Torching of goodwill school at Hajin has laid bare the fact that people in Kashmir understand that the Army’s “Goodwill” Mission is a misnomer.
Junaid Rashid
The attempt by protestors to set an army school on fire at Hajin on Monday has brought a stark reality to the fore that Army’s “Goodwill mission”, aimed at creating a space among the Kashmiri society, has not worked.
The local residents, enraged by the killing of two youth in the area by soldiers, stormed into the school building, ransacked it and set it on fire. Fuming over the unprovoked killing of the innocent civilians, residents also gave vent to their anger by raising pro freedom, anti-India and anti-army slogans.
The school, one of several, was started by the army under Operation Sadbhavana (goodwill) to win the hearts and minds (WHAM) of the ‘alienated’ people. They army has been engaged in an armed conflict with militants in Kashmir since the late eighties. The doctrine of sub-conventional warfare released in January 2007 gives a central place to WHAM in counter-insurgency operations.
Such attempts, it is envisaged, would provide the healing touch during conflict and win over the alienated sections of people in the conflict zones. As a part of its WHAM activities, the army opened a chain of schools named as Army’s Goodwill school in various parts of Jammu and Kashmir.
The goodwill schools are managed by the local units of the Army in the area. The first goodwill school was set up by the Army in Uri in 1999 and since then more schools have come up across the Valley. Around 10,000 Kashmiri Muslim students are reported to be studying in these schools. The teaching staff is also primarily selected from the local educated youth. A general impression is that these schools are serving as a link between local people with army as well.
But torching of the Goodwill School at Hajin carves out for a different theme — that this connect is as fragile as ever, and the goodwill is yet to make its way into hearts and minds of the Kashmiris.
What makes it a more interesting case is the locale of the incident.
Hajin is the first of the places that reneged against the armed struggle against India rule. For several years, it was known as capital of counter-insurgents — known locally as Ikwanis or Naabdis, who worked in tandem with Indian army against militants. Kuka Parray, the founder of Naabdi force, belonged to this village. He purged the area from anti-India militants and their upper ground supporters by killing hundreds of them.
Many people of the area had to migrate to other parts of the valley to escape the Ikhwan fury. The area was declared ‘militant-free’ even as militants existed still in large numbers in other parts of Kashmir. Parray spread his Ikhwan network to other areas as well to take on militants. A general belief is that army could have done little in containing militants had there been no Ikhwanis. Parray’s influence over the area could be gauged from the fact that he was elected as member of the state Assembly in 1996.
Army set up the goodwill school in Hajin in 2005 to strengthen its ‘bond’ with local people. Parray, however, was killed in a landmine blast, activated by militants of Hizbul Mujahideen, in April 2006. Even as Parray’s death saw the decline of the Ikhwan group but Hajin continued to remain out of bounds for pro-freedom groups. They would find little public support in the area. The 2010 mass revolt however proved watershed.
After the decline of Ikhwanis, Hajin residents, for the first time, demonstrated their sentiment for ‘Azadi’ in 2010. That year several youth of the area got killed and many others were wounded in police action. The 2010 mass unrest was triggered by the killing of a teenage boy, Tufail Mattoo, in downtown Srinagar by police and paramilitary action on protestors.
And this is exactly what the incident on Monday tries to say. The army may try its best to create a space in the hearts and minds of people, but as long as they continue to be masters of life and death, the match has to be played again and again, every single day. Until then the gaps will remain a distance of a thousand years and goodwill a far-fetched dream.
(The author is opinion editor, FreePress. Send your contributions to [email protected])
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