Scare-mongering in J&K

The recent phenomenon of the Islamic State, or ISIS to use the acronym for its full name, is rightly concentrating international attention for the dangers the new Islamist terrorist organisation — active in the Iraq, Syria, Kurdish belt — can pose to world order since this non-state actor is increasingly showing attributes of being a regular state, and for that reason being inordinately more dangerous than even an outfit such as Al Qaeda. Thus, three recent occasions on which the ISIS flag was shown in Kashmir are quite appropriately drawing comment.

However, drawing too large a meaning from these instances may be premature, as sections of the media have done. The Army commander in the valley has also expressed concern. J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah, while showing that he is alert about it, has refrained from raising an alarm and has limited the job of flag-raising to being the handiwork of “three idiots”, meaning people who are a nuisance but may not pose a risk.

There has always been a small pro-Pakistan constituency in Kashmir that engages in provocative acts from time to time. At one time, in order to raise a sense of alarm it used to give the slogan of “Aayee, aayee, Lashkar aayee!”, or “the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is coming!” Last year there were wall slogans in favour of the Taliban. And now this. Such acts are primarily meant to create a permanent sense of siege, or a security state mindset, among policymakers, but they do not appear to be done by an organisation. Security organisations need to track things down, of course.