Shutting down Geelani’s Grievance Factory, By Nitin Pai

Posted Thu, 04/21/2011 - 21:28 by admin

Image  21st April,2011

While you were busy watching Anna Hazare on television last week, terrorists fired the first salvo of this year’s round of conflict in Jammu & Kashmir. They killed Maulana Showkat Shah, the leader of the Jamiat-Ahl-e-Hadees. The targeted assassination is very likely calculated to trigger off a process that first creates grievances to get people onto the streets, then uses the resulting increase in the visible presence of security forces to perpetuate the mindset of a population under occupation.
 
The business of manufacturing grievances, operated by the likes of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, involves both FDI and FII. Provocateurs and hardcore separatists act as the focus of violent unrest, mobilising young people using old methods and new. Motivated or excitable sections of the media add tickers, employing terms like “intifada” and “Jasmine” (or heaven-forbid, “Gandhian”), to describe the proceedings.
 
The separatist game plan is to prevent the state, especially its Kashmir region, from returning to what we all like to call “normalcy”.
 
Counter-insurgency operations over the last few years have reduced the number of militants in Kashmir to a few hundreds.
 
While there is only a small increase in the number of infiltration attempts across the Line of Control, training camps continue to operate on Pakistani soil, and several thousand militants are reported to be preparing to cross over onto the Indian side.
 
Fortunately, few will succeed. A measure of competence of the Indian army’s counter-infiltration operations is the four-fold increase this year in the ‘market-rate’ for local guides to facilitate infiltration attempts.
 
The Pakistani military-jihadi complex, however, does not actually have to send in large numbers of infiltrators into Kashmir. Merely holding out the threat of infiltration compels India to maintain higher troops levels in the state in general and along the LoC in particular.
 
This permits Pakistan to sanctimoniously complain about the militarisation of Kashmir. More importantly, it makes ordinary Kashmiris feel the constant tension of living amid soldiers and their guns.
 
So separatists can easily convert rumours and genuine but quotidian grievances into “causes”, triggering street protests and eliciting a response from the security forces. It’s a numbers game, but a political economy has developed that remunerates marginal protestors for joining in support of hardcore elements. Many young, urban, Kashmiri Muslim males have more incentives to join the agitation than not to.
 
To halt this cycle, it is necessary to both raise the costs of protesting and the benefits of not protesting. While the political and security machinery —wiser from handling last year’s stone-pelting experience — can well reduce the attractions of a summer job as a street-protester, the state has been less successful in creating alternative occupations.
 
Money is not a problem. There is a Rs28,000 crore Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan and this year, an additional Rs8,000 crore in development funds have been announced. Intentions are not a problem either. In March, C Rangarajan, the prime minister’s economic advisor, submitted a well-researched report on creating employment: large sums of money have been proposed to create a large number of jobs. Yet this was the third time in six years that Dr Rangarajan was submitting a report on the same subject. Where lies the problem?
 
The main reason New Delhi’s outlays fail to generate outcomes is because there is a lack of capacity in the state and local administrations. Even if it didn’t make its way to the wrong pockets, it is difficult to spend that much money simply because the Jammu & Kashmir doesn’t have sufficient numbers of competent officials who can implement programmes. It takes years to raise these numbers in the best of circumstances. The problem is, young people have to be kept off the streets right now.
 
Kashmir needs a guerilla development plan, using unconventional tactics to quickly create an economy that engages its youthful population. According to the Economic Freedom of the States of India 2011 report Jammu and Kashmir stood 9th (out of the 20 states studied) in terms of economic freedom, moving up from 15th position in 2005. It scores better than even Maharashtra, Punjab and Karnataka. So a plan that exploits and enlarges economic freedom might do the trick. But it needs the Omar Abdullah government to engage in an entirely different mode of thinking.
 
It should create zones in urban areas where entrepreneurs can move in and start business in a matter of days. Instead of waiting for training institutes to be built, it should facilitate skills training in small batches. It should avoid handouts, and inject resources into microfinance institutions for them to lend more and to younger people.
 
Such a plan stands a good chance of strengthening social capital and cultivating a sense of individual responsibility. Because you can start small, it is possible to get such a plan off the ground immediately. Because you can scale, it is possible to cover the whole state within Omar Abdullah’s term in office. This spring’s narrative can be different if Geelani’s “Grievance Factory” is made to suffer a labour shortage.
 
---------------- Note: Content of this blog post is writer's personal opinion and may not be SanghParivar.org or Sangh's view.

Comments

MBHAGAWAT's picture

bring narendra modi to national politics to reclaim hindu pride

by MBHAGAWAT - 05/23/2011 - 17:17

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF GUJARAT IN FREEDOM MOVEMENT?
We feel our self proud that our own Gandhijee has fought with British govt silently with non violent agitation and brought freedom to our country from the chains of bondage. But it is our misfortune that we had been remained as bondage to the congress party and they are exploiting the sentiments of our people by dividing them on caste, creed,race,religion lines.
We are divided by caste by the constitution makers by giving the unprivileged the separate status and giving reservation to them in the constitution.Althugh the step seems to be realistic in many ways and also worked for the betterment of these communities but the reservation system which was meant for a specific period was extended many times and continuing till date. Above all the Mandal commission was constituted to grant reservation to the weaker section of society but it has opened up a Pandora’s box by advocating granting special status to the other backward castes .This has created a serious division in the Hindu society and they were divided and fighting among themselves. It was a political masterstroke by Mr.V.P.SINGH to vanquish congress as he had some deep hatred for congress but he cannot do enough damages.
Congress was a party of national leaders till Nehru was alive and thereafter it got only the political demagogues. None of the leaders who had ascended the throne in Delhi after Rajiv Gandhi can be called a true national leader. MR.P.V.N.RAO,H.D.DEVE GOWDA,VP SINGH,CHANDRASEKHAR,I.K.GUJARAL are leaders of lesser importance who are just passing the time in gap as the PM . Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a good PM but he cannot establish his stamp on the govt as he was pressurized by the hardliners in his party. Now we have Mr.Man Mohan Singh who is weak and unfit PM as he is being camouflaged by the US, Pakistan and china as well as Sonia.We need a strong, efficient PM who should have the personality to talk tough, work tough and act tough.
Mr.Narendra Modi has all these qualities which should have been in a politician, diplomat,nation builder.He is like the iron man Sardar Ballabh Bhai Patel, who has worked brilliantly to unite india.He has the qualities of Bishmarck,Napolean and Alexander.But Congress party and some NGO’s are trying their level best to tarnish his image to paint him as a dragon.He can save the country from anarchy,chaos and breaking point.
We need his services in centre and national politics.He should be brought to national politics by the BJP high command and entrust him the works of going to each and every corner of india in the next four years and fill all the people with patriotism and nationalism and fighting qualities.