Chapter 3 continues…

In October 2005 earthquake, the terrorist infrastructure in PoK did suffer damages; however, the same has been taken care of. The earthquake provided an opportunity to Tanzeems to earn the goodwill and sympathy of the local populace by doing relief work. Jamaat-ud-Daawa (JuD), the parent organization of LeT, was the main beneficiary. Shiv Shankar Menon, the then Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan (later National Security Advisor) had said, “The involvement of terrorist organizations in relief work after the earthquake had resulted in their public rehabilitation. Renewed goodwill for Tanzeems and availability of charity funds post- earthquake, combined with availability of unemployed youths, has strengthened terrorist support base and infrastructure in PoK.”

Unfortunately, for India’s national security, parallel to these developments within Pakistan, an Islamic radicalization was also developed in Kashmir, perhaps unwittingly by the Congress- National Conference alliance in the 1980s; the pandering for votes that saw the rise of such movements as the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Mahaz-i-Azadi and the Liberation League.

By 1985, both the Jamaat-i-Islami and Al Jihad movements, the latter a clandestine organization influenced by the ideology of the Iranian revolution, were becoming highly influential in Kashmiri politics. Indeed, the Al Jihad movement publicly raised the issue of an Islamic Revolution as the only way to liberate Kashmir in the mid-1980s. Thus, in the space of a few short years, there was a marked erosion of the Kashmiriyat, which historically meant a mildly secular personality of the people of the state. Instead a Muslim identity with fundamentalist overtones started to emerge in the state.

This transformation was initially assisted and reinforced by an active ISI programme, by using the Afghan infrastructure in Pakistan. Indeed, during the main escalation of Islamist violence in Kashmir in mid-1988, Pakistan provided assistance in the training and arming of Kashmiri terrorists, as well as sanctuaries to Kashmiri insurgents across the border. Often this assistance was funnelled through the Afghan rebel leader Gulbadin Hikmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami group for deniability. Now in 2021, even the ‘fig leaf ’ has become unnecessary.

To be continued…