After decades of terrorism, it is astonishing that a rational baseline of response and assessment has not been arrived at by official sources or in the media. Every time a major incident, or a succession of lesser incidents occurs, the same tropes are trotted out by official sources, inflated and projected by the media, and turned on their head in senseless criticism by the political opposition. All this is evident in the reaction to the present spate of incidents between June 9 and 12.
Deaths in acts of terrorism are always distressing, particularly if they occur in ‘large numbers’, or in clusters. Having said this, the notion of ‘large numbers’ itself varies widely, according to the situation on the ground.
Look at The Long-Term Trend
A rash of four incidents over four successive days between June 9 and 12 in the Jammu region has cost 11 lives, including nine civilians, one security force (SF) trooper and one terrorist. The nine civilian fatalities are accounted for by the single attack on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims in Reasi.
It is a measure of the times, and of the enormous success that security forces have achieved in J&K, that this number is considered extraordinary. In 2001, at the peak of terrorism, 4,021 lives were lost in a single year (all data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal), averaging out at nearly 11 fatalities every single day of the year.
Even a more proximate comparison is reassuring. Between January 1 and June 14, 2024, a total of 32 fatalities have been recorded in J&K, including 17 civilians, two SF personnel and 13 terrorists. Over the same period in 2023, 39 fatalities were recorded in the Union Territory, including nine civilians, 12 SF personnel, 17 civilians and one in the ‘not specified’ category. The data makes it clear that there is no ‘surge’ in terrorism, as many commentators are claiming.
Political Noise Clouds Judgement
Apart from the death of pilgrims at Reasi, the Union government has perhaps been stung by the fact that the incident coincided with the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Modi and his new Cabinet. Some fairly unhinged comments followed, perhaps the most absurd from Ramdas Athawale, a MP from the Republican Party of India (A) and a Minister of State in the new government, who declared, “If such incidents continue to happen in future, we will have to go to war with Pakistan and take over Pakistan occupied Kashmir.” Such remarks are also a popular posture of the Hindutva parivaar, and display a complete ignorance of the balance of power in the region.
On the other end of the spectrum, former J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, advocating talks with Pakistan, asserts, “No military action has solved anything.” It would be just as easy to argue that no peace talks have solved anything, and that talks with Pakistan have often coincided with, or been followed by, phases of escalating terrorism. More significantly, the utter absurdity of Abdullah’s assertion would be manifest to anyone familiar with the trajectory of terrorism in J&K.
‘Military Action’ Has Had an Impact
‘Military action’ – the collective struggles and sacrifices of the Army, Central Paramilitary Forces and the J&K Police, to be precise – has brought terrorism-linked fatalities down from the thousands each year, to a total of 134 in 2023, of which 87 were terrorists. Recall that terrorism in J&K was a high intensity conflict, with fatalities exceeding a thousand for 17 consecutive years, between 1990 and 2006, and deaths exceeding 2,000 a year for 11 years. Farooq Abdullah’s statement is tantamount to complaining that a patient whose cancer has been cured, is still suffering from a cold.
Official reactions are no less uninspired. On June 13, during a meeting to review security, PM Modi emphasized the importance of “deploying the full spectrum of India’s counter-terror capabilities” in the wake of the preceding incidents in J&K. Are we to understand that, after 10 years in office, after the revocation of Article 370 in 2019, after locking down the entire population of the Union Territory for well over six months and putting its entire traditional political leadership under detention, after the vivisection of the state and the protracted suspension of the electoral process, after sustained counter-terrorism campaigns over the entire tenure of his regime and for decades preceding, the “full spectrum of India’s counter-terror capabilities” has not yet been deployed, and we are intentionally holding much in reserve? And what could be the conceivable rationale of such reticence?
‘Zero Terrorism’ Is Politics, Not Strategy
The problem, in fact, is in political postures. The claim that the ‘abrogation’ of Article 370 would bring complete peace, ‘zero terrorism’, to J&K. This assertion was fundamentally unsound.
‘Zero terrorism’ is not a strategy, it is a political slogan, especially where the source of terrorism is firmly located on foreign soil. It is not the case that we cannot imagine a future J&K where terrorism has no place at all; but this is not a mandate that can be imposed on security forces in the present circumstances. There is a level of low-grade residual terrorism that can be sustained indefinitely, as long as external support is maintained.
No Case to Postpone Assembly Elections
There has been wide speculation that this present and purported ‘surge’ in terrorism could justify a postponement of assembly elections presently projected to occur later this year – but if this is the case, it would simply be the cynical opportunism of the senior coalition partner at the Centre. Elections have been held in far worse conditions in J&K in the past – and the Lok Sabha elections have just been concluded in the Union Territory with voter participation unprecedented since the beginning of terrorism. It is useful to recall that, at the peak of terrorism in the state, Assembly Elections were held, inter alia, in 1996, the year in which 2,903 terrorism-linked fatalities were recorded, and in 2002, when 3,098 such fatalities occurred.
Any postponement of the assembly elections in the present circumstances can only be an admission of cravenness, of incompetence, or of a desire to maintain central rule after the failure to create a credible local proxy in the UT.
Kashmir’s Been a Successful ‘Holding Operation’
There is a perpetual search for magical ‘solutions’ to the ‘Kashmir problem’, and this ignores the very obvious reality that a solution has long been in play. Sustained SF campaigns have transformed a suppurating wound into no more than an itching scab. More than two decades ago, it had been noted that, from a geostrategic perspective, Kashmir was a ‘holding operation’ for India; that Pakistan would fail due to its own inherent contradictions and weaknesses. This process continues to unfold. Indian forces will not falter; Pakistan and her terrorist proxies have weakened, and will fail.
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