Doctors beat up a policeman during a protest in Jammu on Wednesday. (PTI)

Srinagar, Aug. 20: For very apparent reasons, he shall remain anonymous, but the story of his jolted esteem, alarmingly, is fast becoming obvious to all.

“We have been reduced to bystanders in uniform,” says the police chief of a district neighbouring Srinagar. “The way we have been treated these past 10 days has demolished our authority in the eyes of the people, suddenly, they think nothing of us.”

Here’s why — the reasons are best told in his own words: “On the eve of the separatists’ rally to Pampore, last week, we got strict instruction mid-afternoon not to allow a single person out of the district. The rally had to be controlled and separatist voices contained. We began preparations right away. I myself went about announcing a curfew, asking people to stay in. Barricades were erected at key points and barbed wire stretched. But just as that was underway, we got another set of instructions — let the people go, pull down the barricades, open the roads, don’t get in their way. We reversed whatever we have been trying to achieve all afternoon.

“Then, late evening, came yet more instructions — facilitate the Pampore rally, don’t give the impression the administration is against it, stay calm even in the face of provocation. That may sound fair as the tactic of a so-called soft administration, but for us on the ground, for my men, it was a crippling blow. Do you know what happened with us? We had just told everyone, and particularly the well-known troublemakers, that we were going to clamp down.

“Then suddenly, we were not doing that; these elements, who we have to engage with and control on a daily basis, were shot with a huge rush of victory. They took to the streets in a manner I have seldom seen before. They were jeering us, shouting slogans we would never have allowed them to, even spitting at us. And there was nothing we could do. The order was to keep restraint in the face of extreme provocation. We just stood by and let them run away with it.

“Worse was to come. Before the rally to the UN offices in Srinagar, we were told there was certainly no allowing anyone out — close the roads and outlets, nobody gets into Srinagar from the districts, we can’t afford an international embarrassment. We again mounted a bandobust, this time assured that there would be no reversals.

“But come evening, and the same thing happened. We were to let them go. For the second time in three days, we were let down and the people we are meant to control rode all over us. How do you suppose I feel? How am I to rally my men who have been asked to serve the purposes of the very people they will someday have to contain? And how do you suppose we will contain them? How do you suppose we act out of any conviction and strength? I am not sure we will succeed the day the administration suddenly changes tack and asks us to rein them in. This is not about me or my district alone, this has happened across the Valley, that is how so many thousands landed up in Pampore and Srinagar.

“The separatists have been given booster doses of victory by our bosses, we have been projected as powerless. Whatever the thinking behind it, this is terrible strategy, I would say suicidal.”

The jawan manning posts across the strife-ridden Valley is plumbing the depths of demoralisation, chiefly on account of his bosses. “The erosion of our authority has been so swift, the boys in downtown Srinagar are bold enough today to demand the removal of security bunkers,” a senior police officer told The Telegraph earlier this week. “There has been the odd case where they have go ahead and demolished them and nobody has resisted. We are being pushed with our hands tied to our backs.”

Governor N.N. Vohra’s “go soft” policy has not hurt the police alone, it has also disheartened the CRPF, the paramilitary formation currently deployed in the Valley. “We are a national force, not the state police,” said one CRPF officer as he watched Monday’s “azaadi” rally take over central Srinagar. “It does my jawans no good when these boys come abusing India to their faces and they can’t do anything. They are asking me why they have been posted there at all, to be humiliated and to take the humiliation silently?”

A retired chief secretary of Jammu and Kashmir thought the current policy “disturbingly erroneous” and said the administration — “or New Delhi itself” — should “urgently re-examine” it. “I am told the idea is to ignore these protests and tire the protestors down. That is not going to work, considering the forces that are at work here,” he said.

“This is a moment of probably unprecedented surcharge, even if it ebbs and the people begin to tire, there are elements that could radicalise things with the gun. There will come a stage when you will have to confront this, politically and administratively, and a demoralised force is not what you want when you want to crack down. We are arming ourselves with a hazard all the time that this upsurge is allowed to drift.”