WATLUB AND ITS AFTERMATH

If a black smith is assigned job of a gold smith he can produce any thing besides ornaments. Reason is simple his sickles are meant for dealing with and moulding iron. Roughness and strength are indispensable components of his sickle. Fine articulation and sickle needed for making ornaments can’t be expected of him. In Kashmir the jobs which were supposed to be accomplished by civilian administration are assumed by rough and tough army and its auxiliaries. Armed forces are trained to kill. Whole of their training curriculum simply revolves around this trade. They how ever are seen now-a-days organising picnics, cricket tournaments, cycle races, Medicare camps, get-together with Hajis and Moulvis. This is not done for the sake of any humanitarian considerations but to elevate the image of security forces in the estimation of Kashmiri masses and the international community. It is an established fact that once an army subjugates an area, the subjugation is associated with brutalities, human rights abuses, ruthlessness and tyranny. Excessive militarization of Jammu and Kashmir is no exception to this phenomenon. People of Kashmir Know security agencies for custodial killings, burning of houses, torture, using of civilians as shields and humiliating them through frisking searches and other forms of in human and degrading treatment. Whole civic action program of security agencies is simply aimed at camouflaging these activities which for people of Kashmir have assumed position of routines of daily life for past so many years. While pursuing civic action program army observes its own traits that make these cumbersome and humiliating for civilians. Localities are subjected to crackdowns prior to Medicare camps. People forced to visit these camps so that pictures for media could be created. When children are taken for picnics and desh ki sair they are exposed to the military culture which is associated with bada-khana and camp fire functions of army. After some time same type of traits may get associated with iftar parties, welcome parties for Hajis and Imams as well. A part from introducing perversions among the civilians especially younger generations army’s civic action program has become a source of monetary corruption. What ever was experienced in Wular Lake is an indicator of this malaise. Innocent children were picked up for a picnic. They were boarded on a fairy and dumped within the depths of Wular Lake. People of the area got infuriated set on fire various Navy establishments in Watlab. Security agencies again resorted to a civic action program by subjecting them to firing in which several people lost their lives. State administration and the center resorted to a routine exercise of establishing enquiry and investigation comities to look into the affair. 
What happened in Wular and Watlab areas is tip of an ice berg of enormous magnitude. Indian Navy has an insignificant presence in Wular as compared to hundreds and thousands of armed and para-military forces within whole of Jammu and Kashmir. If this insignificant force could consume more than two dozen innocent children how many become victims of sate vide civic action program one can guess. High court has already exposed forced immigration and cultural proslytization of more than five hundred children on the part of state and its various agencies. Assumption of civilian programs by army exposes the worth of civil administration in this state if state has a civil administration and government with its education, social welfare and transport departments why army gets involved in civic action programs? Does not it indicate that we have a dejure civilian government in order to provide a cover to defacto military rule. A civilian administration which is unable or unwilling to establish its writ even in the affairs of transport management, education and extra curricular activities associated with it. Tourism and Yatras are exclusively handled by army while civilian administration is simply to project these as symbols of return of normalcy. Happenings in Wular have simply brought these facts to lame line. Chief Minister of Kashmir has abdicated most of his power in favour of the unified command Indian security agencies over which he presides as a figure head. Same is the case with state administration at every level. Right from management of traffic up to organising village panchayats members of security agencies can be seen active at every level. What ever space is left for civilian involvement is further emasculated by a brigade of imported alien IAS and IPS officers. Until this scenario persists the incidents that occurred in Wular are unlikely to discontinue and become justification for the resistance that manifests itself in various forms. (Judicial probe ordered by the state administration have confirmed negligence on the part of navy personal involved.)