Before I begin, one must understand that the definition of security keeps changing and has different connotations for different individuals. The proverb, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, stands justified in this context.
Keeping this in mind, let us try to understand the Kashmir conflict as it stands. Kashmir, ever since it’s accession to the Republic of India in October of 1947, has been an issue laden with controversies. India and it’s neighbours to the north-west, The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, have fought countless conventional and non-conventional (insurgency) wars which has resulted in a bloodbath wherein innocent citizens on both sides of the border have had to face the consequences. Pakistan lays claim to the entire region of Jammu and Kashmir and has in it’s possession, the control of a sizeable portion of the land after invading the territory in 1947 under the pretext of Kashmir being a majority muslim state under a Hindu king. For more background, The People’s Republic of China also claims parts of Jammu and Kashmir(now the Union Territory of Ladakh), although that does not have any direct correlation to the subject matter that is being discussed. The heavy presence of Indian military in the only muslim majority state of India does raise some questions though.
The fundamental questions of, “Whose security”, “Security from whom/what”, “By what means”, “By which security actor”, as raised by scholars like Krause Williams in “Security and “Security Studies”: Conceptual Evolution and Historical Transformation” in the general context of security are some important questions which need to be understood.
From the perspective of the Union government of India, the answers to these questions are quite direct though controversial. The government claims that the region of Jammu & Kashmir (now a Union territory) and “Extremist Islamic elements” of the population of this region pose a “National Security” threat for the Republic of India and particularly the Hindu populace . This belief of the government is quite apparent considering actions such as lockdowns, curfews and internet shutdowns imposed by the union on the people of Kashmir. This civil conflict when mixed with boundary issues with two nuclear powered powerful states, justifies India’s actions, according to the government. For the same, the government has contracted the army which, as a state agent, has the job of making sure that these ‘security’ threats subside or are subsided. The Army has, time and time again , been accused of gross human rights violations in the valley including unlawful detainment, open firing at protestors and sexual abuse just to name a few, by many international and domestic organisations.
The women of Kashmir, an already downtrodden minority, have had to face the worst of it. Kashmir, being a part of the Indian subcontinent, is indeed an androcratic society, where patriarchal social norms and religion dictate one’s way of life to a large extent. The Indian military deployment in the region has made the situation of women in Kashmir even more vulnerable and distraught.. The security actor has, coincidentally, worked in tandem with the patriarchal local traditions which has led to a virtual imprisonment of women in the valley.So, from a feminist perspective, one could come to the hypothesis that maybe the Indian military is not a security provider but a threat object, keeping in mind that the referent here are the Kashmiri women.
Moving on from the feminist approach of International Relations that we have discussed above, we shall now understand the Post-Colonial approach of the discipline. Author Tarakh Barkawi has quite eloquently described how, post colonial countries not having the wherewithal to fight a conventional war, use terror attacks and other forms of unconventional warfare to harm the enemy state/institution. The same has been happening between India and Pakistan after the latter realised that it was not efficient to launch a conventional war against India due to the sheer size of the Indian economy and the military. Pakistani military and the Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) have been found guilty of colluding and even training militants with the sole purpose of cross border terrorism.
Let us delve a bit more into post colonial studies in order to understand the issue at hand more clearly. We shall try and understand the concept by using India as an example in order to try and correlate it with the Kashmir issue. In recent years, notably after 2014, the country has witnessed a massive upsurge in ultra nationalistic fervour across the nation . The union government, by way of destroying minority owned buildings and social systems, has instilled a different idea of India in the minds of hundreds of millions of people in this country. The government claims that these actions are justified as this land, the entirety of India and then some, has belonged to a dominant religious community(Hindus) since the start who had been, in the last ten centuries, subjugated by the Turkic invaders and, to some extent, even the British, and hence, members belonging to such a community must be given back what they feel belongs to them. This kind of a political move, though crass, is actually quite common in post colonial societies. The changing of the official name of the country from India to ‘Bharat’ , the building of a grand Temple, changing the names of cities and towns, are all side effects or just effects of living in a post colonial society. The same can be noticed in Kashmir wherein the government is trying to legitimise it’s occupation of the state by providing it with big ticket investments while at the same time undoing the influence of Islam in the region, which the current government considers necessary for safety.
I would like to conclude the article by acknowledging that the hotly contested issue of Kashmir is quite complex and has international , national, religious, societal ,economic and many other yet to be discovered layers to it which need to be understood and inter-linked in order for us to get a clearer picture. I’d like to end it all with a quote which goes as follows -
“One wrong cannot be used to justify another ”
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