A group consisting of concerned citizens visited Srinagar from March 30 to April 2, 2021.

The visiting group consisted of the following:
1. Yashwant Sinha (Former Indian External Affairs Minister )
2. Wajahat Habibullah (Former Indian Chief Information Commissioner and former Chairman of India's National Minorities Commission)
3. Air Vice Marshal (Retd) Kapil Kak
4. Bharat Bhushan (Editor, Catchnews) and
5. Sushobha Barve (Executive Program Director of Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation – CDR)

People believe that the Covid-19 pandemic will eventually pass and that it has not created any Kashmir-specific problems. The problem specific to Kashmir in their mind originates from the decisions of the Modi government. Since August 2019 there have been changes in the administrative structure of the bifurcated Jammu andKashmir, old political parties are sought to be dismantled and the formation of new ones is being facilitated by Delhi. It is not clear whether Kashmir will resist the changes being imposed on it or accept them with resignation. The local political leadership is either silent or being forced into silence for fear of theIndian state.

Under these circumstances, short of restoring the status quo ante , it is very difficult to recommend a course of action to fundamentally change the situation in which the Kashmiris find themselves. We therefore limit ourselves to suggestions that areakin to applying balm on a wound to relieve the immediate pain.

Drug addiction seems rampant in Kashmir, as it would perhaps be expected in a conflict zone. Medical experts claim that youth who earlier took to guns are increasingly taking recourse to drugs, starting with inhalation of chemicals butanding after a few years with heroin injections. Instances of 15-year-olds going straight to heroin injections are not uncommon now, they point out. Mercifully,addicts are not into criminal activities due to family support. 

A common sentiment among all those we met from the civil society was of anger, hurt and unhappiness. We found a deeply wounded society. Many told us that inthe past 70 years, they had not felt as hurt as after the August 5, 2019 decision. Asif that were not bad enough, the speed with which the Centre has gone about issuing one executive order after another – ranging from the scrapping of the Roshni Act, granting domicile certificate for non-J&K people, and the five language policy to the delimitation of constituencies – has added to the anti-India sentiment and increased peoples’ anger. An enraged Kashmiri lamented, “A coloniser is going about colonising the natives of J&K.”

A major cause of anger against the security forces and for support for militant seems to be the policy of blowing up houses where militants take shelter.However, most often it is not just a particular house where militants have taken shelter that is blown up by the security forces but several adjoining houses are also damaged in the process. Even in the severest of Kashmir’s winters this year,the policy of blowing up houses where the militants were hiding, was implemented. The houses are also blown up where the militant had taken shelter,as a punishment to the house owners. A Kashmiri man asked, “After such encounters which make people homeless, why would an entire village not support militancy?”

Recommendations:

• Address the sense of defeat and anger amongst the Kashmiris by opening up the democratic space for people to express themselves.
• Restore the earlier policy of restraint and preventing ‘collateral damage’ during counter-insurgency operations by the security forces.
• Do not blow-up the homes of hapless villagers which are occupied forcibly by the militants for shelter or for using them tactically against the security forces.
• Give special attention to the physical safety and economic well-being of the minorities in Kashmir, especially the non-migrant Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs and Shias who have lived in peace in the Valley for centuries.

• Do not impose artificial political processes on the Kashmiris which seem democratic outwardly but are bereft of any democratic muscle.
• Allow civil society organisations to function by holding meetings, seminars,and discussions which would allow the people to vent their emotions and relieve the psychological pressure on them.

A copy of this report was made available courtesy KashmirLife.