Demographic Politics And Population Growth - 2

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From above article..

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Demographic and Physical Realities

Jihadis do appear now to be the driving force behind the movement in all of J&K. They survive due to their use of terror and ability to maintain a support base. That there was invariably a supply of internal recruits stems from the geography and demographics of J&K. Though official, popular, and academic treatments of the conflict speak of Jammu & Kashmir State as a whole – with statistics pertaining to the insurgency taken from the entire area – the situation on the ground requires clarification. A majority (69%) of the J&K state land mass is ‘Ladakh’ (i.e. Leh and Kargil Districts), but this area has but 2.3% of the 2001 census population of 10,069,917.31 Little if anything pertaining to the insurgency goes on there, and it may be safely discarded in this treatment.

Insurgent activity, as indicated above, takes place in the divisions of Jammu & Kashmir, linked in an historic unity but in reality separated by a variety of factors – not least the Pir Panjil Range which runs between them – that dictate even the rainy seasons occur at different months (for Jammu, peak rainfall is in July and August; for Kashmir, February–April). Jammu is larger physically than Kashmir (26,293 km2 versus 15,948 km2) but slightly behind in population (4,395,712 versus 5,441,341, or 44.7 per cent versus 55.3 per cent). Jammu (26,293 km2) is slightly larger than either Vermont (23,958 km2) or New Hampshire (23,227 km2), with Kashmir (15,948 km2) being smaller than either but slightly larger than Massachusetts (12,549 km2). This comparison is important, because it means the entire conflict essentially goes on in an area (42,241 km2) just larger than the US tri-state block comprised of Massachusetts–Connecticut–Rhode Island (38,151 km2) but just smaller than the two-state block of Vermont and New Hampshire (47,185 km2).
<b>In reality, the conflict, in terms of population, takes place in even more constricted space, with Kashmir’s population concentrated in the Vale of Kashmir (i.e.Kashmir Valley), Jammu’s in the valley of that same name. Census data by decade reveals explosive population growth since independence, with the population essentially increasing by a third in each of the last two census decades (i.e. 1981–1991 and 1991–2001). Indeed, given the 1951 census figure of 3.25 million, the present count of 10,069,917 makes for a 310 per cent increase in 50 years – with the greatest growth in the Kashmir Valley.32</b>

Jammu is dominated by Hindus (62 per cent), but three of its six districts have Muslim majorities (Poonch, Rajauri and Doda; the other three districts, which have very large Hindu majorities, are Jammu, Kathua and Udhampur). Kashmir’s six districts (Kupwara, Baramula, Srinagar, Badgam, Pulwama and Anantanag) all have Muslim majorities in excess of 90 per cent. Hindus, in fact, are reported to be less than 2 per cent in all districts of the division except Srinagar, where their numbers have been placed at 6–8 per cent. Since the state as a whole (certainly Kashmir Division) remains tied to the employment patterns generated by agriculture, all sources have noted postindependence employment problems, especially the high dependency ratio (i.e. the number of persons supported by the working population). In 1981, less than a third of the state population (30.4 per cent) was classified in the census as ‘main
workers’ (i.e. those working more than six months, 183 days), with  nother 13.9 per cent classified as ‘marginal workers’ (finding less than six months employment), and fully 55.7 per cent as non-workers. As might be expected, those aged 15–39 dominated the labor force, and nearly three-quarters (72.0 per cent) of those working were in occupations tied directly to primary activities, to the land (e.g. cultivators, agricultural laborers, livestock workers). <b>At least two decades ago, then, issues of livelihood for the young had been identified as a looming state problem, with all factors exacerbated in Kashmir by Islamic cultural traits (such as discrimination against women and preference for male offspring).</b> :unsure Already, in 1981, more than half the state population was less than 19 years of age, with a literacy rate well below the national norm (and even lower among Muslims and especially Muslim women). Significantly, the lowest level of agricultural employment in the state was in Srinagar District (16.7 per cent), which was tied to small shop-keeping and thus dependent upon external forces for generation of employment capacity.

RESPONSE TO INSURGENCY IN JAMMU & KASHMIR 127

<b>As this heavily Muslim district was also an area of explosive growth, the ability of the economy to absorb youth steadily declined – even as the cultural bias noted above produced a pronounced imbalance in the sex ratio (for Kashmir the F:M ratio in 1981 was 878:1,000 versus Jammu’s 925:1,000).</b> Population density was considerably higher in Kashmir than elsewhere in the state, 251/km2 as early as 1991 versus 135/km2 in Jammu (and but 2/km2 in Ladakh).

The upshot is a statistical case can be made that there was a demographic tidal wave of unabsorbed youthful males appearing in the late 1980s, especially in Kashmir, just as political issues discussed above called into question the legitimacy of the existing order. Yet the resulting insurgency, despite its widespread violence in both Jammu and Kashmir, is in its origins and driving force more a Kashmir than a Jammu problem. Indeed, the increasingly Islamic nature of the insurgents and their support from Pakistan has served to enflame latent separatist sentiment upon the part of Jammu. One now sees strong forces demanding independent consideration of Jammu in factors ranging from the political to the linguistic, and local defense forces (to be considered below), in Jammu at least, are dominated by Hindus.33

Be all this as it may, a point must be made as concerns the earlier discussion of the need to examine the insurgency in its parts: it is not the human cost alone that makes for the notoriety of the conflict. Indeed, the internal war in J&K, when scaled, does not begin to approach the levels of criminal violence present in those US metropolitan areas best known for their murder rates. The ‘death count’ in Jammu & Kashmir for 2003 stood at 836 civilians, 1,447 militants, and 380 security personnel.34 If this violence is aggregated (2,663), which is unorthodox but certainly presents the worst possible statistical picture, it scales out at 24.5:100,000 population.35 This would place Jammu & Kashmir between Memphis (24.7:100,000) and Chicago (22.2:100,000), in the 2002 murder rankings when examining American cities with populations greater than 500,000, well off the pace established by the likes of Washington, DC 45.8:100,000) or Detroit (42.0:100,000).36 Thus the issue, as concerns Indians, is not ‘body count’ alone but the totality of the dislocation. The perversion of daily life caused by the insurgency and the government’s response; the deployment to the state of substantial numbers of security forces; the inability of economic activity to respond to demographic shifts due to the all-encompassing and pervasive effect of the conflict; the looming danger of escalation to inter-state war, with the possibility that nuclear weapons will be used; these and other facets are what make the ‘Kashmir conflict’ so ominous for the population.37<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->