The government's argument that statehood cannot be restored until terror is eradicated is flawed, says Radha Kumar. She argues that a heavy security approach can breed terrorism and that the root cause of violence lies in cross-border issues with Pakistan.
“When people are not allowed to express their dissent in constitutional terms, they may very well take to unconstitutional terms.”
The government seems to say that statehood cannot be restored until terror is eradicated. Pahalgam, the Delhi Red Fort and recent incidents of terror seem to show that the threat of terror continues. Is that a good reason for delaying the restoration of statehood? No, quite frankly. look, you could equally argue that by having a very heavy-handed security approach, forbidding, banning dissent, censoring books, not allowing free speech, cracking down, imposing curfew at the slightest of reasons, arresting people under PSA and UAPA, again under the flimsiest of pretexts, is a guarantee of generating more violence or fresh violence. When people are not allowed to express their dissent in constitutional terms, they may very well take to unconstitutional terms. And this is again historically proven not only in our own experience, but worldwide. So you can actually flip the argument and say that as long as you keep this heavy security approach going you are going to start breeding terrorism that will express itself always a few years later That too is a well fact that it takes time for violence to generate. So that's one set of arguments. The other is that, look, a lot of this violence is cross-border, coming from Pakistan-held territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and indeed from Pakistan proper, from the armed jihadi groups in Punjab, for example, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and so on. That you cannot stop by turning, subjugating the people of Jammu and Kashmir. that you can only curb by either resolving issues with Pakistan or creating a strong enough deterrent that Pakistan does not act in this way. We have not succeeded on either. This government has been in power for 12 years. It has neither succeeded in making peace with Pakistan nor has it, As we have seen from repeated efforts, including Operation Sindhur, we have not succeeded in creating a strong enough deterrent either.
