The PDP led and the BJP backed Government in Jammu and Kashmir (J and K) is seriously contemplating De-radicalisation Department in India’s only Muslim-majority dominated state. The recent unrest in the Vally is blamed on the radicalisation of the youths in Kashmir. The idea is this: those youths who are “radicalised” by the ideologies will not be put in the jails, but they will be confined to the “isolated places” like islands, where they will be counseled by the team of religious leaders, perhaps psychologists, and other officials.

This reminds us of the famous political movie which appeared twice with the same theme, but different casts: The Manchurian Candidate. The plot has it that the captured Prisoners of Wars (PoWs) are brainwashed to work against their own host countries and they are helped to advance levels of politics. It is the battle of ideologies that is being unleashed and worked out to what we can call “brain games” which entails corrections of the “crooked and warped” minds.

If we think of the radicalisation in the Indian context, the biggest organisation that has been radicalising masses in India is RSS, which is the manifestation of the Brahminical hegemony and supremacy in the modern times. Though the program of radicalisation of India’s lower caste majority (OBCs make 54 percent, the SCs 20 percent, the STs 9 percent) by the Upper Caste regime.

The Indian masses are brainwashed continuously through mass media, through religious programs, and through vilifying a religion (in this case Islam and Christianity) as an anti-thesis to the idea of India. The brainwashing also goes at the deeper level when women are told to behave in a particular way. It is the cultural radicalisation that has been going on India for many centuries now and it has created what we call “political” Hinduism which often becomes “communal” Hinduism in response to manufactured threats.

If GGNews (English language media of Russia supported by the Russian Government) is to be believed, Putin had warned Modi that Indian sovereignty will be compromised in the future, perhaps not by the terrorists, but by the Global axis of capitalists. India may face multiple threats from any corners and we will have to prepare to mitigate those threats.

The issue of insurgency increases if any agency working in India teaches the Indians ideologies other than suggested by the Constitution of India and judged by the four-cornered standard (Justice, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity) given by the Indian Constitution. Every country must have a framework of Governance if it has to fight any dangers to its existence. We have a solid framework, which is undermined by the radical and fundamentalist organizations like RSS and its political Avatar, the BJP.

There are many ways to deal with ideologies through practical means and methods. The most important way will be how we make the people in Kashmir feel that their life is easy within India. Kashmir is already divided into Pak-occupied (India’s terminology) and India-occupied (Pakistan’s terminology) territories. The Pakistani media calls PoK, Azad Kashmir, which has occupied an important place with the emergence of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The LoC that India shares with China has also become a bone of contention between China and India. In reality, the state of J and K is basically J and K and L, where the L stands for Ladakh, the biggest district in India, with the predominant population of Buddhists. Ladakh and other areas in the Himalayan region share the Buddhist culture with Tibet and it is predominantly Buddhist region.

We do not know how the international diplomacy will play out in this region, but it is emerging as one of the contentious regions in the global politics and the unsettled boundaries and the intricate geopolitics of the region offers fuel for further escalation of the fire. De-radicalisation department in Kashmir will not solve the problem as the problem is political and it must be dealt with politics and not with the psychology. By this, it is meant that what we can do to build confidence in the minds of people living in India’s biggest Muslim state.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist