WHITE PAPER ON KASHMIR -------Chapter 3 Disinformation Compaign

Chapter 3
Disinformation Compaign

All over the post-independence era, incessant efforts were always made by the State Government and the Government of India to conceal the ugly face of Muslim communalism in Jammu and Kashmir. Deliberate attempts were always rnade to provide cover to the evoluition of Muslim fundamentalist and secessionist movements in the State right from the time of its accession to India. The various forms of Muslim communalism and separatism which rampaged the life in the State, during the last four decades and which imparted to the secessionist movements in the State, their ideological content and tactical direction, were camaflouged under the banners of sub-national autonomy, regional identity and even secularism. Largely, perceptional aberrations, misplaced notions and subterfuge characterised the official as well as non-official responses to the upheavals which rocked the State from time to time. More often, the real issues, confronting the State, were overlooked by deliberate design and political interest, a policy which in the long run operated to help the secessionist forces to consolidate their ranks and their hold on the people in the State. The shrill cries of "Jehad" against India and the Hindu infidels, to undo the wrong they were accused of having done to the Muslim majorty in the State by usurping its right to join Pakistan, were always underestimated.

The mass massacre of Hindus and the Sikhs in the territories of the State occupied by Pakistan in 1917, the uncertainly which followed the exclusion of the State from the Indian constitutional organisation, the dismissal of the first Interim Government, the virulent secessionist struggle led by the Plebisicite Front that followed, and the induction of thousands of armed infiltrators into Kashmir to 1ead a Muslim rebellion against India, were events which went unheeded. The real import of these events was deliberately ignored. Even after widespread militant violence struck Kashmirin 1989, and thousands of innocent people were killed in cold blood along with hundreds of Indian security personnel and the whole community of the Hindus in Kashmir was driven out of the valley, the disinformation campaign to cloud the real dangers the terrorist violence posed to the nation continued to dominate the flow of information about Kashmir. Indeed, efforts still continue to be made to sidetrack the basic problems of terrorism, secessionism and the role of militarised Muslim fundamentalist forces in the whole bloody drama enacted in the State and divert the attention of the Indian people to trival concerns, which have no bearing on the developments there. The disinformation campaign, has been aimed to confuse the Indian public opinion about dangerous import of the militarisation of Muslim separatism in Kashmir and its implications for the unity of the whole country.

There was a subtle effort, which was coordinated at various levels, both official and non-official, to divert the attention ofthe Indian people from the menacing threat presented to the security of India by (a), the militarisation of pan- Islamic fundamentalism in South Asia with its epicentre in Pakistan and (b) the induction of militalised fundamentalist flanks into Jammu and Kashmir to wage a war of attrition against India. The broad scheme of the disinformation campaign spread into several propaganda formats, based upon the following themes:

Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir were alienated by misgovernment and oppression, which India and the Hindus in Kashmir, perpeterated upon them.
Muslims in the State were excluded from political participation in the exercise of state power by the Government of India and the Hindus.
The Government of India and the Hindus deprived the Muslims of their due share in the political processes of the state by,

rigging elections;
excluding the Muslims from the administrative organisation of the State;
denying them their share in the services of the State Government and the offices of the Government of India, in accordance with the ratio of their population.

the Muslims were subjected to economic deprivations, which resulted in widespread poverty among them and unemployment among their youth.
Hindus in India and the Indian Government refused to recognise the right of the Muslims in the State to religious precedence and their religious obligation, polity based upon the law and precept of Islam.

The disinformation campaign succeeded to provide a smoke-screen to the war of attrition waged in Jammu and Kashmir. Evidently the campaign was aimed to obscure a clearer perspective of the import of the secessionist struggle in the State and obstruct the evolution of a national response to deal with the danger it posed, effectively and purposefully.