India: Interrogating The Narrative In J&K – Analysis

By Ajai Sahni

On July 15, 2024 at midnight, a gunfight between Security Forces (SFs) and heavily armed terrorists started when the SFs were conducting a joint cordon and search operation at Dhari Gote Urarbagi in the Desa Forest belt of Doda District in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Five Army personnel, including Captain Brijesh Thapa, were critically injured in the gunfight. Four of them, including the officer, succumbed to their injuries on July 16.

On July 9, 2024, an encounter erupted between SFs and terrorists in the Doda District of Jammu Division in J&K.

On July 8, 2024, five Army troopers, including a Junior Commissioned Officer, were killed and several were injured in a terrorist attack with grenades and gunfire, on an Army truck on the Machedi-Kindli-Malhar Road near Badnota village in the Lohai MalharTehsil(revenue unit) of Kathua District in the Jammu Division of J&K.

On June 26, 2024, an encounter broke out between SFs and terrorists. During the encounter, a Police Constable, Fareed Ahmed, was injured in the Sinoo area of Doda District in J&K.

According to partial data compiled by theSouth Asia Terrorism Portal(SATP), a total of 26 persons, including 11 civilians, 11 SF personnel including one Village Defence Guard, and four terrorists, have been killed in nearly a dozen attacks in six districts – Doda, Kathua, Poonch, Rajouri, Reasi, Udhampur – of the Jammu Division, as against 36 fatalities reported in the Kashmir Division, since the beginning of 2024 (till July 21). By end of 2011, at least seven Districts in the State had been declared completely free of militancy, including Leh and Kargil, which had never seen significant militancy, as well as Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Reasi and Doda (‘cleared’ in 2005) in the Jammu Division. However, Doda has recorded a series of attacks since June 12, 2024, when six security personnel were injured in an attack.

The succession of attacks in June-July 2024 has given rise to a widespread perception that there has been an unprecedented surge in terrorism in the Jammu Division, as well as a ‘shift’ from the Kashmir Valley to Jammu. While the loss of life, particularly of SF personnel, is distressing, neither perception tallies with the facts.

The Jammu division recorded a total of 59 fatalities in 2023, as against 75 in the Kashmir Division. The totals for 2024 in the two Divisions stand at 26 in Jammu and 36 in Kashmir, till July 21. There is cause for concern, of course, because the total in the Jammu Division this year includes 11 SF fatalities, as against just two in the Kashmir Division; while just four terrorists have been killed in the Jammu Division, as against 28 in the Kashmir Division. This suggests that, while SF dominance remains overwhelming in Kashmir, the initiative in Jammu has passed into the hands of the terrorists.

The Jammu Division has not, however, been free of terrorist incidents at any stage of the insurgency since the 1990s, and the idea that the current level of violence is ‘unprecedented’ can only be explained in terms of a complete ignorance of facts. Since 2000 (disaggregated data is available on theSouth Asia Terrorism Portalfrom this year), at least 8,567 persons have been killed in terrorist violence in the Jammu Division, as against 12,821 in Kashmir (location was not established in another 931 killings). At peak in 2001, 1,831 persons lost their lives to terrorism in the Jammu Division. In 2002, 1,532 people were killed in the Jammu region, more than the 1,418 killed in Kashmir.

Major operations in the region established near-complete SFs dominance in Jammu, bringing fatalities in recent years into fluctuating double digits since 2011, with a low of 12 in 2017, and previous highs of 40 in 2021 and 59 in 2023. It is significant that, right to the end of 2023, the discourse at the Centre focused on the withdrawal of the Army from the Jammu region, because the situation had purportedly ‘normalized’ there – despite clear data on continued infiltration and terrorist operations in the Division. The Army’s presence had already been drastically reduced in the Jammu region, in dribbles over the years, but dramatically after the 2020-21 confrontations with China along the Line of Actual Control, destroying the integrity and effectiveness of the counter-terrorism grid, and also undermining flows of human intelligence – the latter tendency further augmented by a range of policies that have alienated large segments of the local population.

The SFs have retained dominance in J&K despite the slew of unpopular policies adopted by New Delhi. These include the decision on Article 370, the indiscriminate clamp-down after this, the disruption of political processes, the marginalization of local political parties and leaders, efforts to create proxy political parties that could allow the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to run the show by remote control, gerrymandering in the delimitation process, increasingly repressive measures to control the population and discourse, the imposition of arbitrary central rule and enormous augmentation of the powers of the Lieutenant Governor, and a crude politics of polarization and communal abuse. Despite these, terrorist violence has been progressively contained in J&K, essentially as a result of the relentless efforts and sacrifices of the security forces. At 134 in 2023, fatalities in the state/Union Territory are once again approaching the level achieved 12 years ago, in 2012, at 121.

An arbitrary reduction of Force, without considerations of strategic and tactical requirements of a region, particularly in the extraordinarily challenging terrain that is found in the higher reaches of the Jammu Division, has undermined the security grid and crippled response capabilities. The Jammu region has long appeared to be ‘peaceful’ because of the much higher levels of violence in the Kashmir Division, but it has never been entirely devoid of terrorist activities. Even when terrorism has been very low, as in 2017, the Jammu border has remained a major infiltration route for terrorists from Pakistan. Earlier, they crossed over and then engineered attacks in Kashmir. With the security environment in Kashmir becoming increasingly difficult for their operations, attacks have also been directed at now-vulnerable areas in the Jammu region as well. The SF ‘squeeze’ on the Valley, and the dilution of Force in the Jammu region would have been obvious to the terrorist leadership and its sponsors in Pakistan. The orchestration of incidents in Jammu is part of a process of necessary tactical adaptation.

The cycle of tactical adaptation will find its reflection in SF actions as well, as correctives are administered. Inevitably, the grid in the Jammu Division will be re-established and the SFs will identify and address weaknesses. It is unfortunate that this has been necessitated as a result of the decisions taken in the distant and secure sanctuaries of the policy establishment in New Delhi. The price is paid in blood by our security forces.

More than anything else, the perception of an overblown crisis in the Jammu Division and, in fact, in J&K, is the outcome of political postures. Crucially, the claim that the ‘abrogation’ of Article 370 would bring complete peace and ‘zero terrorism’ to J&K had no connection with reality, and would inevitably result in perceived ‘failure’, even if a single terrorist incident occurred. ‘Zero terrorism’ is a political slogan, and a bad one at that, especially where the source of terrorism is firmly located on foreign soil. This is not a mandate that should be imposed on security forces. It is certainly possible, even advisable, to speak of ‘zero tolerance of terrorism’, signaling the Government’s determination to respond in full measure to every manifestation of the scourge. But it must be conceded that a level of low-grade residual terrorism can be sustained indefinitely, as long as external support is maintained.

There is no magical ‘solution’ to the ‘Kashmir problem’. The solution, in fact, has long been in play; the collective struggles and sacrifices of the SFs have brought terrorism-linked fatalities in J&K down from the thousands each year – 4,011 at peak in a single year, in 2001 – to a total of 134 in 2023, of which 87 were terrorists. Indeed, the number had dropped even lower in 2012, but policy missteps and a failure to engage in constructive politics to take advantage of these security gains have driven terrorist activities up in the intervening years. Terrorism in J&K was a high intensity conflict, with fatalities exceeding a thousand for 17 consecutive years, between 1990 and 2006, and deaths exceeding 2,000 a year for 11 years. The current levels of violence in the state, in themselves, reflect a ‘solution’, however partial or imperfect it may be.

The constant effort to exaggerate risks in J&K are dangerous, and reflect partisan efforts to polarize the population, and demonize a community. These may have dubious electoral gains outside the Union Territory (that they have none within it has been clearly demonstrated in the recent General Elections), but they distort the policy environment, as well as the operational environment in which the SFs function. Balanced, reality-based security assessments are the cornerstone of shrewd policy and strategy; the exaggeration of a threat is as detrimental to the national interest as underestimating risks may be.

• Ajai Sahni
  Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, ICM & SATP