Kashmir's New Warriors

Their cause is not independence or union with Pakistan but the ouster of India's military from their homeland

By Jyoti Thottam/Srinagar Monday, Sept. 20, 2010
    • TIME

    Kashmiri youth throw stones and chant anti-Indian slogans during a protest in the city of Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir state, India on Sunday, August 8, 2010.

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    Tufail Mattoo, the student, was killed by a tear-gas shell, but neither his death nor those of 60 other people this summer has changed the tactics of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which even Kashmir's Law Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar has called "out of control." Prabhakar Tripathy, the CRPF spokesman in Srinagar, says that his troops fire only in self-defense, but those soldiers TIME spoke to said they have no specific instructions. Some troops have started improvising weapons, answering the stone pelters with marbles launched from homemade slingshots. (A protester lost an eye to one.) Dr. Waseem Qureshi, medical superintendent of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar, says there have been 112 injuries among protesters since June, nearly all of them caused by bullets. He has recorded no injuries among members of the security forces.

    The youngest victim to date is 8-year-old Sameer Ahmad Rah, whose death has become a focal point for the protests. The son of a fruit trader, Sameer lived in a district that was once a hotbed of militancy. On Aug. 2, boys in the neighborhood were throwing stones. His father Fayaz Rah says Sameer asked to go to his cousin's house in a quieter area nearby. His mother Fareeda remembers that Sameer ate his lunch and then left with "a pear and a two-rupee coin in his pocket." It was 3:20 in the afternoon; his parents received Sameer's body about four hours later.

    Rah says that somewhere along the way, a CRPF group caught hold of Sameer and started beating him up, perhaps believing he had been involved in the day's earlier stone-throwing. Neighbors told him later what they saw: "[The troops] took him to a marshy area and threw him to the ground," Rah says. "He hit his head on a stone, and they hit him further with their gun butts." The CRPF denies this; Tripathy says Sameer died in a stampede during a protest. The local police report simply repeats the CRPF claim, but Rah says that version isn't possible. "It was all curfew," he says. "People were not out. How could there be a stampede? It's a lie."

    The family feels powerless. Without police endorsement of his account, Rah cannot go to the state's human-rights commission. "I'm a fruit dealer," he says. "I have never been to the courts. I don't know how they will ensure justice." Says Professor Mattoo: "Confidence in public institutions has been completely eroded."

    Lost Opportunity
    Though India's growing prosperity is uneven, there is a national (and international) sense that the country is boldly marching forward. Not so in Kashmir. New Delhi recently tried to offer economic progress, promising political change later, but the government has yet to deliver on either. As Kashmiris lose patience, the chance for dialogue is disappearing. Having got the attention of the Prime Minister, the protesters are unlikely to stop there. "This has worked," says stone pelter Saleh. He and his fellow protesters are demanding, among other things, the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gives security forces broad leeway to operate in Kashmir without fear of oversight or prosecution. After months of inaction, Chief Minister Abdullah now promises that if Srinagar is quiet for a week or so, he can get AFSPA revoked "in a matter of days."

    India's Home Ministry is considering changes to AFSPA, but so far has been reluctant to touch it because of objections by the army and the political opposition, which rounds on any perceived weakness with regard to Kashmir. "Consultations are under way," says Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who hopes to see amendments "in the near future." A repeal will require the kind of political courage that New Delhi has yet to show in the region. If it continues with the same old strategies — blaming Pakistan for stirring up trouble, imposing curfews and alternating talks with bloody crackdowns — it will engender the same cycle of violence.

    According to Radha Kumar, an expert on conflict resolution who has been involved in recent negotiations with separatists, the Indian government needs to do "something dramatic and bold." The only effective response to this new generation of Kashmiri stone pelters may be a new generation of Indian statesmen.

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