Articles by Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal

The anger of the Kashmiri people in the face of the Indian establishment's endeavour to smother their legitimate political aspirations is understandable. Since 2008, attempts by civilians to organise themselves peacefully against their oppression or even for their day-to-day needs, including water, electricity and jobs, have been met with brute force, even murders. Post 2010, Kashmir has moved in circles from periods of unrest to calm and then back to unrest. Burhan Wani's death was just a small spark that was needed to break the pretence of normalcy thrust on its people. The government should realise that the stone pelters on the streets are neither Pakistanis nor paid agents. Kashmir, today, needs an open-minded political intervention that is unconditional.

Jammu and Kashmir has got an alliance government which brings together two antagonistic political forces in a strange political embrace. Spurred partly by their desire to use power to grow politically in areas where each is weaker, and partly by a lack of any other viable alliance, both these parties will have to rise above their traditional politics if their government has to deliver. An analysis of the compulsions which cobbled this government together and those that it works under.

The Kishtwar communal clashes have become national news with the Bharatiya Janata Party aggressively pushing its viewpoint that Hindus are being victimised. However, the picture on the ground is not so black and white, and can only be understood in the light of the turbid past of communalisation of Kishtwar and the Jammu region on the whole, which was in fact largely fuelled by Hindutva forces and the security establishment in the region.

There have been numerous allegations of rape by the police and armed forces in the Kashmir Valley ever since insurgency began in the late 1980s, but very few cases were ever investigated, prosecutions have taken place in a negligible number, and justice delivered in none. Even when cases are registered, the legal sanction required for prosecution, as per the provisions of laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act, is never accorded. The Justice Verma Committee Report has addressed sexual aggression in confl ict areas such as Kashmir, Chhattisgarh and the north-east, where women's bodies have been used as instruments of war by paramilitary forces, but can we hope for a change on the ground?