78 in Kashmir were busted. 8000 fake social media accounts mostly being operated from outside the country were identified and action was taken against them. 15 cases of narco-terrorism were brought to light in 2023, 250 narcotic smugglers were booked, 2400 cases were registered under Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substances Act in 2023 in comparison to 1659 cases in 2022. During drives against narcotic smugglers 297 kgs of heroin, 63 kgs of Brown Sugar , 6557 kgs of Poppy Straw and 118 kgs of Opium along with 10.90 crores of rupees were recovered by police in 2023.
What do these facts communicate? Terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir is more than the presence of a few misguided, radicalized and militarized persons. Terror war is widely spread. It is deeply entrenched within the society. It has support within the society, administration as well the security apparatus. It has phenomenal linkages with illegal economy of Narcotics. Terrorism is certainly not on its death bed. It is proactive.
The regular emphasis that most of the terrorists operating inside J&K are foreign militants seeks to impress that the violence in the UT is primarily a foreign mischief. But the assertion actually communicates the reverse. For the active foreign terrorists to be effective a wider public support and a more reliable civil sanctuary is required than in case of local terrorists. More foreign militants means more local support.
After the annulling of Art 370 and reorganization we are witnessing calibrated violence and hybrid terrorism. Terrorist violence stopped for some time and started surfacing again as the political process in the new UT started taking off. Terrorist violence has been aimed at both the soft civilian targets as well as security forces.
Soft targets are primarily Hindus living in Kashmir and vulnerable areas of Jammu. The violence against them is clearly genocidal in nature. Two, almost complete, religious cleansing campaigns have been successfully conducted by the terrorist establishment during the stint of BJP rule in Jammu and Kashmir by unleashing selective genocidal killing against just a few thousand Hindus living in Kashmir.
Terrorists have attacked security forces both in Kashmir as well as Jammu. Security forces have suffered heavy casualties. As per security experts including former intelligence officers these attacks appeared to be of the nature of ambushes or entrapments. In almost all attacks on security forces it appears that security forces were not following proper SOPs.
Treating Asymmetric war Traditionally
The real problem with handling internal security is not the inefficiency of the police and army. The problems and failures actually emanates from the strategic perspectives followed by the State which have ossified and survived the regime changes in Jammu and Kashmir and New Delhi. This strategic perspective has consistently sought to respond to a vicious asymmetric war ‘traditionally’ and conventionally.
To be fair to BJP Government it has now started recognizing the critical elements of the asymmetric war being waged in Jammu and Kashmir. If the Government emphasises on eliminating the internal ecosystem that sustains terrorism is taken to its logical conclusion it will bring about a revolutionary change. Can it abandon the statistical model of assessment based on number of active terrorists during our time and their time and move towards a paradigm of understanding what terror establishment wants to do and what it thinks it can do? The traditional strategic approach is fixated on territorial dimension and blind to demographic dimensions.
The components of this traditional strategic approach are: Underplay the malaise of Terrorist Separatism in Jammu and Kashmir. Understate or hide the local involvement of the sons of soil ‘Ibn-ul-balad’. Attribute Terrorism primarily to foreign terrorists. Describe terrorism as a small aberration in the otherwise normal environment which is peaceful before an act of terror and after it. Delink terrorism from its etiology and present it as a sterile phenomenon bereft of any ideology, primarily driven by Pakistan, and without any religious or geopolitical motivation. At all costs deny the genocidal demographic nature of the terrorist war. By implication this approach normalizes terrorism so that usual business is conducted without interruption.
This existing strategic model is almost sadistically averse to recognize the religious demographic objectives of the terrorist war in India. It fails to face the reality that cardinal feature of Pan-Islamic war in India is demographic assault. From the perspective of Pan-Islamic strategy territorial assaults can wait but demographic assaults have to remain perpetually ongoing. Hindu genocide and Muslim demographic expansions through multiple ways including infiltration are expressions of this demographic assault.
Former vice President of Afghanistan who had also served as its interior minister before the Taliban takeover says the mind driving Pan-Islamic wars seek to ‘humiliate the enemy’ and show that it is ‘incapable of defending’ its civilians. He says pan-Islamic militancy seek to break the myth of the ‘State Status’ of the States against whom they are at war. Hindus facing genocide in Jammu and Kashmir are withstanding a double attrition. For the terrorists they are the prime target. For the State they are just buffers.
(The author is Chairman Panun Kashmir)
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