Honest article on Kashmir

[sandeep]

 

http://linkis.com/indianexpress.com/ar/EJe6u

 

Good to read. 

 

Quote

Kashmiris trapped in deadly politics of grief, must abandon macabre heroism

Looking at the Muslim world’s crisis, it will serve Kashmiris well if we abandon false hope and work towards a dignified exit from the conflict.

 

When I thought of “India” as a child, I thought of a distant, stiflingly hot place beyond the hills of my village, from where came cheerful hawkers with cloth-wrapped backpacks, barefoot fortune-tellers with curly hair and unfriendly, uniformed men who stole apples from our orchard.

Rather than being right here, India was somewhere out there. Even in school, when lessons on identity were given, they went well when they were about my village, district, state; the moment it came to my country, the teacher either got tongue-tied or the school bell would chime, class was over and we’d be left guessing. As the conflict intensified, we grew up as confused citizens of a country in the making.

The politics of hope is a dangerous thing because it can trap people into a flawed reading of history. That is exactly what happened to us. There was a cultural backdrop. We spoke with a cadence of Pashto; our faith was Arab; our mornings began with recitals from Sa’adi Shirazi; we ate in Turkish utensils; our bedtime stories had scenes from Shahnameh. It was easy to make us believe that one more nudge and history would witness a dramatic reversal; a transformative cataclysm — azadi — was just round the corner.

Expectedly, there came a time in Kashmir when bus conductors were asked to prepare route plans to markets across the border. Peshawari prayer rugs started appearing in homes, wrist watches were turned half an hour behind Delhi time, bridges were burnt, so the enemy couldn’t walk over to our side. Most importantly, all men and women whose loyalties were suspect were hung from elm trees. In a complete withdrawal from reality, people gathered around radio sets to listen to official announcements of freedom, reassuring one another that something was about to happen.

Years passed. Thousands of lives were lost. Millions got displaced. In take two, the destruction which the politics of hope brought to Kashmir generated an even deadlier politics of grief. Kashmiris now memorialised the sorrow that was a consequence of the confrontation with a mighty state. Dying became an end in itself. Alienation from the state extended into alienation from one another. An entire generation of Kashmiris sought refuge in the glorification of pain. Rational fear made space for romantic fearlessness. Dissent became more technology-driven and virtual. Growing religious consciousness became a way of life.

Every new agitation in Kashmir has had this familiar tetrad of eruption, hope, bereavement, despair. By the time the first stone was pelted in the July uprising of 2016, the outcome was already known to everyone. It is this predictability which has begun to worry Kashmiris now. Revolution cannot be an annual summer carnival. If today, Kashmir is the most unlikely new nation to enter the world map in the future, the blame is not on India. It is a flaw in the fundamental design of the Kashmir project.

Firstly, all these years, Kashmiris have given conflicting signals to the world. For those who compared Kashmir to Palestine, East Timor, Kosovo, the problem is that it is hard to frame the Kashmiri question properly. Is it separation from India, annexation with Pakistan, the search for an Islamic caliphate or a secular democracy? Has it factored in sub-regional and diverse ethnic aspirations? If it is self-determination, then who are these people queued up outside polling stations? If the slogan is “azadi”, why is the Pakistani flag raised? Is it class-neutral or only a proletariat dream? Is it territory or ideology, economics or politics? Today, in Kashmir, it is hard to ask these questions because there are no answers. And because there are no answers, every such question is seen as a provocation or obfuscation of the truth about Kashmir.

The second problem is using violence as an instrument of grievance redressal. For 30 years, Kashmiris have been trying to explain to the world the difference between militancy and terrorism. The sooner it is understood that in a post-9/11 world, no theory of organised violence can be accepted as good enough for justifying it, the better.

Thirdly, the indiscipline we saw on the streets during 2016’s unrest has the potential to criminalise society forever. It was not the state as much as people to people violence, the humiliation of bystanders, vandalism against schools, damage to public property by misguided teenagers that exhausted Kashmiris, reducing a mass movement to a movement of mass from one corner of the street to the other corner.

With fresh wounds in the 70th year of J&K’s accession to India, Kashmiris have no choice but to go back to the drawing board and see what went wrong. India is an emerging superpower — it is there to stay. Looking at the crisis in the Muslim world, it will serve us well if we help ourselves out of the time warp we are stuck in, abandon false hope and macabre heroism and work towards a dignified exit from the conflict. One possibility is to accept that in spite of all its infirmities, India is the only country in the world with which a culturally diverse and politically disparate entity like Jammu and Kashmir can find anchor.

The author is a Kashmiri civil servant and writer

 

Nails the confusion of the "agitator" in Kashmir.  Very unclear as to what they are fighting for - some want shariah or ISIS, some want to be part of Pakistan, some want a new independent "nation" with land retrieved from Pak and China.  Underneath it all, is this undercurrent of almost a prejudicial ethnocentrism that doesn't want to be part of those brown, "gareeb" Indians - never mind that the reality is starkly different.  

 

Even the most independent minded Kashmiri really needs to wake up and figure out what future they want for themselves and their progeny.  Can't live in delusions forever.

 

What India needs to do is facilitate clarity in the alternatives - one is the path to peace and prosperity in acceptance and co-existence within the framework of the Indian Republic.  This needs to be protected, bolstered and projected with maximum clarity, even in the face of provocations and violence.  The alternative(s) have to be met with firm Police and Military solutions, but with improved execution within the framework of stronger civilian protection and safeguarding of rights per the Indian constitution.  As long as we keep doing this and minimize the fack-ups, things will eventually work out with or without our crazy neighbor's co-operation.  

[surajmal]

al taqqiya taqqiyuddin  

[chewy]

Firstly need to kick out all the Pakistani invaders who have illegally entered Kashmir region over the last half-century, continue to illegally live and breed and call themselves "Kashmiris". Purge them all back to Pakistan Punjab. 

[mishra]

Such article will appear because of CPEC. This crap is temporary. These Pakistani puppets are buying time till Pakistan can formulate new strategy/narrative about Kashmir.

Or may be sell/broker Taliban+Kashmiri terrorists to Chinese. As Chinese are worried about Idelogy of bro spilling to Xinxiang

[sandeep]

Indian hardliners need to be realistic as well.  Pak and China can have whatever fantasies and desires they wish.  But reality is that we have a disaffected native populace in one of our states.  And it needs to be handled with finesse, given the outside interference.  

[mishra]

12 hours ago, sandeep said:

Indian hardliners need to be realistic as well.  Pak and China can have whatever fantasies and desires they wish.  But reality is that we have a disaffected native populace in one of our states.  And it needs to be handled with finesse, given the outside interference.  

Are people of Assam/Bihar getting more spent average per person tax revenue collected then Kashmir? No. Infact most states are getting less?

 

As I said, Nothing has changed. These people(Taliban + LeT+JeM++++) are still ISI dogs. If they speak anything against them they will be put down. There are so many articles (over past 12 years)where Pakistani army has arrested terrorist right before they were about to broker a deal.

Since Pakistan wants CPEC to kick start, they want temporary peace. Just in July this year Pakistan was dealing with China on sale of Taliban wing (I call sale  as i think that is more apt then calling a talk), but they did carry out Uri and all. If it was not surgical strike against them and negative impact of it on CPEC, Pakistan would not have come on table.

 

SO there is no local people, Its India China Pakistan Afghanistan

Edited December 30, 2016 by mishra

[sandeep]

I guess willful blindness is not limited to greenbros across the border...

[mishra]

21 minutes ago, sandeep said:

I guess willful blindness is not limited to greenbros across the border...

Some just do more research. If you think the article is balanced Read the article carefully again. If you cant figureout, i will give you a clue while reading such so called "balanced article". Does it even mentions atrocities suffered and  exodus of Kashmiri Pandits or it just harps on victim mentality of Kashmiri.

PS: If you cant get such simple thing from article, I doubt you would have heard that few days back Pakistan, Russia China were talking with Taliban for future of Afghanistan and then China granted 1 billion to be spent on CPEC (non Punjab  area). And what to make out of all these. Why all of sudden separatist want more tourist? Sudden call off of agitation which has been ongoing for past six months? Suddenly encounters happening every other day killing terrorist?

Connect the dots, you will get the answer

Edited December 30, 2016 by mishra

[sandeep]

I never called it balanced. I just approved of the recognition of reality as opposed to the delusional fantasies of azaadi. 

 

I'm fully aware of the interference and remote  control hurriyat  etc. But that doesn't mean that the populace is not genuinely disaffected.   And they need to be weaned off of their delusions. And that's not going to just magically happen only with a iron fist. Not against that, all  for it. But need to work on the mindset fur the long game as well.

[randomGuy]

.. Kashmir has one of the best HDI in India, one of the highest life expectancy... Poverty is not the reason... Atleast not the main reason