Alarming situation is an understatement

That the Kashmir situation is alarming is an understatement. The kind of violence and fear prevalent among the people has led the Election Commission of India to conclude that the conditions were not conducive for holding byelection for the Anantnag parliamentary constituency.
It is the extension of the similar situation that has given a reason to the Centre not to hold dialogue with “all the stakeholders” in Kashmir.
The ruling PDP can afford to breathe easy for some time as it lifts the pressure of contesting and winning election in its bastion where Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s brother Tassaduq Mufti was a candidate. It has also been spared of likely embarrassment of low polling that characterised the April 9 bypoll.
Eight persons were killed as the polling staggered at 7 per cent, the second lowest in decades after 5-per cent turnout in Anantnag in 1989.
Five policemen and two guards of J&K Bank were killed in Kulgam on Monday. That was followed by an attack on a police officer in Pulwama — the epicentre of the current student-related troubles in the Valley.
These incidents will soon become statistics, but the larger question remains unanswered, what is the goal post. An eagerness for elections post-floods in the winter of 2014 to the keenness of getting elections cancelled. This is the question posed by Omar Abdullah, a former Chief Minister, also.
The bar for the normalcy has been lowered.
These are superficial and temporary measures, to avert feared situations. The problem is far deeper and it remains without a proper diagnosis. It is far more serious than 1990s. That time there were three parties – militants, their sympathisers and security forces. That was the start of the dream for “azadi” (freedom), when Kashmiris trusted the militants for delivering them their aspired moment of “independence from both India and Pakistan.”
Now they are disillusioned fans of militants. They have taken the battle upon themselves. So the militancy has been transformed into a movement — no one dares to change the narrative even if they wish to because of their economic activity and retaining of the traditional social and religious values.
It appears a strange combination of love and trepidation is at work in Kashmir. This is cycling on because the dots of violence and terror are everywhere and there is no safety gear visible.
Epitaphs fill the conversation rather than individual and inspiring success stories. To put it bluntly, it is ad hocism that is determining the Kashmir policy. To silence the trouble by postponement of polls is not the right answer.
Among others, hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani had also demanded that the Anantnag poll be cancelled, though for a different reason. He believed that the polls were a “sham” and not a panacea to Kashmir trouble.
This is the reality of Kashmir in 2017.