The recent mine blast on the Jammu-Srinagar highway killing BSF men and their families has temporarily shattered the veneer of normalcy. To all intents and purposes, elections have taken place. A ‘popular’ government is in power in the state. Peace talks are underway. Compared to people scurrying home with the onset of evening three years ago, Lal Chowk, is full of bustle. Tourists are flocking, houseboats are filling up, taxis buzzing to Gulmarg.Despite choosing to turn a blind eye to the fortified bunker right at Lal Chowk, the machine gun mounted armoured vehicles, the battle ready soldiers on picturesque bridges across the Jhelum, the fragility of the ‘normalcy’ is palpable. On any random day, the local papers carry reports of grieving relatives of youth “picked up” by the dreaded Special Operations Group, five killed in Baramulla or protests over custodial deaths. One doesn’t come on a holiday to read newspapers! However, it is difficult to ignore the texture of the interaction between local Kashmiris and the security forces. Whether it is the docile subservient expression of an old man selling fruits and a BSF jawan or the heavy handed checking of identity cards of passing youth.At Lal Chowk, we go to see off a friend into a Sumo for Jammu. The driver turns, a passenger waves and as the driver stops a jawan comes and breaks the rearview mirror of the vehicle. Sajaad, the driver, threatens to complain to the commandant. The jawan, regardless of all of us looking on, punches just above the eye and tries to pull a bleeding Sajaad out of the window.The Kashmiris present know better than to intervene. We intervene and fortunately the beating stops. The drivers say no action will be initiated unless we come along. We toodle along to the police station. A constable gets in and we go towards the Government Hospital. The constable pleads with us to come along as the BSF may have already reached and may prevent them from entering the hospital. As Indians, we carry more clout than a J&K policeman!At the hospital the driver is nervous that the BSF may plant something and then “recover” explosives from his vehicle. MLC done, we are again importuned to go back to the police station. As in the ensuing negotiations between the SP and the commandant our presence as witnesses would help. The police informally advise the drivers to organise a demonstration if they want a complaint registered!Unlike many countries, the Indian Constitution has no provision for martial law. Security forces are always there to supplement civil power not supplant it. Yet so tilted is the balance in favour of them that the police cannot even lodge a FIR, leave aside prosecute army personnel involved in violent acts. Human rights groups can keep asserting gross human rights abuses and the government can keep denying the killings and rapes. However, it is the almost invisible, intangible humiliation suffered in everyday life which in a major way contributes to the alienation of a people.
