Selective Outrage, Human Rights and the Kashmir Question

A consistent rights-based approach must condemn both state excesses and terrorist violence with equal clarity.

In the days following the targeted killing of a police head constable in Anantnag, security forces launched a large-scale verification drive across the Kashmir Valley. Thousands of suspected Over Ground Workers (OGWs) were detained for questioning in Srinagar, Anantnag, Shopian, Baramulla and other districts. Houses linked to alleged militants were demolished. The All India Students' Association (AISA) responded with a sharply worded statement describing the operation as a "brutal crackdown", questioning the legitimacy of the OGW category and insisting that constitutional rights must be upheld in Kashmir.

The statement is as notable for what it omits as for what it says. In the final days of July 2026, two migrant labourers from Chhattisgarh were shot dead by terrorists at a brick kiln in Kulgam. The attackers asked their names, checked their identity documents and opened fire. No comparable public condemnation of these killings appears to have been issued by AISA. An organisation that responded swiftly to the questioning of suspects had little to say when workers who came to the Valley to earn a living were executed. This silence is a pattern.

AISA is the student arm of a communist political tradition that has long viewed the Indian state as an instrument of repression. In this framework, security operations are routinely framed as collective punishment, while terrorist violence is often treated as a reaction, symptom or by-product of deeper structural injustices. The rights of those detained for questioning receive urgent attention; those killed by terrorists receive far less.

This selective sensitivity has become more apparent since the Cockroach Janta Party agitation in Delhi. The mobilisation brought AISA and allied student groups into sharper national focus, contributed to the resignation of the Union education minister, and demonstrated their capacity for sustained protest on education, employment and institutional accountability. Yet the same energy is rarely directed with equal force when the victims are migrant labourers or security personnel in Kashmir. Public attention is more readily mobilised for some grievances than others.

Kashmir's security environment remains precarious. Although overall violence has declined, small modules, hybrid militants and residual cross-border networks continue to operate. Targeted killings of non-local workers and security personnel aim to spread fear, disrupt economic activity and test the state's resolve. In such circumstances, verifying individuals suspected of providing logistics, shelter, communications or intelligence is neither extraordinary nor illegitimate. The OGW category may be applied too broadly, and any excess or procedural abuse must be examined. But to treat investigation itself as inherently oppressive is to detach human rights discourse from the threats faced by ordinary citizens.

The reference in AISA's statement to the release of Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj is instructive. Their prolonged detention raised due-process concerns, and the courts eventually intervened. That is part of the normal functioning of a constitutional system. It does not, however, require security agencies to suspend preventive measures against networks that enable violence. A serious human rights perspective would insist on both accountability for state excesses and an unambiguous rejection of terrorist methods. When only one side of this equation is emphasised, the language of rights becomes a political instrument rather than a universal standard.

Left student organisations have long expanded democratic debate on campuses and in public life. Their interventions on social justice, access to education and institutional autonomy have often been valuable. Yet when their attention remains fixed on the state's coercive apparatus but muted in the face of terrorist killings, they risk reducing human rights to a partisan repertoire. Kashmir is not merely a site for ideological performance. It is a region where the Indian state bears responsibility for protecting residents, migrants and security personnel alike.

The demolition of houses linked to alleged militants raises legitimate concerns about due process and its impact on family members accused of no wrongdoing. Such actions require careful legal scrutiny. At the same time, the repeated targeting of brick-kiln workers, security personnel and tourists cannot be treated as background noise. A consistent rights-based approach would condemn both state excesses and the deliberate murder of non-combatants with equal clarity. Its absence weakens the credibility of those who claim to speak for the vulnerable.

In the end, selective outrage does not strengthen democratic values. It hollows them out, suggesting that some lives and forms of violence matter more than others through an ideological lens. For student organisations that aspire to shape public discourse, the real test is not how forcefully they criticise the state, but whether they show the same moral seriousness when terrorists kill those with neither power nor voice. National security and constitutional rights are not opposing values. They are interdependent. Treating them as alternatives is a luxury that neither Kashmir nor the rest of the country can afford.

(The writer is a senior journalist. Views personal.)