WHO killed Dr Abdul Ahad Guru? With respect to the family of India's
brilliant heart surgeon, the answer to that question might be more
significant than the deplorable fact of his death.
Dr Guru was a Kashmiri nationalist and a supporter of the militant
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), perhaps the most reputable of
a number of groups seeking Kashmiri separation from India.
He was seized by gunmen last Wednesday when he drove to a meeting of
the Supreme Revolutionary Command Council of the JKLF in Srinagar. On
Thursday he was found dead, shot three times at point-blank range.
Worse was to come. His funeral procession last week contravened laws
of assembly regulations imposed by Indian security forces. In the
ensuing argument and struggle at least 12 people, including Dr Guru's
brother-in-law, were killed when security forces opened fire.
In the depressing litany of violence and repression which has
afflicted Kashmir in the past two years the death of Dr Guru might be
passed off as just another fatality, albeit one which has robbed India
and Kashmir of a surgeon of international repute.
In the context of the current political and security situation in
Kashmir, and also in India and in Pakistan, that argument just won't
wash. Dr Guru was killed for a purpose and the best bet at the beginning
of a murder investigation, which will almost certainly go nowhere, is
that he was killed by people hostile to a settlement in Kashmir.
All of this needs some explanation as the conflict over Kashmir has
been neatly sidelined internationally despite the fact that India and
Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over that small and
spectacularly beautiful territory.
Under the control of the British, Jammu and Kashmir was one of many
princely states, but the British departure in 1947 and the partition of
the subcontinent between India and Pakistan left the princely rulers
with the right to opt for either India or Pakistan.
The ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, tried to maintain his
independence by procrastination, but events, including a Muslim
revolution, led him to decide to join India.
Pakistan objected and minor conflict broke out in 1948 and was ended
by a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations in 1949. The ceasefire
line established then divided the administration of the territory and
was regarded as temporary. It is still there, by and large, and although
a plebiscite has been called for by the UN, the Indian Government has
refused to hold one.
More serious hostilities over Kashmir took place in 1965 and 1971 and
led to pious declarations that the entire question should be settled by
negotiation. Tension grew again at the end of 1989 and by 1990 a
full-scale guerrilla insurrection was under way in Kashmir, ably
complemented by repression and human rights' abuses on the part of the
Indian security forces and an enthusiastic stoking of the fires by the
Pakistani authorities.
On a conservative estimate some 9000 people have died since the
rebellion erupted in 1990 and there have been frequent allegations of
rape, torture, and murder by the Indian security forces in what is
predominantly-Hindu India's only Muslim majority state. Indian
authorities have admitted some abuses but insist that most are
propaganda.
Until recently the situation in Kashmir could best be described in the
words of Dr Iftikhar Malik of Oxford University. ''The world has to come
to grips with the realities in Kashmir where the prospects of
maintaining even a repressive peace are negligible.''*
Dr Malik adds: ''There is no doubt that India, not simply because of
its size and resourcefulness, holds the pivotal position in the
resolution of the conflict over Kashmir ... A bold initiative on
Kashmir, involving both give-and-take, would certainly help to
demilitarise the region, stabilise movements and processes for democracy
and development, and augur well for more than one billion people in the
region with the world's largest concentration of poverty.''
And so, pragmatically and sensibly, a ''bold initiative'' is just what
is needed. Everyone agrees on that, but where is it to come from?
The Indian Government in New Delhi, plagued by mounting economic and
social problems and fearing political ambush at any moment by the Hindu
extremists of the Bharatiya Janata Party is in a desperately weak
position.
The Pakistani Government, similarly weakened by a political feud which
led to the resignation of four Ministers last week, is not in a position
to offer much creative momentum.
And yet, to the credit of both India and Pakistan, both have managed,
despite their weakness and fragility, to at least try to ease the
situation.
The Indian Government has appointed a new governor to Jammu and
Kashmir and has announced significant economic aid. The new Indian
Junior Home Minister, Rajesh Pilot, is believed to be keen on a softer
policy line, with the appointment of better civil servants to the
corrupt and inefficient local administration, and more sensitive
military action.
Pilot is also believed to have held meetings with militants in
high-security detention centres last month. Pakistan, for its part,
pledged to halt the weekend march on the border by supporters of Benazir
Bhutto.
Sadly, even before Dr Guru's murder, which has outraged Kashmiris, it
was unlikely that India's tentative moves to ease the situation would
have worked. Informed sources in Kashmir say that any detained militants
or leading citizens approached by the Indian authorities would have been
devalued in the eyes of the Kashmiris by such contacts.
There are rumours that Dr Guru may have been one of those the Indian
Government wanted to talk to in an attempt to improve the situation.
This makes it unlikely that the Indian security forces killed him, as
almost everybody in Kashmir seems to believe.
And so the murder of Dr Guru is possibly the result of an attempt to
bring an end to the faint hopes of halting the conflict in Kashmir. A
bold initiative is needed yet, but who will deliver it?
* The Continuing Conflict in Kashmir by Dr Iftikhar H. Malik,
published by the Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and
Terrorism.
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