Unlike a conventional full-scale war in which technology-enabled assets capture the ‘vital information’ and track enemy movements, the sole asset in any counter-insurgency scenario is “Humint” or Human Intelligence. All successful counter-insurgency operations in the subcontinent ~ from Mizoram, Punjab and the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka ~ had a common thread ultimately.

The first is a functional eco-system between the Humint ‘sources’ and the ‘collector’ i.e. a sizeable section of the regional populace that was either negative or oblivious to the secessionist sentiments. The second is the intelligence community of the security forces who are able to capture and operationalize the ‘vital information’ from the populace.

This critical lack of a viable Humint network has denied the US/NATO forces the success in Afghanistan, where despite a $1.07 trillion bill and 2000 fatalities since 2001, the US/NATO forces are still struggling to contain the Taliban.

In the Kashmir insurgency, despite the electric fencing, lighting, patrolling, mining and the multi-layered security framework, the 740-km-long Indo-Pak Line-of-Control (LOC) in J&K remains susceptible to infiltration from Pakistan.

The sheer spread and the topographical challenges like the Pir Panjal and Himalayan mountain ranges, riverine tracts and the tunneling options make it physically impossible to completely stop infiltration along the LOC.

This poses a unique challenge to the armed forces to co-opt the local population along the LOC, or in the relatively uninhabited and difficult-to-access higher reaches, to develop a functional system of Humint that can alert the Indian security forces against any hostile movements.

Contrary to the widely perceived narrative on the J&K situation, the fact is that the Pakistan-funded and abetted militancy and secessionist sentiment is restricted only to the Kashmir Valley, within J&K. The Jammu and the Ladakh divisions are decidedly anti-insurgency, as indeed are the Islamic ‘minorities’ of the Shia and Ahmediya sect, besides the 12 notified Scheduled Tribes of J&K.

This includes the Bakarwals and Gujjars who typically inhabit and operate in the higher reaches, or along the volatile LOC. Though very traditional and conservative in their Islamic faith, the Gujjar-Bakarwals are of a distinct ethnicity vis-à-vis the Kashmiris and they have not acquired the alien traits of religiosity that has radically altered the syncretic ‘Kashmiriyat’, towards puritanical moorings in the Kashmir Valley.

Apart from co-religiosity, , the Bakarwal-Gujjars do not intermingle or intermarry into the Kashmiri segment and are even against the raging insurgency, given that these trans-humant tribes are routinely slaughtered by the infiltrating militants or the local terrorists in the higher reaches of their pastoral routes.

This historical opposition to the insurgency of the Bakarwal-Gujjars and the fact that this pastoral group operates in proximity to the deployed security forces, creates a functional ecosystem of inter-dependence and a Humint base. Besides the nationalist credentials of the Bakarwal-Gujjar communities is the fact that despite repeated attempts by Pakistan to infuse its sinister agenda, these simple nomadic tribes have repeatedly ignored the Pakistani overtures, based on religious bigotry.

Since independence, the Bakarwal-Gujjars and the Indian forces have had a symbiotic relationship that has often resulted in actionable Humint inputs that allowed targeted reactions and operations. Their Humint service to the Indian armed forces during 1965, 1971 and even the ‘Kargil’ war, where the Bakarwals were among the first to warn our security forces of the Pakistani intrusion, is unparalleled and little known beyond the military circles which have traditionally depended on them to be their extended and reliable ‘eyes and ears’, along the LOC.

For a community with a population as large as theirs in J&K (20 per cent of the population), the fact that there has been no known terrorist group of their denomination testifies to their aversion of insurgency. On the contrary, the Bakarwal-Gujjar had organised themselves into the Militancy Mukhalif Morcha (anti-militancy front), and a prominent Gujjar leader appealed for a Special Gujjar Regiment, exclusively composed of J&K Gujjars, within the Indian Army, to confront militancy in J&K.

Two circumstantial changes have twisted facts and crafted an alternative narrative to the Bakarwal-Gujjar factor within the state. First, the increasing presence of the nomadic Bakarwal-Gujjar community in the lower reaches of Jammu (and neighbouring Kathua and Samba districts) has given credence to fears of a demographic change.

Interestingly enough, the Bakarwal-Gujjars chose Jammu division to settle down, as opposed to the Valley. Second, the arrival and camping of the 14,000-odd Rohingyas settled in Jammu and Samba, gave rise to the popular sentiment of a, ‘conspiracy to alter the demographic character and a threat to the peace in the region’.

This coincidental and natural process of the settlement of the Bakarwal-Gujjar tribes, along with the unrelated arrival of Rohingya refugees, is fodder for the political classes which have linked the two unconnected dots and thus created a sensitive, even explosive, situation.

That the Jammu region has suffered neglect and disdain from both the state government and the Centre is an absolute truth, as indeed is the inexplicable and almost mysterious arrival of Rohingyas in such numbers. This has exacerbated the already volatile environment, and signifies lazy convenience.

A wholly localized tragedy in Kathua has been allowed to fester and acquire an unnecessary portent of uber-nationalism. Such communalization of a criminal case can reinforce the isolated character of the Bakarwal-Gujjar community, which otherwise had defied all attempts by the Pakistanis to infiltrate. In this case, it is the ‘State’ via the local police and the politicians that is ranting against the aggrieved Bakarwal-Gujjar community.

These nomadic communities have never accepted the ‘Valley-versus-Jammu’ divide in its traditional context, and certainly bear no responsibility or affinity to the Rohingyas, which needs to be addressed separately.

Such juxtaposing of unrelated circumstances may be politically gratifying in the short term, but it is potentially devastating in destroying the edifice of a historical relationship between the Indian security forces and the Bakarwal-Gujjar community that has held its own, and helped each other, considerably.

The writer IS Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands & Puducherry