SRINAGAR: Always known for unpredictability of its weather and political moods, Kashmir has never before witnessed a winter like this. It is a gracing negation of all that it has stood for in the recent past.

The Governor, Mr. Jagmohan, is doing his utmost to save the situation. Not a few people share his confidence. Yet many more do not. Everyone is keeping his fingers crossed about the shape of things in store. The snow bound valley has virtually turned into a volcano.

Bars, cinema halls and other places of entertainment continue to remain closed at the behest of the militants. There are no newspapers. Transport is erratic. No one talks about winter courses.

In the day, life is hardly normal even though some shops open whenever there is no curfew. Night curfew is virtually a permanent feature.

The long drift more so after the utter failure of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and Mr. Farooq Abdullah to give the peace loving people a good government appears to have fatally taken its toll. Both Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Abdullah did at times condemn the militants but they never cared to go deeper into the roots of the problem. Soon after the appointment of Mr. Jagmohan as Governor, they became top political stars of Pakistan television which played up their utterances against the government of India. Restoration of law and order was to move a top priority then on their agenda. It was perhaps not even so when they were in the saddle.

From all accounts, the Governor has set about his job in right earnest. His immediate objective is to restore at least a semblance of law and order in order to ensure the local population that it has an administration to protect their life and property. He has managed to build up an outfit for the purpose. For once, one bears amidst series of incidents of exchange of fire, the shots fired by the militants being matched by the security forces.

There are lengtheny quenes outside the Governor’s residence of those seeking redressed of their grievances. With several administrative agencies having gone out of gear, the absence of non-official channels between the government and the people is not surprising. Mr. Jagmohan has a Herculean task to perform; it is no way made easy without the Govt offices of any traditional leader and political party of some credibility. The people are in no mood to trust old leaders because of their failure to live up to the challenging situation. Mr. Abdul Ghani Lone of the People’s Conference admits, “That there is a leadership vacuum,” He says “all of us have been sidelined because the people feel we have cheated them.”

Many observers feel that Mr. Jagmohan should apart from his well-meaning security measures, initiate concrete steps to reassure the people that they will have a government of their choice as soon as the situation shows signs of improvement. None should know it better than him how democratic processes had been sought to be scuttled in the state. Quite a few of those who had walked out of the counting halls in 1987 after seeing the manner in which counting was perverted lost faith in the ballot and took bullets in their hands.

Article extracted from this publication >> February 16, 1990