“How can the oppressor let the oppressed be helped?” asked a Facebook user in India-held Kashmir, which has endured the worst floods in over a century.

“Humanitarianism is always loaded with multiple meanings: when employed during a calamity in a conflict zone, it becomes even more problematic due to the urgency of the situation. It tends to overshadow the larger politics which the media is trying to overshadow yet again through its public relations exercise, even as it seeks to influence public opinion through its own agenda of denial, disinformation and delegitimisation,” wrote another Facebook user from Delhi.

The creation of forced dependency by the Indian state on relief material for the flood affected in Kashmir will have serious mental health repercussions on those who have borne the brunt of state terror, warn doctors based in Srinagar.

While the historical antagonist plays Good Samaritan, forced dependency in flood relief threatens to push Kashmiri victims to survivor’s guilt and suicide

In a bid to ensure that locals are prevented from availing aid provided by civil NGOs, the government has unofficially asked relief seekers to produce permission from the police for the release of relief packages from Srinagar airport. Monopolisation of aid has ensured that people of the valley end up solely depending on the state and its structures. Absurdities reached new zeniths when an offer by the United Nations to intervene on humanitarian basis was also struck down by New Delhi.

With the recent aid blockade, psychiatrists warn that propaganda by the Indian media, portraying the army as the saviours of the valley’s inhabitants “is bound to cause some cognitive dissonance in a population which is already grappling with the effect of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) due to living in one of the most highly militarised zones in the world.”

In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas or values.

Some people might feel survivors’ guilt for accepting aid from the same army which was responsible for the death of a family member or even their own torture in the past. They will feel guilty, as they have survived because of killers.

In the first fortnight after the deluge, quick action from community workers, Kashmiri groups outside the valley and pro-freedom leaders through their extensive networks, filled the lacuna that grew from absence of state participation in rescue efforts.

Simultaneously, as standard political PR exercise, political parties affiliated with the state whipped up propaganda about their successful intervention in the disturbed region. Two weeks after the deluge, members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) flew to Srinagar with aid from Delhi. Interestingly, J&K doesn’t even feature in the flood advisory of the Central Water Commission.

With power being used by the Centre to exacerbate the bleak situation, the condition on the ground is getting worse with winter looming. In the Sumbal area and around Wullar, the situation is such that people chase aid trucks for about 2km simply to get water, discloses a resident. Ironically, aid is being sent by local politicians to Kupwara, which has been unaffected — all this for votes, exclaims a youth. Sources also reveal that the police on the outskirts of Srinagar stopped a truck full of relief material from Aligarh Muslim University and confiscated its contents, sending them to a government godown.

“So far, the majority has survived due to community effort by resistance leaders and not because of government intervention,” explains an aid worker from a camp in central Kashmir, who also complained about tonnes of relief material being sent back to Mumbai and Delhi from Srinagar by the authorities, this week.

“This restructuring of rules regarding aid release at the airport 15 days after the flood signifies another oppressive tactic. The state not only wants to exhaust the indigenous political groups that are working on the ground of the supplies they have, but also render them irrelevant in this time of crisis.

“The state wants to control the narrative in the media about what a great job they are doing by controlling the flow of aid and proving that Kashmiris are availing aid from India and that they should feel grateful,” says the aid worker.

A doctor who has already noticed some changes in people’s attitudes around him remarks, “It’s not just cognitive dissonance in Kashmir, but also outside the valley, where people’s ability to reason, modify or accommodate their initial observation of the army will change after they accept aid from them. Clearly, this is a part of a psychological operation to improve the image of the armed forces in Kashmir, because so far, the people have abstained from taking any help from the government, either through state-sponsored NGOs or the armed forces.”

Expecting the problem to blow out of proportion, he explains, “With relief channels being strategically blocked, people have no choice but to depend on state channels. People have already started making exceptions in their perceptions of the security forces. The vilification campaign against the pro-freedom leaders in the Indian media is a part of the same psy-op to change the minds of Kashmiris about the international dispute,” he says.

This cognitive dissonance in people, doctors say, might lead to a higher suicide rate. A psychiatrist elucidates, “Some people might feel survivors’ guilt for accepting aid from the same army which was responsible for the death of a family member or even their own torture in the past. They will feel guilty, as they have survived because of killers. This will lead to a higher suicide rate. These survivors should be told not to blame themselves. For example, it’s not you, it’s the situation that demands this kind of response and that it is in fact help from an agency that is in charge of the response.”

Counsellors, to bring people out of survivor’s guilt, can also use hypothetical situations. For example, a patient may be told: “An Indian goes to China and an earthquake occurs. The PLA comes to his rescue. After helping him, the PLA asks the survivor to record a video saying that the army is great for rescuing him and that India should now handover Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh to them. Is it logical to expect this argument?”

Survivors need to be told that helping someone doesn’t mean you believe in their political ideas, another doctor added. “All this should be done at a wider level as part of the daily sermons or counselling sessions.”

(Names have not been used to protect identities)

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, September 28th, 2014