KASHMIR continues to tackle the challenge of radicalisation of young people -- as is clear from media reports that the Counter Intelligence wing of Kashmir Police has succeeded in stalling radicalisation of two Kashmiri youths and saved them from falling into the terror trap. Using its professional competence to handle cyber domains and social outreach, the Counter Intelligence unit has defeated the efforts of vested interests to give effect to digital radicalisation of two young persons. Though the media display of the news was rather moderate, its importance cannot be underestimated. The development shows that the challenge of radicalisation of youth in Kashmir still needs to be tackled with much care and alertness. It is common knowledge that the Army had undertaken great drives of social outreach to convince Kashmiri families against the sly calls from terror ecosystem to the region’s young people. That drive around the abrogation of the Special Status to Jammu and Kashmir six-plus years ago had had its great effect on Kashmir’s social scene.

 

Countless numbers of Kashmiri families had succeeded in stopping their youngsters from falling into terror trap (abandoning their normal life). With the positive changes that came following the abrogation of Special Status, the scenario also turned favourable to national interest. Despite that, the terror ecosystem did not stop its efforts to draw Kashmiri youth to terrorism and separatism. With time, the Government’s efforts proved to be better, finer and stronger than those of the terror ecosystem and more and more young people were saved from the terror trap. The challenge, however, continues even now -- as is clear from the media reports about the two youngsters having been saved from terror trap. It must be noted that the process of radicalisation of Kashmiri youth was helped by coercion very deftly practised by terror ecosystem for decades. Most young people in Kashmir fell prey to terror trap out of that coercive regime and sheer fear.

 

With socio-political atmosphere changing for the better in the past six years, the element of fear waned and the young people felt strong enough to say ‘no’ to terrorism. Of course, that did not deter the terror ecosystem from making its own efforts. Digital radicalisation, thus, came up as a main tool of the terror ecosystem. That is the current challenge the cops and the Kashmiri society are facing. It is obvious that such a challenge would continue to dog the Kashmiri society -- stemming as it does from a long history of support of some social segments to separatism and terrorism. Therefore, the authorities and social and political leadership will have to keep countering that challenge in every manner possible. The fight for normalisation of situation in Kashmir with a view to integrate the region fully with the national mainstream, thus, promises to be long and tough.

 

There are several factors that need to be tackled effectively in order to succeed in this national fight, politics being one of those. Separatism is still a very real issue in Kashmir purely because of indulgence of political elements (often fuelled by powers across the border). So shameless have those political elements become that some of them have gone on record to state that they would prefer being ruled by the Chinese rather than by Indians. Even a street urchin would recognise the ridiculousness of such a political stand. However, the authorities and the larger Kashmiri society need to tackle such a challenge consistently and persistently. That appears to be a never-ending, ongoing fight to establish India’s sovereign sentiment in Kashmir’s peculiar situation. The optimistic point is that there are strong positives on India’s side as this fight goes on -- to believe that good would prevail over evil.