BENEATH every unpleasant incident lie pent-up grievances and wrath. Maturity lies first in containing the unpleasantness and, next, in addressing the underlying cause of the eruption. This is particularly true of the incident at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Srinagar on March 31.

The NIT has students from Kashmir as well as outsiders who are 1,500 strong. They far outnumber the locals. On that night as India lost to the West Indies in the World T20 semi-final, the Kashmiris celebrated the defeat in a tradition set over 30 years.

At the first international cricket match played in Srinagar on Oct 12, 1983, also between India and the West Indies, Kashmiri spectators cheered for the West Indies. Some tried to dig up the pitch to deliver their message.

There are now systematic attacks on Kashmiri students.

Prime minister Indira Gandhi was livid. She was insulted by some in the crowd when she visited Srinagar on another occasion. Angry at the then chief minister Farooq Abdullah, she had him ousted in July 1984. His brother-in-law was made chief minister. Farooq Abdullah became a popular hero. But he is not cut out to be a rebel. He made a pact with prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1986 and sanctified it by a rigged election in 1987. By universal consent, it is that election which triggered militancy in Indian Kashmir.

If the message underlying the 1983 incident had been heeded by New Delhi and the alienation of the people properly understood, we would have been spared the bloodshed we have witnessed since and the hapless Kashmiris spared the miseries they have suffered.

In 1983, there was no militancy but the alienation was there for all to see. Now the militancy has declined but the alienation remains and remain it will even if the militancy is crushed.

But, as the French say, ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’. The more things change, the more they remain the same. The NIT’s Kashmiri students’ rejoicing over India’s defeat in the World T20 was par for the course. The non-local students, who ought to have understood the situation in Kashmir during their stay, tactlessly protested with predictable consequences.

Clashes that night were followed by the non-locals flying India’s national flag, the tricolour, and shouting slogans like “Bharat mata ki jai”. Kashmiri students shouted the slogan “Hum kya chahte — azadi” which became familiar when militancy broke out in 1989.

The non-locals made non-negotiable demands such as shifting NIT outside Indian Kashmir; hoisting the tricolour at the main gate of NIT; and deployment of central forces permanently on the campus.

One grievance was justified. On April 5, the police had reportedly baton-charged non-local students inside the NIT campus when nearly 500 students tried to march out of the campus into the city. That would have led to bloodshed. Jammu’s sympathies lay with the non-locals; Kashmiris’ with Kashmiri students. The divide is palpable.

The police were perfectly justified in preventing the march. However, as happens in such cases, five students were injured. New Delhi acted with predictable clumsiness.

What is significant and disturbing is that it was not Mehbooba Mufti but her deputy, the BJP’s Nirmal Singh who asked the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani, to send a team to NIT.

It is only fair to mention what a senior-ranking police officer told the media: “We didn’t use force beyond what was needed. We didn’t want the protesting students to leave the campus as that would have aggravated the situation. But in response they attacked the police officer deployed there.”

There is no reason to disbelieve this specific charge. The police force which lost 1,500 lives during the emergency, resents the slur which deployment of the Central Reserve Police Force implies.

The HRD team’s arrival on the campus on April 6 was in glaring contrast to Smriti Irani’s callous behaviour on students’ unrest in the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and the Hyderabad Central University and Rajasthan’s Mewar University.

Worse, it is in glaring contrast to New Delhi’s utter indifference to the by now systematic attacks on Kashmiri students.

A rare note of sanity was struck by Srijana Mitra Das, co-author of the Bollywood film Haider in an interview to Basharat Peer published in The Times of India: “Kashmiri students not cheering for the Indian cricket team conveys the nature of the relationship between Delhi and Srinagar. … There has been no serious effort to engage with the political realities of Kashmir.”

It is most unlikely that such an effort will be made by New Delhi or any of its dependents in Kashmir — Mehbooba Mufti, Farooq or Omar Abdullah. The leaders are no better endowed with realism or concern for the people.

The writer is an author and a lawyer based in Mumbai.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2016