Kashmiri intifada

The fresh phase of Kashmiri uprising that began three months ago with teenaged boys throwing stones at the Indian armed troops has spread to most of the occupied Kashmir Valley. Indian soldiers and police have been countering stones with bullets. Yet New Delhi and the state government, headed by the puppet chief minister Umar Abdullah, failed to stop the protests.
The curfew imposed on Friday in Srinagar - where protesters set fire to government buildings on the Eid day - Anantnag, Bijbehara, and Sopore was extended on Sunday to many more areas, including parts of Badgam and Pulwama districts after stone-pelting incidents there.
Despite severe restrictions on people's movements, stone-pelting protesters have continued to take to the streets, displaying a strong determination to achieve freedom and independence from Indian rule. Since the Kashmiri intifada began three months ago, at least 70 young protesters have fallen victim to the security forces' bullets.
This new form of protest that puts children in direct confrontation with the security forces makes at least three important points. One that the Kashmiris are unwilling to accept the status quo, and are prepared to make any sacrifice to attain freedom.
Second, replacing militancy with stone-pelting means India cannot exploit the prevailing international environment against violent resistance to occupation to claim victimhood. Third and most important, it cannot point an accusatory finger at Pakistan to blame it, like it did in the past, of fomenting cross-border terrorism in the Valley. The uprising is irrefutably indigenous in nature.
New Delhi is now contemplating new measures to control the situation. There have been intense discussions during the last few days within the Congress party core group, as well as the Cabinet Committee on Security, on Umar Abdullah's proposal for a partial withdrawal of the draconian law, Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), which the security forces have been using to commit grave human rights violations, including custodial killings, rape of women as a weapon of war, and demolition of homes. Most within the ruling party as well as the main opposition party, the BJP, think AFSPA should stay and the resistance should be crushed with force as has been the case in some of the restive north eastern regions of the country.
But Kashmir is not like any other part of India. Pakistan is a party to this dispute. What New Delhi does there will have repercussions for the peace process with Pakistan; and by extension, for its own longer-term economic interests in the region beyond this country's north-western borders. India's blatant violation of human rights in Kashmir also places a responsibility on Western countries, like the US and Britain, who regularly lecture Iran, Russia and China on human rights, to tell India the same. In fact, they need to do more, given the fact that Kashmir is a UN-recognised dispute and, as President Obama acknowledged during his election campaign, it needs to be resolved to avoid another confrontation between the two nuclear capable neighbours.