The situation in the State has been witnessing diverse trends. It turned worst in the 2010 summer after a few months of Omar Abdullah-led coalition’s coming to power. It began with the Shopian rape and murder case. The separatists-sponsored bandhs and demonstrations became the order of the day disrupting normal life. After a short break, there was fresh wave of agitations which started on June 11 after Tufail Ahmed Matoo (17) died at the hands of the security forces in Srinagar. More deaths followed in clashes between the stone throwing demonstrators and the police. The writ of the pro-Pakistani hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah who issued weekly protest calendars ran in the Valley. Moderates were losing ground forcing them to toe the Geelani line.

Time is a great healer. Three main factors later started normalizing the situation. One, the authorities took action against some of the security forces personnel found responsible for the excesses. Two, the people got tired with the never-ending bandhs and demonstrations which had hurt their sources of livelihood. Some sections of the people began occasionally disobeying Geelani’s protest calendars forcing the separatist leader to ultimately stop issuing them. Third, appointment of a three-member interlocutors team by the Centre to visit the state and recommend steps for solving Kashmir problem, eased the tempo of the agitation.

Beginning 2011, the situation took the opposite turn. There has been no major political upheaval in the state. The frequency of protests and bandhs has sharply declined. The writ of the elected government again runs. There have been no major incidents of innocent peoples killings. Infiltrations have also witnessed a steep fall though there has recently been an unsavoury controversy between the government and the Army on the incidence of infiltrations. The government said a few hundred armed men infiltrated this year while the Army authorities said there had been no infiltrations

The government and the Army will have to avoid such controversies as these may create embarrassing situation as recently happened in the case of the list of most wanted persons sent by New Delhi to Pakistan but later found that some persons in the list had been living in India.

The peoples prevailing changed mood is also reflected by the unusually high voting percentages in the on-going panchayat elections for which both hardliner and moderate separatists had given boycott calls. Although the people had earlier also not obeyed the separatists calls for Assembly polls boycott, it is the enthusiasm they have demonstrated in the panchayat polls voting which adds significance to these elections. Now if the government fails to take speedy measures to fulfill the roused aspirations of the people, it can prove costly for the rulers.

The sustainability of the state’s improved security environment depends on three main factors. One is political stability. Democratic system of governance pre-supposes existence of multiple parties and their power struggles. On the direction the power struggles take, depends the state of political stability. One presumes that except the pro-Pakistan separatist groups, all the political parties in the State would like to ensure political stability, if not for any other reason, to ensure stability for their own governments whenever they come to power. The state’s mainstream parties have tasted power in the past and must be hoping to again ride back to power. They will have to depend on the electorate to oust their rivals from power through ballot box than through trading of legislators which is a sure way for creating political instability.

The second pre-requisite for political stability is a terror-free security environment and peace. If one goes by the past few years experience, the Centre and the security forces will not hesitate to take even extreme measures to ensure these

The third factor on which the state’s political and security stability depends is the role Kashmiri separatists and Pakistan, particularly its Army and the rogue ISI, play.

Even their ardent supporters may not deny that the separatists, particularly the hardliners are presently in low spirits mainly because of the Pakistan’s deteriorating security environment and failed governance. There can hardly be a better description of the country’s internal situation than what Murtaza Razvi, an editor with ‘Dawn’, Karachi has narrated in his recent write-up. It says “Free for all” and “killing fields” are the clichés that best describe Pakistan today. From a former prime minister to a sitting governor and a cabinet minister; from ordinary citizens to journalists to the police and the armed forces, no one is safe here anymore. This is a country at war with itself –and nobody’s talking about it because an all-enveloping cloud of denial is suspended over its skies and refuses to go away. Those who dare talk pay with their lives, like journalist Saleem Shahzad did on Monday”. Will the Kashmiri separatists take a cue from Razvi’s observations and still want the Valley to be a part of such a country?

Pakistan cannot be expected to stop backing Kashmiri militants and sending its own trained militants into the state as it considers Kashmir as a core issue for its survival. But two factors can blunt its potential to resume, at least in the foreseeable future, its old level of support to militants. One is its pre-occupation with handling the country’s prevailing grave security situation in the wake of bin Laden’s killing by the US forces. Second is the increasing US pressure on Pakistani establishment to firmly act against the Pakistan and Afghanistan-based terrorists whose three outfits operate in Pakistani Punjab, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan’s failure to act will prompt the US to target them as it did on Saturday by killing Ilyas Kashmiri. But the US will not stop aiding Pakistan as it needs it to promote its strategic interests in the region.

In the light of the foregoing assessment, one can expect Jammu and Kashmir’s improved security and political environment to sustain, at least for the foreseeable future. Hope sustains life. (IPA Service)