A Battle Lost

Dr N.C. Asthana

The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) committed some fundamental mistakes in its Kashmir operation of supporting, equipping and instigating an insurgency even as it came tantalisingly close to creating a ‘climate of collapse’. It sought to capitalise on the discontent that had been brewing since long.

Discontent has been simmering in Kashmir since decades, and it has manifested in various forms. The ISI sought to exploit the situation by introducing an ‘armed component’ to it in a classic example of ‘export of insurgency’.

By 1989, sporadic violence had started taking the shape of an insurgent movement with increasingly greater involvement of the people. January 26 and August 15 were observed as ‘black days’ for the first time. The state quickly slipped into an ‘era of strikes’ by various sections of the society.

In the first week of February 1990, Pakistan gave the call for a ‘solidarity week’ as a token of moral support. By 1990, subversion had crept into the state administration also. From July, the state government employees struck work on three occasions in support of calls given by the militants. The third strike was in protest over dismissal of five employees for hobnobbing with the militants, and it lasted for 72 days. In the end, the government buckled!

On 5 February 1991, the Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif gave the call for a strike and it evoked a very good response in the Valley. In 1992, a bomb was planted in the Police Headquarters (PHQ) itself. That was an example of the subversion in the ranks of the police, as a bomb in the PHQ could not have been planted without inside help. A landmine attack on the route of the then advisor to the governor was also not possible without information regarding his movement having been leaked from the police.

What Pakistan had not been able to do in Operation Gulmarg (1947), and in Operation Gibraltar (1965) from