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No relief in sight

Young Bites. Dated: 7/21/2017 8:57:13 AM

Narendra Modi-led government has failed to put an end to the ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the international border in Jammu and Kashmir, making the lives of people living in border areas miserable. The NDA government has miserably failed to put a halt to the ceasefire violations by Pakistan as was promised by it to the people of the country. The persistent ceasefire violations have made the life of people living in border areas miserable and they are forced to lead a life marked by fear, uncertainty and mental stress. NDA government remained insensitive towards the plight and trauma of the people. How long people of the Jammu and Kashmir and the country will be fed with rhetoric’s and hollow promises as the ceasefire violations go on unabated. Time has come to act and silence the Pakistani guns as the residents of border areas since July last year have suffered unimaginable loss to lives, property, livestock, crops, due to unprovoked Pakistani firing and shelling. NDA government should at least be cognizant of the plight and sufferings of the lakhs of people living in the border belt who have been forced to leave their homes and hearths in an extremely hot weather conditions. Voters of the country had voted for NDA after it promised the people that it would put an end to the Pakistani aggression. Every citizen of this country voted NDA government to power to fulfil its promise of acting very strongly against Pakistan to bring an end to the incessant ceasefire violations. However, irony is that there has been a consistent uptrend in ceasefire violations ever since the NDA government has taken over. History tells us that written ceasefire agreements tend to endure longer than unwritten ones. That’s because the former have inbuilt mechanisms to ensure compliance and perhaps even verification. Moreover, countries sharing contested boundaries and engaged in protracted conflicts and territorial disputes would typically find it harder to sustain CFAs, let alone unwritten ones. The 2003 ceasefire agreement had put a temporary end to the hundreds of firing incidents that used to occur every year since 1972. They had been so frequent as there was no treaty mechanism after the Bangladesh war that prevented the two sides from firing at each other on the line of control (LoC) and the international border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian and Pakistani media hardly ever try and uncover the real causes behind the CFVs and conveniently blame the ‘other side’ for violations. And the general public unquestioningly accepts the official version of events. While New Delhi consistently argues that CFVs are a result of the Pakistan army providing cover fire to infiltrators entering J&K, Islamabad says that Indian forces engage in unprovoked firing. The reality, however, is far more complicated: More often than not, local-level tactical military factors lead to CFVs. Ever since the BJP government has come to power, CFVs have been on the rise. In 2014, a great deal of the firing that went on in Jammu, for instance, was a result of the pre-election political mobilisation by the BJP in Jammu. While the CFVs bring about unnecessary casualties and a great deal of destruction, there are clear political gains to be made from them.