The insurgent gun and its carnage are the biggest problems confronting
Jammu and Kashmir
. Restoration of normalcy cannot be achieved without defanging Jihad. The father of Jihad, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, has raised the slogan: “Jihad and the rifle alone. No negotiations, no conferences and no dialogues.” The highroad to peace lies in strengthening counter-insurgency and striking at the roots of Jihad.
Village Defence Committees (VDCs) were launched in 1994 for the people of
Kashmir
to defend themselves against cross-border terrorism; this coincided with the hijacking of the indigenous Kashmiri agitation by
Pakistan
’s ISI and a realization among the Kashmiris and international community that the issue at stake is terrorism and not self-determination. Villagers and ex-servicemen from the minority communities approached the authorities and requested them to be trained and organized into self-defence cells to deter the terrorists from cleansing J&K of non-Muslims. VDCs proliferated rapidly, starting with Doda but spreading to Kathua, Udhampur, Poonch, Rajouri and
Jammu
. There are more than 1500 VDCs now all over the state.
VDC operations at the outset were largely defensive and restricted to repulsing terrorist attacks with light weapons and information provided by special police officers. Due to their valorous resistance against the Jihad machine, VDCs began to be identified as primary targets, and were systematically attacked by superior armed and trained mujahideen. Manhunts for talented VDC leaders became a practice for the Jihadis and the defensive and under-armed VDC members suffered severe casualties inflicted by the Lashkar-i-Tayyaba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.
The Jihadi objectives for pulverizing the VDCs are much broader than gun snatching and minority cleansing. It is a warning to the Kashmiris that whoever dares to organize their self-defence or question the terrorist practices of Pakistani proxies will be silenced. It is a form of psychological warfare. Being zealots and fanatics masquerading as ‘freedom fighters’, the mujahideen were disconcerted by grassroots people’s action that opposed their ‘liberation struggle’. The ISI is especially worried about VDCs and ikhwan (former militants who have now turned informers and accomplices of the Indian Army) since they question the moral foundations of the
Kashmir
insurgency and neutralize the Islamist indoctrination and propaganda in Pakistani and Afghan terrorist camps.
Due to the counter-insurgency and psychological functions they perform, New Delhi should heed the advice proffered by counter-terrorism experts like KPS Gill and strengthen and upgrade the VDCs by increasing their honorariums and supplying them hi-tech arms, night vision and communications equipment they were promised in January 2000, but is yet to materialize. In August 2001, the government refused to give the VDCs automatic assault weapons, partly in reaction to an isolated incident when a vigilante accidentally shot dead an innocent civilian. The result indecision is a fresh wave of slaughter by the jihadis, prompting one VDC member, Surinder Singh of
Jammu
, to despair, “we were like sitting ducks then and now we will be dead ducks.”
Massacres, kidnappings and threats to VDC members’ lives have increased exponentially in the last two years; though there was a slight thaw in terrorist actions against military targets after the December 13 attack on Indian Parliament, attacks on the VDCs and civilians are more on the increase. With VDCs having to fend for themselves in an unequal battle with the professional mujahideen, the government boasts of converting the VDCs from defensive formations into frontline allies of the army for checking infiltration.
The solution lies in dispelling ISI disinformation that the VDCs are “communalizing”
Kashmir
and helping them materially and morally. There cannot be a more favourable moment than the present, with the world focused on reining in extremism, and terrorism in
Pakistan
. As international opprobrium for Jihad builds up,
India
must fortify its own defences to ensure that
Pakistan
’s proxy war in
Kashmir
ends.
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