Can Kashmir compel the ummah to close ranks?

Sandeep Dikshit in New Delhi

Kashmir of 2019 is definitely very different from the troubled Valley we have been witness to for the past three decades. Leave alone the diminishing of the politico-governance arrangement from that of a full state to a mere Union Territory with the loss of Ladakh to boot. Also leave alone the scrapping of Article 370, a temporary provision as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar never tires of educating his audience at American think-tanks, while omitting to mention that it was provisional only till a plebiscite was held.

These two injuries to the Kashmiri psyche are enough cause for the vulnerable and the young to rally to the militant banner. But a more potent one worries Intelligence officials. It has not yet made it to TV chat shows and newspaper articles. Yet it lurks at the back of the Indian Intelligence’s calculations. This is the ebbing of Palestine as the cause célèbre for the activist Muslim all over the world.

Once the second Intifada petered out into the 2008-09 Israel-Gaza conflict and a right wing government took power in Tel Aviv, the Palestine cause has lost a lot of its emotional power to rally Muslims. If not in sending fighters, then in making contributions and providing them moral and diplomatic support.

Impending threat

After the restrictions ease in Kashmir and there is the inevitable violence if the citizenry faces off with the security forces, it is the cheerleaders of the thus-far mythically united Muslim ummah (community) whom India’s Intelligence community will be closely watching.

Security forces would not like to acknowledge, but they have had considerable help in Kashmir from the division among the militancy’s sponsors over the ideology. When militancy first took roots in Kashmir, armed groups were at odds over the end goal: should Kashmir be a part of Pakistan or should it be an independent country?

At times, the armed gangs decimated each other to the delight of the security establishment. Sometimes one group would walk over to the side of the security forces to eliminate their rivals. In one celebrated case, the leader of a gang of gunmen who crossed over became an MLA after one of the poorly patronised elections. At that time, there was little effort at mediation by the sponsors of terrorism sitting in different countries. This was partly because they were involved in other pressing violent mayhem in the Balkans, Chechnya, Indonesia, etc.

It was also because Pakistan kept the insurgency at a low boil. The intention never was to wrest Kashmir valley. It has known that the Indian armed forces have made that impossible. The aim behind frequent violence in the Valley was to deplete New Delhi’s political capital to force it into talks with Islamabad. Pakistan’s bottomline was freezing the Line of Control (LoC) into a de-facto border.

The new reality

Once the equations changed in Kashmir valley, the bets should be off on the other side too. Till a month before the August 5 clampdown, a new rivalry was playing out among militant groups. On one side were groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) or Hizbul Mujahideen that want political independence or Kashmir’s merger into Pakistan. On the other, groups like ISJK (Islamic State for Jammu & Kashmir) or AGH (Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind) that want to set up an Islamic Caliphate and are affiliated with Islamic State and Al Qaida.

Days before the clampdown, the Army shot dead a few militants in separate encounters. What was unusual was that they were earlier with LeT and had crossed over to ISJK and AGH. There is a strong possibility one group had tipped the security forces about the newly converted Islamic State and Al Qaida fighters.

Though the ISI views the Islamic State and Al Qaida as adversaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the security agencies are weighing if the circumstances have changed enough in Kashmir for it to make an alliance with the pan-Islamic ideology driven terror organisations.

The ISI is up against a stable government whose Kashmir policy is driven by the quartet of Modi-Doval-Amit Shah-Bipin Rawat. On the other hand, the desperate appeals of business tycoons to Pakistan’s army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa indicate the economy is severely malfunctioning. Pakistan’s rulers will need a diversion. The old methods may not work with the Indian quartet on Kashmir.

This is where the role of ideologues of armed ‘jihad’ scattered all over the world becomes crucial. Kashmir is the cause that unites all of them as Palestine goes on the backburner, Syria enters a stalemate and the war in Yemen unravels badly for the Sunnis.

Dealing with global backers

India has been well-served in the past by the distractions of the flag-bearers of a united Muslim ummah. This time, India has worked on countries such as Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and UAE that claim this pedestal while Nigeria and Sudan have remained largely neutral. But others such as Malaysia, Turkey and Iran have remained immune to the persuasion by South Block. Their stance gives legitimacy to activists of the Muslim cause to attempt to heal the breach among the jihadis in the Kashmir valley.

The clampdown since August 5 has ensured that the regular season of infiltration has been nipped in the bud. The US, as long as it can, will be holding Imran Khan to his promise to keep a check on cross-border terrorism. Forces inimical to India will have to make do with the current lot of jihadis bottled up in the Valley to create much more than a ripple. But the communications clampdown in the Valley is delaying attempts at rapprochement between the groups.

ISI will be going against its grain if it concedes ground to pan-Islamists. It had sheltered Al Qaida leaders in Pakistan after 9/11 but was equally quick to hand them over to the Americans to keep the military aid spigot flowing. Osama bin Laden was permitted limited contact with his comrades. Now that the old tactics of calibrated violence have not worked with the Modi government since 2014, ISI could consider throwing the kitchen sink. But if it does so, it would do so knowing that the more virulent brand of terrorism, Al Qaida and Islamic State, need a short spell of abetment before they become out-of- control monsters.