The Funeral Season

• The economic blockade of the Valley has led to a loss of thousands of crores in business
  
• Apple orchards have been the worst-hit since produce could not be transported out of the Valley to Jammu and beyond for sale.
  
• The 'Muzaffarpur Chalo' call led thousands to march to the LoC on August 11. The firing on the procession led to five deaths. Among them was separatist leader Abdul Aziz Sheikh, and this raised temperatures even further.
  
• Despite a curfew, several thousands, some waving Pakistani flags, came out to mourn Sheikh's death at his August 12 funeral.
  
• Police firing led to the death of 16 people. In all 21 people died in the violence.
  
• The Centre is yet to resolve the issue of land allotment to the Amarnath shrine board. The Valley and Jammu both continue to be tense.

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It takes but a spark to bring out the deep dislike of Indian security agencies in the Valley. A sense of victimhood runs deep in the Kashmiri psyche. The Valley still faces a shortage of essentials, including medicines, due to the blockade. There is a growing perception among Kashmiris (and not just separatists) that the police is biased against them. Worse, as a senior Srinagar journalist says: "Security agencies are flirting with goonda elements in Jammu."

Questions are being asked: Why are the Muslims living in the Jammu belt still being killed? During the 45-day agitation in Jammu only seven people were killed so why have 21 Kashmiris lost their lives in just two days? Are there different yardsticks for Jammu and the Valley? Why did the police not fire below waist-level at the protesters? Were the bullets intended to kill?

The "uneasy calm" in the Valley is nominal, relative. There were violent demonstrations on August 13. In any other part of the country, the situation would have been described as grave. Six persons were injured in CRPF firing in the Habbakadal and Bemina areas of Srinagar. Warning shots had to be fired to disperse protesters at several places across the Valley. Police and CRPF forces were pelted with stones at several places. An oil tanker was torched and an unoccupied bunker set on fire.

Security has been beefed up in the Valley, but fear looms. With curfew being relaxed in Srinagar and five other districts, the markets looked busy. But these were people out to stock up on food and medicines, which had all but disappeared during the blockade. Those who have lived through the dark days of militancy feel that the clock is turning back in the Valley. Public distrust of the system is coming out in the open. Kashmiris who after a long spell of self-imposed exile in cities like Delhi and Mumbai came back in the last few years to set up businesses are worried about the future.

Many wonder how things reached such a pass. If the government had exhibited more tact—or been allowed to do so—on the Amarnath issue, partisan politics wouldn't have spilled over so much onto the streets. Had Kashmir's isolation not been dramatised by the highway blockade in Jammu, collective sentiments would not have attained such a critical mass. In the Valley, there are far too many solutions one can see with the wisdom of hindsight.