By GEETA ANAND and HARI KUMAR
SEPTEMBER 21, 2016
Protesters clashed with Indian security forces in the Indian-controlled area of Kashmir in August. India and Pakistan have been locked in a nearly 70-year feud, beginning with independence from Britain in 1947.
NEW DELHI — Escalating tension over the contested Kashmir region is presenting a challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, who needs regional peace to reach his principal goal of economic revival there. But Indian citizens have been clamoring for a response to what they say is a provocation by Pakistan.
The tension reached a boiling point on Sunday when militants attacked an army base in the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir and killed, at last count, 18 soldiers, setting off a war of words between the two nuclear powers, which have fought three wars in recent decades. India accuses the militants of having links to Pakistan.
The situation not only risks economic growth but could also send two nations skidding into a nuclear war.
“It could happen, and it would be catastrophic for both countries,” said Stephen P. Cohen, the author of “Shooting for a Century: The India-Pakistan Conundrum.”
India and Pakistan have been locked in a feud — it began nearly 70 years ago with their independence from Britain — mainly over the Himalayan valley called Kashmir. The dispute over its control, which has led to two wars, had appeared to be relatively dormant since 2010 as tourists returned to the scenic region and turnouts in elections were large. That led the Indian government to believe that the turbulence of recent decades might be over, says Omar Abdullah, former chief minister of the northernmost Indian state, Jammu and Kashmir.
People in July mourned over the body of Burhan Wani, whose killing by Indian security forces touched off the protests in Kashmir.
That thinking, it now appears, was a mistake.
There were warning signs over the last two years about rising unrest among young people in Indian-administered Kashmir. Small disputes with the Indian security forces stationed in the Kashmir valley often drew enormous crowds very quickly. The killing of a 22-year-old separatist militant named Burhan Muzaffar Wani by Indian security officers in July touched off the latest protests.
“Wani should have served as an alarm bell for the government system,” said Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Wire, an online Indian news site. “Why would a young man, instead of taking up engineering, adopt a course that any reasonable person would tell him would end up in death?”
Now the India-controlled section of Kashmir is engulfed in a crisis. Since the shooting, the Indian-controlled area has been shut down, with curfews and strikes forcing the closing of schools, offices and markets.
Mr. Wani’s death incited violent stone-throwing protests that the security forces sought to eradicate by firing birdshot at protesters. The use of the birdshot, or tiny pellets that scatter when fired, has caused thousands to be wounded, many witheye injuries. More than 70 people, including protesters and Indian security forces, have been killed since the violence began.
The question now is whether Mr. Modi can defuse the crisis.
“I think Modi has the political capacity to do it,” said Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mr. Tellis said Mr. Modi had two advantages: His Bharatiya Janata Party controls the lower house of Parliament, so he has the legitimacy to make a bold move; and his party’s strong Hindu nationalist roots allow him to take more risks without being accused of pandering to Muslims, who make up the majority in Jammu and Kashmir.
But those same roots make it hard for Mr. Modi to enact a policy in Kashmir that will draw the young protesters into a dialogue.
“That must involve a conversation about the restoration of autonomy in Kashmir in a way originally imagined under the 1954 agreement,” Mr. Tellis said. He was referring to a deal struck by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, that gave Jammu and Kashmir substantial political autonomy within India. That agreement has gradually eroded.
“I personally think any attempt simply to treat Kashmir as just another Indian state is not going to work,” Mr. Tellis said.
Because Mr. Modi began his political career in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing Hindu organization known as the R.S.S. that strongly influences his party and has opposed more autonomy for Kashmir, Mr. Tellis and others said it would be extremely difficult for the prime minister to offer such a bold policy in Kashmir.
“The R.S.S. has the capacity for constraining even the prime minister on this question,” Mr. Tellis said.
Even if Mr. Modi is bold enough to try, he will need to regain control of the streets of southern Kashmir first and find a leader to engage in conversation. So far, the Indian government has been unable to find anyone with whom to negotiate.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, center, the pressure has been strong to punish Pakistan after militants attacked an Indian Army base on Sunday, killing 18 soldiers.
People close to the government, nevertheless, have been trying their hand at freelance diplomacy, including the guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. He invited the father of Mr. Wani to his ashram and suggested that the elder Mr. Wani might serve as an intermediary.
“Sri Ravi Shankar expected that I can play some role in bringing peace to Kashmir,” the father, Mohammad Muzafar Wani, said in an interview. “He said, ‘To resolve the problem, with whom should the talks be initiated? With you?’ I told him, ‘No.’”
For Mr. Modi, pressure remains strong to punish Pakistan with some form of military action for the attack on the army base.
Pakistan has talked tough. In a news release on Monday, Gen. Raheel Sharif, the Pakistani Army chief, said that “taking note of a hostile narrative” from India, the armed forces of Pakistan were “fully prepared to respond to the entire spectrum of direct and indirect threat.”
Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan said peace between his country and India “cannot be achieved without a resolution to the Kashmir dispute.”
There was another flare-up of violence along the India-controlled Kashmir border with Pakistan on Tuesday night, when Indian troops battled two groups of militants trying to cross from the Pakistani side into India, the Indian Ministry of Defense said in a statement. One Indian soldier was killed in the skirmishes.
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