Explaining the Kashmir Insurgency: Political Mobilization and Institutional Decay

1 - h e Kashrnir Insurgency Political Mobilization and Institutional Decay o n December 8, 1989, members of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front kidnapped Dr. Rubiya Sayeed, the daughter of the Indian Minister of Home Affairs, as she left a government hospital in Srinagar. The kidnappers refused to release her until several incarcerated members of their outlawed group were released. Following hasty negotiationsover the next severaldays, the government in New Delhi agreed to meet the abductors' demands. In the weeks and months that followed , dozens of insurgent groups emerged and wreaked havoc throughout the Kashmir Valley, killing government officials, security personnel, and innocent bystanders. Although they were of varying ideological orientations,all the insurgent groups professed opposition to Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir, and the authority of the Indian state virtually collapsed there. Since December 1989,the strength of the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir has fluctuated.' Faced with the wrath of many of the Islamic militant groups, more than 200,000 Hindus (known as Pundits) have fled the Kashmir Valley. Currently, nearly 400,000 Indian Army and paramilitary troops are deployed in the state. The security forces are battling at least a dozen major insurgent groups of varying size and ideological orientation, as well as dozens more minor operations. The more prominent of the insurgent groups include the nominally secular, pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF)and the radical Islamic and pro-Pakistani groups Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HUM),Hizbollah, Harkat-ul-Ansar,and Ikhwanul Muslimeen.At least 15,000 Sunlit Ganguly sumit Ganguly is Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is author of Between War and Peace: The Crisis in Kashmir (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press and the Woodrow Wilson Center Press). This article is drawn from my forthcoming book. I wish to thank Kanti Bajpai, Traci Nagle, and Jack Snyder for their substantial comments and assistance. 1. See Sumit Ganguly, Between War and Peace: The Crisis in Kushmir (Cambridge, U.K., and Washington , D.C.: Cambridge University Press and Woodrow WilsonCenter Press, forthcoming);Vernon Marston Hewitt, Reclaiming the Past: The Search for Political and Cultural Unity in Contemporary Kashmir (London:Portland Books, 1995).See alsoJyoti Bhusan Das Gupta, Jammuand Kushmir (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968), which provides an excellent historical account of the origins of the Kashmir problem in the context of Indo-Palustani relations. International Security, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Fall 1996),pp. 76-107 0 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 76 Explaining the Kashmir Insurgency I 77 to 20,000 insurgents, police, paramilitary personnel,and civilianshave lost their lives since the onset of the insurgency2India’s continuing accusationsof Pakistani support for some of these insurgent groups have eroded relations between India and Pakistan. As of mid-1996,the insurgency appears to have reached a stalemate.Despite substantial Pakistani assistance and the involvement of several thousand Afghan mujahideen, the insurgents cannot prevail on the battlefield.Nor have the Indian security forces been able to crush the insurgents militarily. The present government strategy appears to be three-pronged:to apply substantial military pressure on the insurgents, to sow discord in their ranks with offers of negotiation , and to revive the political process in the state. This strategy has evolved from the government’s experience of defeating insurgent movements in the neighboring state of Punjab and in India’s northeastern states3 The insurgency is fraught with considerable theoretical and policy significance . At a theoretical level it demonstrates the dangers states face when political mobilization occurs against a backdrop of institutional decay. The failure of governments to accommodate rising political demands within an institutional context can culminate in political violence. Such dangers are especially acute in poly-ethnic societieswhen politicized and discontented ethnic minorities encounter few institutional channels for expressing political dissent. The policy significanceof this theoreticalpoint is that as economic modernization proceeds, growing levels of literacy, higher education, and media exposure will contribute to increased political mobilization. This heightened political awareness will inevitably contribute to greater political demands. As Samuel Huntington cogently argued, the processes of economicmodernization generate increasing demands for political participation by...