Aditya Sinha: Like army, history too takes no prisoners

After Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wanirsquos 22 death but before Internet services in the Kashmir Valley were blocked Facebook was filled with photos of his funeral thronged by tens of thousands of mourners with lamentations and with hyperbolic posts like the assertion that 5000 years of Kashmirisrsquo resilience would continue posted by a youngster of an establishment familyKashmiri mourners take photographs of the body of Burhan Muzaffar Wani before his funeral at Tral near Srinagar PicAFPThe Republic of India will soon complete 69 years but as citizens we delude ourselves on many counts The most glaring is what the Kashmir issue is about territory not its people As a result we obsess about Pakistan rather than address Kashmir The BJP government has tightened the border stymieing Pakistanrsquos efforts to send arms across deployed hightechnology like lasers on the border and sophisticated eavesdropping on crossborder communication and through its local coalition partner has used administrative sops to demonstrate how profitable it is to stay with India than to seek lsquogreenerrsquo pastures And yet much to Pakistanrsquos delight antiIndia sentiment in the Valley remains strong while 1990rsquos militancy has made a comeback led by a martyr for the new generationThe other delusion is that there exists a proIndia constituency in Kashmir Jammu is undoubtedly proIndia but it is not Kashmir though many link the two for rhetorical purposes If Kashmiris come to study or work outside their Valley it is not because they accept India in Kashmir though it also does not mean they should be denied rentals or jobs or even neighbourly goodwill Liberals think their sympathy for Kashmiri grievances is a beacon for KashmiriIndia reconciliation but from the Kashmiri point of view there is little difference between the conservative Indian the liberal Indian or the Indian Leftist In 69 years they have all refused to accommodate Kashmiri political aspirationsThe late Ghulam Rasool Kar tried to plant the Congress party flag in the Valley thatrsquos as proIndia as it gets considering that Sheikh Abdullah led the Plebiscite Front during the rsquo50s and rsquo60s Yet even Kar in his final days told fellow Kashmiris ldquoNever trust Delhirdquo Former spy chief AS Dulat my coauthor on Kashmir The Vajpayee Years says this about the Sheikhrsquos son Dr Farooq ldquoIn the end hersquos a Kashmirirdquo Dr Farooq mdash the man whom separatists hate the most mdash like any Kashmiri does not trust DelhiDespite 69 years of opportunity India has not earned Kashmiri trust This is not surprising seeing the reactions in Delhi mdash by journalists some of whom have forgotten nonpartisanship mdash that Burhan Wani was a terrorist who deserved death or that some international jihadi syndicate used his funeral to expand the war against India All those mourners on Saturday did not think he was a terrorist Only a colonial oppressor like Imperial Britain would perceive an entire population as terrorist or terroristsupportingSome Indians focus on the fact that Burhan had picked up the gun Itrsquos ironic given that India has turned the Valley into a partgarrison partopen air prison One even said Kashmiris should pursue their grievances in other ways which is not only patronising but also ignores how in 69 years Kashmiris are still stuck at square one mdash after the brief promise of AB Vajpayee there was the lost decade under Manmohan Singh and now the panicinducing Narendra ModiThe talk of an international jihadi movement is misleading Kashmir saw significant evaporation of global support following 911 Perhaps thatrsquos why there never was an al Qaeda in the Valley though some Kashmiris may support Islamism the majority clearly donrsquot want their nationalism diverted or diluted by itBasically Kashmiris donrsquot trust us because we donrsquot trust them To us theyrsquore Trojan Horses for Pakistan we donrsquot sit down to talk with them and instead treat them as Pakistani agents and we wonrsquot even bring members of their lsquocollaboratorrsquo class like Dr Farooq to our high table We talk of a deal with separatist Nagas that includes separate flags and passports but never think of something similar for Kashmir because unlike Nagaland it is a legacy of PartitionFinally we cannot expect Kashmiris to trust us if wersquore arrogant As reported in a national daily the decision to kill Burhan was taken two months ago despite an opinion in ldquoa section of the establishmentrdquo to take him alive He could have been caught but the gang in power in Delhi wanted to send a tough message It wants to rule by fearAfter the protests over Burhanrsquos death die down the antiIndia sentiment will deepen even if a superficial lsquonormalcyrsquo returns And when National Security Advisor Ajit Doval comes to the end of his tenure he will find that he was neither able to sort out the problem nor manage it much less erase it completely He will find that history too takes no prisonersSenior journalist Aditya Sinha is a contributor to the recently published anthology House Spirit Drinking in India He tweets autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom