Home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said that two Hurriyat-linked groups had renounced separatism, identifying them as J&K People’s Movement and Democratic Political Movement. He urged all such groups to come forward and shed separatism once and for all while declaring separatism a history. This reflects a profound change in the ongoing situation in the Valley, something that was unthinkable a few years ago.
The home minister attributed this to the prime minister “Narendra Modi’s vision of building a developed, peaceful and unified Bharat.” Speaking in Rajya Sabha, the home minister backed up his claim with figures. While in 2004, 1,587 incidents of violence were reported in J&K, the number dropped to just 85. Similarly, civilian deaths, according to home ministry figures, have fallen from 733 to 26, and security personnel casualties have declined from 331 to 31 over the same period. It is also obvious that the stone-pelting is now virtually non-existent. Strikes, once a routine method of expressing dissent, have also disappeared.
However, the renunciation of separatism by the two Hurriyat constituent groups has a certain symbolic significance. It is rarely that a political outfit has severed ties to separatism. However, last year, a major politico-religious party Jamaat-i-Islami decided to contest the Assembly election, effectively distancing itself from its separatist moorings. The party failed to win a single seat but did create some buzz in its strongholds in South Kashmir. In February, the same Jamaat leaders floated a new party christened as the Justice and Development Front (JDF), which will contest the upcoming grassroots elections. It is the third new political party in Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. First two were the Apni Party led by Altaf Bukhari and the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) founded by the former Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad. Both of them have not been able to make any mark since their advent. However, there are no full stops in politics and the past performance is never an indicator of what might happen in future.
Taken together, these developments do highlight a sea change in the situation. Will other outfits follow suit remains to be seen. It may be premature to conclude that the Valley has turned the page on its troubled past. While separatist politics may be over, separatist violence lingers. The latest encounter in Kathua is a case in point. However, for true peace to prevail, it needs to be built on by an outreach to people and giving them a sense of empowerment in the transformed state of affairs.
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