Neelofar and her mates

Chatting in the fairyland
Riyaz Masroor
The skyline, frilled with clouds, reflects in the calm, crystal-clear waters of the splendid river, as if the heavens have descended on earth. The ambience on the riverside appears even more awesome because Romana and Sabrina are ensconced in the warm squeeze of their mates, in their new everlasting world – the Paradise. Tabinda Gani of Handwara and scores others from Shopian’s Saidipora, Kupwara’s Kununposhpora and other areas are unmindfully frolicsome.
“Thank God you too are here. You are the only ones closer to my age,” Romana tells Sabrina and Tabinda Gani in a husky tone as others, elder to these teenage girls, talk fun. Sabreena and Tabinda enjoy the swing made up of flower stems, which don’t break and are more durable than the worldly carbon fiber.
Suddenly a hush wraps this jovial scene as a boll of cloud rolls itself into the premises and evokes a silent yet awed response from the God’s favorite women in Jannah. The cloud boll looks like a space ship but it doesn’t work on laws of force or motion but a Godly command.
Landing from this ‘space ship’ are Neelofar and her teenage sis-in-law, Asiya, their sparkling hazel eyes enhancing their fresh and rosy aura. Fairies sing paeans. Ahlan wa sehlan marhaba Welcome! Welcome! God be pleased with you! Romana and Sabrina warmly hug Asiya while Neelofar makes her way into the elder club of women who are pampering themselves near the gushing streams of milk, honey and rose water.
Neelofar gives a warm hug to Tabinda, tears trickling down her graceful cheeks. “My dear sister, the beasts, who outraged your modesty, have not been hanged and your family, like ours, is waiting for justice ever since those brutes molested and murdered you on 20 July 2007. How shall I tell you I and my darling Asiya went through the same ordeal at the fateful sunset of 29 May 2009. How shall I…how shall I…how…?”
Hearing her Bhabhi’s frantic sobs, Asiya rushes to the scene and attempts to mellow down the gloom Neelofar’s tears have set in. “We are God’s favorites. We faced whatever we faced. That’s not for our fault but for the fault of the hyper masculine lust. God has taken care of us by hosting us here in the paradise; God will hold the neck of those who outraged us.”
A bevy of white-winged fairies stream through the walkway; they are holding a whole range of bouquets. “I don’t like white rose,” yells the young Sabrina, “give me the yellow one.” A fairy stretches her hand out in the air and pat comes a yellow fragrant rose in her hand, bringing cheerful smile on Sabrina’s face.
Romana is told that on 23 August 2007 Sabrina had gone out to fetch something from a locality shop at Ikhrajpora in central Srinagar and vanished only to be traced dead, her body bruised confirming rape. “O My God!” Romana exclaims, trying hard to withhold her tears.
In order to mollify Sabrina, who is in preteens, Romana asks her: Ever heard of Shabnum? The little Sabrina responds with a quizzical gaze. “I will tell you,” Romana quickly resumes. “She is one of us but she survived the assault, not before the army men would molest her.” She is actually referring to the rape of Ayesha and her daughter Shabnum who were living a modest yet happy life in a two-and-half apartment in Badrapayeen, a hamlet in Kupwara district, till everything shattered in the night of 6 November 2004. Initial reports had said some Major Ramman, who TV Channels later insisted was actually Major ‘Rehman’, was found guilty and subsequently ‘suspended’ by his superiors as a mark of ‘justice’.
Romana informs Sabrina that a little known NGO, run by a Kashmiri Pandit, who has long been settled in Pune, has taken Shabnum to an Orphanage there. In the orphanage many like her spend days and nights in an alien ambience. “I had read some reports and articles in newspapers about her.”
As if talking to her own self, Romana tries to imagine how Shabnum of Kupwara’s Badra Payeen area would react if given a chance to speak. “You know what pains an outraged girl more than the fact that she was raped?” Romana tosses up the question, which she says Shabnum would have asked. An unstated remark of Shabnum starts crossing everyone’s mind: “When the rulers deny, it hurts. I think I was raped twice, first by the army major and then later by Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, then CM, who said Beti ka rape nahin hua...maa ka hum dekh rahe hain.”
Romana gives Sabrina graphic details of the incident as she had read in newspapers; how the uniformed army men had locked the door from inside and raped Shabnum in the night intervening 5 and 6 November 2004 and how the life had come to a stand still for weeks together.
“What probe? What? What? What probe?” fumes Neelofar, her eyes exuding both helplessness and anguish. “And look how the present chief minister Omar Abdullah denied a fact that was later evidenced by his own subordinate institutions.” Neelofar displays a strange sense of rebellion. “I know what happened to Major Ramman, who rapped the mother and the daughter in front of each other…an army court later acquitted him of the charges of rapping.”
Neelofar argues that it is not just the unbridled hyper masculine lust but a racially motivated hatred that prompts such wild, barbaric rapes in Kashmir. “I cannot explain what exactly I went through… I was hearing the moving shrieks of my dear one Asiya…the merciless rapists smeared her head with red sindoor (The vermilion powder Hindu groom puts between the bride’s parted hair). For a moment I thought we represented the nation Kashmir and the rapists represented the state of India; it was the Hindu India raping the Muslim Kashmir…I wish whole India is not like that…I simply wish all Indian army men are not like that…I hope the Indian rulers know what it means when army of a democratic nation goes on raping spree…I just hope India doesn’t break for all these crimes…..”
Compared to others, Romana is being seen lucky for she preferred death over being outraged when the prodigal youth of a politically connected family drove their Alto car against her on 03 May 2009. “But,” Neelofar raises her voice, “we too would happily die if given a choice. The claws of power-sodden uniformed men sank into our frightened body and soul and we would wish death that didn’t come till we were murdered.”
Neelofar says that Romana set an example. “I don’t know if all the Indian soldiers are beasts like the ones who molested us. I would suggest let all the girls, whom we left behind in the world, emulate Romana in a different sense. Let them carry a poison pill with them. If, God forbid, they are caught, let them swallow the poison and embrace death and defeat the evil military man of the world’s largest democracy.”
Meanwhile fairies begin their job; hairdressing of Neelofar, Asiya, Romana, Sabrina and Tabinda with diamond-studded combs having bristles made from peacock feather. Romana whines when the comb entangles her blonde hair. “I have been through more than this…so combing won’t hurt me,” responds Tabinda recalling how her doctor brother would often advocate death sentence for a rape.
After Tabinda was gang-raped and murdered, her brother would for long cite a similar case that took place in Delhi in 1998, in which the exemplary death sentence was awarded by the session’s court, Delhi, to a 30-year-old man in Ghandi Nagar, East Delhi in 1998, for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl who was on her way from school.
“Come on! We would not have been together now had the culprits who outraged you (Tabinda Gani) been hanged …or awarded a lifer..! But I am sure God has his own ways of punishing the wrongdoers.” The Godly women disperse in groups and begin their routine chores in the Paradise.
riyaz.masroor@yahoo.com

Will Obamantra settle Kashmir?

Riyaz Masroor

Two important events in South Asia and the latest buzz between South Asia’s nuclear cousins – India and Pakistan – give out a glimmer of hope about some sort of settlement over Kashmir dispute. As for events, the defeat of world’s most organized insurgency in Sri Lanka and the weakening control of Taliban in parts of Pakistan have cleared the doubts, if any, that there could ever be a military solution to any ethno-political or religio-cultural conflict in post cold war world.
Then there are important statements. On 9 May 2009, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told Jim Lehrer of American PBS TV that his country did not perceive India a threat. "Well, I am already on record. I have never considered India a threat. I have always considered India a neighbor, which we want to improve our relationship with. We have had some cold times and we have had some hard times with them. We have gone to war thrice, but democracies are always trying to improve relationships”. Exactly a fortnight later on 23 May , Chief of India’s formidable Air Force, Air Marshal Fali Homi Major, told Rahul Singh of Hindustan Times that China posed a more real and potent threat to India than Pakistan. “The way he (China) is growing, he definitely has the capability…we know very little about the actual capabilities of China, there combat edge or how professional their military is…they are certainly a greater threat.” This statement could be easily read as a more technical response to Zardari’s gesture. After all when India considers China a major threat in the neighborhood it points to the realization that Pakistan is no longer a threat. Though bit oblique, Indian assertion that Pakistan too is not a threat has paved a fertile ground for further build up on the path of peace and reconciliation.
The following week saw yet another exchange of peace gesture between India and Pakistan. On 21 May 2009, Pakistan’s foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit hoped that the new Congress-led government in India would resume the bilateral peace process with Pakistan “sooner rather than latter.” In his weekly media briefing Basit also appealed to the world community that it should play a “role” in strengthening the “strategic stability” in South Asia. Few days latter, on 25 May India’s newly appointed foreign minister S M Krishna began his stint by extending a hand of friendship to Pakistan. Stating that the neighbors cannot be replaced, Krishna linked reconciliation with Pakistan to the sustainability of India’s economic growth. The foreign minister, in his first media interaction, said the new government’s highest priority was to strengthen ties with the neighbors and further consolidate strategic partnerships with the U.S., Russia, China, Japan and the European Union. The Minister vowed to nurture close ties with its traditional partners with the aim of furthering India’s “non-aligned” foreign policy and strengthening its “strategic autonomy.”
The post-Bush America is encountering a different world with even North Korea, besides China and Russia, reasserting their antagonism toward the American hegemony. Since Kashmir is located at the strategic crisscross of big powers in Asia, a sharper US focus on the dispute is quite understood. We need not repeat how Kashmir was mentioned by the worlds’ biggies including Obama and David Miliband at a time when the people in Kashmir had left behind a bloody phase of Azadi movement and were voting in throes. The continuity of Obama’s Kashmir-is-the-key policy about South Asia peace is all the more palpable.
Of significant note is that Zardari made the statement about India not being a threat to Pakistan from the American soil. It is believed, says a Press Trust of India report, both Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in their meetings with Zardari had impressed upon him that Pakistan should no longer consider India as a primary threat and rather concentrate its energies on fighting terrorism inside the country.
So, the American hand in Indo-Pak peace process is no longer “invisible” but the possibility of this “hand” delivering any results will entirely depend on how both India and Pakistan will play their cards. That the Pakistan has all along been advocating a third-party intervention in Kashmir is a proven fact, which was reiterated by the country’s foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit on May 21. If, on the U.S. insistence, Pakistan is more willing to resume the peace process, it is not so much surprising. What should be understood in a proper context is whether India has at long last grown comfortable with Washington’s mediation, which the Indian policy makers like to call as “facilitation”. A mild activity on Tract II has already began; advocates of people-to-people contact are again talking; a peace delegation from India that also involves some Kashmiris is about to leave for Pakistan and there is a gradual media build up that the peace process will take off soon.
Reading the subtext of whatever is happening on Track II is very difficult. However, the intonations suggest that both countries, with variable seriousness, appear to have been convinced that Kashmir’s non-territorial settlement was within the parameters of possibility. That is more or less closer to former Pakistani President and army chief General Parvez Musharraf’s four-point formula. The big question that will hover over the ensuing peace exercise in South Asia is whether Pakistan could afford giving up claim on Kashmir and if India would afford to stop linking the peace process with terrorism. Undue expectation from Obama administration is really unadvisable. But the emerging situation suggests that Obamantra should work in favor of South Asia peace.

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A Gatsby killed Romana

Riyaz Masroor
Romana’s murder highlights the core of our societal malaise. Let’s look at the issue beyond the clichéd generalizations such as “social waywardness” and “social evils”.
The fresh spurt in crime rate in Kashmir appears to have two interrelated prongs: the state and the people. As for the state in Kashmir, it lacks popular sanctity for which a host of reasons could be cited. On the other hand, people are suffering from financial insecurity, which is part genuine part self-imposed.
The state here tends to tackle the issue of legitimacy through slogans rather than performance. For example, the slogan of progress, prosperity and development has induced among the masses a wild competition for financial uplift.
After all what does it mean when government resorts to radical discourse about progress and development? It obviously means more money to contractors, more corruption, more inequity and more frustration within disadvantaged sections. This prop-culture hoists a nouveau-riche section of people over the masses that have always remained at the bottom of the development pyramid. These pampered social upstarts vie for positions in power and jockey for bigger share in the state wealth; they get licenses, they get permits, they get lands, shops and other incentives. The masses are made to live on the mercy of these social biggies who have access to and stakes in the state power. Such a system cannot generate moral values even if we keep crying in mosques.
Amidst this organic tie-up between the state and the selfish layers of our society, a son murdering his father to lavish family fortunes on a rave party or a lovesick youth from moneyed family knocking the cute and innocent Romana to death should not surprise us.
If we are content with this mad rush for money, we better not bother about “social waywardness”. Some of the largest pay premiums, says Adam Smith, go to highly qualified people who are willing to do morally questionable work.
Let’s confess that we have serious moral issues and let’s admit that invoking religious traditions won’t help. We need a creative response to the aforementioned prop culture, which is spawning newer social diseases.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, James Gatz believes that his humble lifestyle makes him a mismatch for his coveted Daisy. So he renames himself as Jay Gatsby and labors to achieve material success on the grandest scale possible. Fitzgerald never reveals how Gatsby amassed his fortune. But he leaves little doubt that Gatsby’s work was not just morally suspect but well outside the law. In fact, a Gatsby killed Romana and other Gatsbys feel offended!

The K in Sri Lanka

Riyaz Masroor
Before the armed uprising in Kashmir, many of the Srinagar homes used to hang on their modest walls the portraits of M A Jinnah, S M Abdullah, Yasir Arafat and Imam Khomeini. People would identify themselves with the rebels of the time because the state in Srinagar was never organically wedded to the people. After the militancy broke out in 1989 the youth initially tended to deify Osama bin Laden but his portrait was never the part of Valley’s mainstream home décor; if the militant defiance against the “American Empire” was to be displayed Hassan Nasrullah of Lebanon was the preferred choice.
These choices signify the inherently pacifist behavior of Kashmiris. They liked Jinnah for his liberal outlook and pluralistic ideals; they adored Yasir Arafat for his pragmatism; they revered Khomeini not because he confronted USA but for his model of nationalism that was non-racist – Khomeini’s La Sharaqiyah, La Garabiyah slogan was a bold attempt to undo the menace of East-West divide. Why people followed Sheikh Abdullah? Borrowing Shamim Ahmad Shamim’s observation would be apt: “We owe to Sheikh Abdullah both our sunrise as well as our sunset.”
Any anthropological study of Kashmiri behavior would conclude that Kashmiris might be acutely conscious of their cultural identity but they are not the type of Al-Qaida or Taliban. The 20-year separatist campaign that has been marked by a decade of active insurgency also points to how the popular aversion to violence and bloodbath facilitated the transition from violent to the nonviolent mode of resistance. JKLF Chief Muhammad Yasin Malik chose to leave the path of violence in 1994 – barely four years after the militant uprising. His decision did not evoke a large-scale welcome but his shift was silently endorsed by the majority. Many used to argue that India coaxed Pakistan into a proxy military confrontation in Kashmir so that the nationalist resolve of Kashmiris could be crushed. It was, however, not because of these tales that the Kashmiri started rethinking over the means of his struggle but because the violence as a means of social resistance was genetically unpalatable for Kashmiri people. Unlike Arabs Kashmiris don’t slaughter the sacrificial lamb of their own; they hire the services of a professional butcher.
Then why Kashmiris resorted to gun in 1989? The almost worn out answer to this question is that for forty two years they had exhausted all democratic options including the participation in polls. But that is half of the actual answer. Untold part of this answer is that India through military means and political subterfuge had created enough reason for Pakistan to meddle militarily in Kashmiri region, which has never attained complete political cohesion with Indian mainstream. Now that the insurgencies are waning in South Asia – from Swat to Sri Lanka – the Srinagar is calling for serious attention from New Delhi.
Cold war has taught us that armed separatist movements that espouse the cause of religion, ethnicity or communism in Asia have spared big powers the hazard of direct wars; they fought proxy wars against each other in Vietnam, Afghanistan and now in Pakistan.
As for India it grew in size and status for past decade just because its neighborhood was mired in these insurgencies. When smaller powers falling in the neighborhood of a bigger power, remain restive the bigger power has the natural space for maneuvering. We saw Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the history’s worst phase during past twenty years. But now we see Nepal being ruled by Maoist rebels who are sympathetic to their ideological cousins active within India; we see Pakistan army chasing away Taliban and we see LTTE, India’s longtime ‘strategic asset’, having been routed from the island nation, mainly with the help of China and Pakistan.
China’s presence in Sri Lanka is perceived as the beginning of India’s encirclement on the Indian Ocean. China has already set up Hambanthota port in Lanka and is now eyeing on Trincomalee port. Russia too has of late grown ambitious about Sri Lanka’s strategic sea-lanes. China is reported to have invested $1 billion in Sri Lanka for a naval base, and has supported the Lankan Army in its war against the Tamil tigers.
Having China, the country that won the 1962 war, on its southern shore, India has reason to be worried. The Tigers, if victorious against Sri Lanka state, would have supported India in her foreign policy ambitions, are down and out. In such a scenario the fear that China may attack India from South does not seem out of place. After all Tamil Nadu is still pro LTTE and the politics in South India has the same texture. In the event of any future war between China and India, or Pakistan and India, which way Sri Lanka will go, is anybody’s guess.
A Times of India blogpost on 20 May 2008 by a Bangalore reader said, “Chinese have port facilities around India: Hambantota (Sri Lanka), Chittagong (Bangla Desh) and Karachi (Pakistan). We are being hemmed in nicely.” But India has a nice option to avert any future war: Kashmir. And the bottom line is that no reason be left in Kashmir that would facilitate China’s overt or covert intrusion. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is right. Kashmir solution is the key to permanent peace in India. Let the decision makers in Delhi remember that when Pakistan meddled in Kashmir in 1989 its growth rate was barely three percent and the USSR was intact; now Pakistan economy is being padded up by US coffers and the China is spreading influence in all fours. Let’s not leave a fertile ground for another proxy war.

riyaz.masroor@yahoo.com

From weapons to words

Riyaz Masroor

Dr Sheikh Showkat Hussain appears an old-fashioned, aging professor who wears short beard and is never seen in a full business suit or necktie. But those who’ve seen him up close are in awe of him. In this self-effacing teacher, the young find a warm companion who shares their youthful aspirations without dismissing them as passé.
These attributes of Dr Hussain were loudly manifest when his work Facets of Resurgent Kashmir (Kashmir Institute 2009) was released on 19 April 2009 during a simple yet impressive gathering in a Srinagar Hotel. For one, most of the audience that turned out at Hotel Meridian comprised youth in their twenties and thirties. Two, Dr Hussain’s 212-page book stands out for its sobriety and low price, Rs 135 – though just the compilation of articles he wrote for several newspapers including Rising Kashmir, it does not carry the author’s profile.
For the record, Dr Hussain’s sense of history and political insight has won him admirers here and abroad. He has frequented several Asian, African and European countries, teaching students from almost half of the world. Currently Dr Hussain teaches International Law and Human Rights at Kashmir University. His unpretentious speeches, often in understandable accent, are devoid of rhetoric and carry loads of insight. It would not have been probably so difficult for him to project his academic muscle through this work but he chose not to.
Book launches in Kashmir generally lapse into a political get together where politicians from either side of the ideological divide spew clichés and the speakers shower praises on the author and on each other, turning the occasion into a society of mutual admiration. In contrast, the Sunday at Hotel Meridian had a different ambiance. The author himself conducted the proceedings and the speakers including Ved Bhasin, Advocate Zaffar Shah, Advocate Mian Qayoom and Dr Altaf Hussain spoke their heart out. One may not agree with Dr Hussain’s views was the buzzword in the function but every speaker candidly acknowledged Dr Hussain’s stoic denial to career intellectualism and termed his writings as a “step in right direction”.
The occasion bore a mark of symbolism. Inayatullah Khateeb – father of a slain militant commander Nadeem Khateeb from Chenab region’s Doda district – released the book and handed it over to a 10-year-old boy who was among the audience. This gesture symbolized a very significant transition. Many in the audience were reminded of a similar bequeathal in early nineties when Azam Inquilabi, then a militant commander, handed over his Russian AK 47 to a 12-year-old Muhammad Bin Qasim somewhere in Pakistan and shunned the career of militancy. What ensued is too fresh to be repeated but the context needs a brief revisit.
The contemporary Kashmir movement owes its ideological idiom to the Plebiscite Front that grew out of New Delhi’s ‘constitutional suicide’ on 9 August 1953 when the Kashmir Prime Minister Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah was deposed and thrown in jail. That two-decade movement created a host of anti-India slogans, which served as a catalyst in the society. Boycott of elections, shutdown, demonstrations, stone pelting et al are actually the making of the PF. One could safely say that this phase set in motion a particular culture of resistance within Kashmir society. This phase later gave way to a second phase in early nineties when Azam Inquilabi handed over the gun to Muhammad bin Qasim getting us in the lap of a deadly spell of violence.
Following those slogan-churning and gun-roaring eras is a more emancipated, much more progressive phase of writing. The arrival of this ‘Golden Era’ was aptly symbolized on 19 April when Dr Hussain handed over to the forthcoming generation a more civilized form of resistance. Someone has appropriately said in times of war words are weapons. Transitions could be either for good or for worse. We saw two of them between 1953 and 1990, both had merits as well as demerits. We just hope that our transition from violence to peaceful writing brings us back from the chaos where we had descended during past many years.
In fact, this culture of reflecting the popular aspirations through dispassionate narrative has already taken some root. Let the late Agha Shahid stand out from the rest, he represents the Kashmir’s freedom narrative in West. We have had a young author Basharat Peer recently telling our story to rest of the world through his much celebrated Curfewed Nights; Human rights defender and noted journalist Zahiruddin summed up cases about custodial disappearances in his debut work Did They Vanish in Thin Air and followed it up with Bouquet that features Kashmir’s important personalities; Delhi-based Kashmiri scribe Iftikhar Geelani’s Jail diary was published by Penguin in both English and Urdu editions(first Urdu book from Penguin); P G Rasool has written an insightful Urdu account on 1947-Kashmir and is working on a couple of projects related to Kashmir situation ; Poet and columnist Maqbool Sahil has penned his prison notes in Urdu;; Syeda Afshana’s lyrical response to Kashmir conflict Fugitive Sunshine is a commendable effort and of late Sheikh Abdullah’s biography by Ashiq Hussain was taken fairly well in Kashmir’s Urdu knowing audience. We have also heard of another young columnist Arjimand Hussain Talib coming out with a book on Kashmir’s political economy and the noted journalist Muzamil Jaleel probably putting together personal conflict experiences as narrated by 20-something boys and girls.
Let it be clear that these lines are not to promote the idea of writers becoming moral and political custodians of Kashmir society. No way. History bears witness that the educated have always made the common cause with power. Political theorists agree that where the educated ally with the power there is little likelihood of social unrest and upheaval because only the educated can supply the catalyst of words that turns a dormant mass of people into a resisting society. We are rather keen to underline the transition from Weapons to Words. Let’s pray this transition benefits the people more than it may benefit the power.

riyaz.masroor@yahoo.com

Crime and Punishment

Riyaz Masroor

Soon after becoming the “prime minister” of “free Kashmir” in 1947, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah had realized what New Delhi expected of him. He was sent to United Nations to support India’s case. But, as records suggest, Sheikh sounded politically correct and chose to criticize Pakistan rather than appeasing India. "We shall prefer death rather than join Pakistan. We shall have nothing to do with such a country."

Though Sheikh would exaggerate Indo-Kashmir affinity at many occasions – in Kashmir and New Delhi – in UNO his tone sounded nationalist. The statement was open-ended and would not necessarily suggest that Kashmiris wanted to remain with India. Within a space of few years Sheikh was seen hobnobbing with American establishment through US embassy in New Delhi. Sheikh’s “diplomatic feat" in United Nations and his covert engagement with US discomforted New Delhi, especially the religion-obsessed bureaucracy.

Sheikh’s overtures were seen as an “unacceptable” nationalist assertion that was coming from a supposedly pro-India Kashmiri leader. An anti-Muslim agitation ensued creating a scare for the majority Muslims; the agitation was sponsored by the pro-Hindutva Praja Parishad. Sheikh suspected Congress that was ruling India. Many believe that the roots of a religion-inspired armed uprising were sown during the Praja Parishad movement, which seemed a counter assertion against Sheikh Abdullah’s UN speech. This agitation led to the dismissal of the government of Sheikh Abdullah in 1953 and Abdullah’s arrest on 9 August same year plunging the state into a 22-year chaos.

In 1974, when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was about to reinstall a defanged “Lion of Kashmir”, Sheikh’s flamboyant Son, a not-by-choice doctor, was consorting with JKLF leaders on the foothills of Pakistan administered Kashmir. During his stay there Farooq is said to have taken an oath for the “liberation of Jammu and Kashmir from the yoke of Indian occupation.” This was also a nationalist assertion by the ambitious son of a pro-India Kashmiri politician.

Farooq’s nationalist assertion had already started weighing heavy on the minds of Kashmir handlers in New Delhi; Farooq saw an unstable succession to power after Sheikh’s death in 1982. Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wanted to assimilate National Conference into Congress fold so that the “Lion” could be completely “de-lionized”. Farooq resented the move and instead attempted to ally with parallel forces in Indian mainstream; yet another nationalist assertion by a Kashmiri pro-India politician. That too was followed by a consequence. Two years later Indira engineered a series of defections in National Conference leading to the dismissal of his government in brazen violation of democratic codes. It had dawned upon Farooq that he could not set right what had been wronged by his father’s surrender before New Delhi, so he capitulated in 1986 – Congress-National coalition came to power.

These nationalist assertions had been followed by humiliating surrenders but Abdullahs continued to enjoy the sympathy of Kashmiris as late as 1987, though not as manifestly as during Sheikh Era. Farooq staged a comeback in 1996 and bailed out New Delhi during worst times. His party fought elections at the height of turmoil and won effective majority in the JK assembly, though less than five percent turnout was recorded during polls.

In the summers of 2000 Farooq grew conscious about the fast eroding image of his party and his family and chose to mend it for good. He wanted to do it again through a nationalist assertion: NC drafted autonomy report and passed a resolution in the assembly. The fate of this assertion would not have been different than the assertions made by Sheikh in 1947 and by Farooq in 1982. The resolution was summarily rejected by then BJP-led coalition in New Delhi despite the fact that National Conference had sidestepped the Muslim sensitivities and allied with the BJP sponsored NDA. Whatever the sub context, NC later lost more than half of the mandate it had won in 1996 and a little known PDP rose to power with Mufti Muhammad Sayeed seeing his wish being fulfilled after nearly four decades.

Mufti subtly calibrated his relations with BJP as well as Congress and shot himself into prominence through his green mantra, which is soft separatism. While Mufti tried to build his empire on NC’s political ruins he too lapsed into the nationalist mode and began to assert before New Delhi. In 2005, during the snowstorm in Valley, Mufti is said to have virtually shouted down some senior Army generals telling them the army should not encroach upon the domain of state administration. He also engaged PMO over the issue of demilitarization; the catchword was first aired by then Pakistani President and Army Chief General Pervaiz Musharraf. What else should have been the result of this nationalist assertion? Mufti could not continue as CM and had to be content with the power sharing agreement even as the Prime Minister had promised an extension.

This takes us to the historical floor test of Congress-led UPA government in the Indian parliament on 22 July 2008. It was the time when a massive revolt in Kashmir was brewing over the land transfer to Amaranth shrine. Omar Abdullah, MP and Farooq’s tech-savvy son, gave the famous one-inch-land statement. “Jaan Dengay par ek inch zameen ka tukda nahin dengay (We shall prefer death rather than giving you an inch of our land),” Omar spoke to an unusually quiet Lok Sabha comprising 543 members.

Those angered with Omar’s nationalist assertion picked up threads from Praja Parishad agitation of 1950s and set off an orgy of communal violence across Muslim lands of Jammu and on the Srinagar-Jammu highway. But unlike in 50s and 80s New Delhi suffered a dilemma: How to ‘punish’ the pro-India politician who had committed the ‘crime’ of asserting before the ‘Raj’? Mufti was a choice but he had already gone overboard by pulling out of Congress-led coalition in J&K over the land row. Omar’s coronation on 5 January 2008 must have incurred a huge political cost. Ladakh? Bghlihar? NHPC? Or……? Think over it!

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Taliban are coming?

When the Kashmir society doesn’t identify itself with violence India better invest in peace building rather than glorifying Taliban
Riyaz Masroor
“We’re here for your safety but that is not enough. It’s you who will ensure complete safety. You will have to be vigilant and behave as good citizens. We know you hate violence and love peace but when a militant comes to you, counsel him. You can persuade him for surrender. Violence destructs, peace promises prosperity.”
This is just to recall those ‘nostalgic’ sermons an army commander or a CO of BSF/ CRPF would give at the end of every crackdown during early days of militancy in Kashmir. We’ve also witnessed the armed forces – which would be expected to handle the insurgency through military means alone – lapsing into the domain of public administration; a whole gamut of military administration came up in the form of Operation Sadhbhawana. Under the aegis of this operation, we saw schools, computer centers and orphanages being set up, mini-power projects, sports and cultural festivals being commissioned, student-trips across India (Bharat Darshan) being sponsored and rousing reception being given to Hajj Pilgrims on their return from the Holy city of Jeddah.
On the face of it, the motive behind the operation looked positive: to make the violence in Kashmir unpopular. Pundits of peace and conflict studies may agree with the fact that India in Kashmir never faced the crisis of control; it was trying to tackle the crisis of public alienation from the political mainstream, precisely the legitimacy. The main characteristic of Kashmir militancy was the social acceptance of violence against India and it was this social sanctity attached to the gun-wielding militant that was troubling Indian policy makers hence the attempt at “winning hearts and minds”. So much emphasis was given to stigmatize the violence that we saw a whole host of writers, newspapers, institutions , academics, separatists and semi-separatists promoting the idea that Kashmiris cannot afford violence for too long and they should stop counting on violence vis-à-vis their aspirations for Azadi.
Almost a decade went without any substantial impact and we even heard the most reasonable voices, including that of Late Abdul Gani Lone, welcoming the “Mujahideen” who had occupied the mountain peaks of Kargil in the summer of 1999. But at long last the Operation Sadhbhawana worked, though major part of the credit must go to nine-eleven. Thereafter we saw the separatist discourse in Kashmir performing a headlong. Hurriyat Conference, which by then would be seen as the over-ground face of militancy, would now advocate peaceful negotiated settlement, oppose innocent killings and ask militants to hold fire against Indian troops. The killing of top militant leaders would doubtless attract large funerals but the absence of support for a violence-driven resistance was conspicuous.
If there were any doubts that the violence was still popular, they were cleared in the summer of 2008 when around five million people marched during half-a-dozen Azadi rallies and militants preferred to retreat on the fringe, their guns downed. Not just this. Having seen at least sixty people dead during ruthless Police and Army actions, people lined up outside polling stations and voted in throes, ignoring the boycott calls from APHC while wearing the Azadi sentiment manifestly on their sleeves. Interestingly, all this happened when India and Pakistan were on the brink of a war following a terrorist strike in Mumbai on 26 November 2008. Indeed the collective peace overture from Kashmir showed that the purpose for which Operation Sadhbhawana was launched had been served to the fullest; not just separatist groups but people in larger numbers demonstrated their mutual aversion to violence and willingness to adopt democratic means of expression.
The violence lately became so unpopular that some sections even opposed the stone-throwing youth and wanted to devise even more “civilized form of resistance” let alone the option of gun. These impressions betray a loud urge for peace within Kashmir society. If the militancy in 1989 heralded an armed uprising it was because of a mass support. Would Taliban be so naïve to enter Kashmir at the height of popular distaste for violence?
Taliban are coming?
In such a fertile scenario for peace building in Kashmir, how should New Delhi proceed if there is really a Taliban threat? The answer is simple, it should consolidate the change of “hearts and minds” that has occurred post 9/11. Or to be precise, it should invest in people rather than Taliban. By glorifying the Taliban the country’s over-patriotic media is actually creating problems for the country. Neutral observers must be wondering why the authorities are scaring people of a specter, which is even abhorred by Syed Ali Geelani, whom the media portrays as the militant face of Kashmiri separatism, and also the sitting MP and PDP Chief Mahbooba Mufti. Both have questioned the government claims of spurt in militancy activities.
There is no formal word yet from home ministry or defense ministry. Director General of J&K Police Kuldeep Khudda has just pointed to the “possibility” of a Taliban spillover in Kashmir by arguing that after capturing Swat, Taliban have now reached to Lahore and “may be” interested in Pakistan’s Eastern borders. TV channels picked this up and made mountain out of a molehill. Even if the presumptuous TV disclosures about Taliban presence in Kashmir hold any salt, the standard way of dealing with it is not glorifying the intruder but building your fort. That is reinforcing the social stigma attached to violence.
Saner response from New Delhi should have been somewhat like this: “Taliban have no constituency in Kashmir. People have voted in larger numbers and rejected violence. People don’t want them here.” But it is a strange irony that the state and the society in Kashmir seem to have undergone a role reversal. While the state-backed media appears hell-bent to hammer the fact that Taliban are coming, the society is crying hoarse denying the possibility. Imagine if Taliban really come here, will they remain content with Kashmir alone? India better invest in peace building rather than glorifying Taliban.


Write back at : riyaz.masroor@yahoo.com

Kabul, Kandhar and Kashmir

Tale of two Kashmiri academics – one warned British of dangers in Kabul the other is still testing Afghan waters

Riyaz Masroor

Mohan Lal (1812-1877) was an ethnic Kashmiri Pandit who pursued a career in British intelligence during first Afghan war; it was the time when the East India Company was relieved from managing India and the country was taken (or enslaved) into the direct domain of the RAJ. Mohan Lal was less likely to go with the freedom struggle because his father, a high-caste Brahmin, had also participated in a British mission to Afghanistan in 1808. He, therefore, went with the family tradition. Credible historians have recorded that in early nineteenth century Mohan Lal was the first Kashmiri to speak fluent English as he had graduated with first-class degree from Delhi English College that was founded by Charles Travelyan. It was Travelyan who had spotted Mohan Lal and sensed a spark of 'coercive diplomacy' in this dynamic Kashmiri young man. He had so impressed Sir Alexander Burnes that when Burnes was appointed British Resident in Kabul he invited Mohan Lal to become his partner in the mission.

Mohan Lal assumed the charge of Mir Munshi in 1831 amidst the Afghan resistance against the installation of Shah Shuja, a British prop. "In Kabul, he (Mohan Lal) was the Resident's ears and eyes, his silent partner and agile fixer, capable of becoming a fly on the wall, or a figure in the carpet," writes Karl Meyer and Shareen Brysac, who have jointly authored an exhaustive account of South and Central Asian conflicts. Pandit Mohan Lal's knack for counterintelligence was superb. He had engineered defection within Afghan warriors during the famous British siege of Ghazni. Historical accounts suggest he had long before recruited a defector at Ghazni who would later tip the British troops about a less walled up gate (other two gates were impregnable) that could be easily stormed.

When Kandhar fell and things were calm under Shah Shuja, Mohan Lal got reports about a clan chief Abdullah Khan having vowed to slay Burnes. The Kashmiri spy informed his mentor in advance but Burnes ignored the warning and stayed put in his Kabul mansion; two mornings later the British officer and his visiting younger brother Charles were hacked to death in the Resident House. Later, Mohan Lal would organize a sort of “operation clean-up” at the behest of Sir William Macnagten to eliminate the resisting Afghan chiefs. He would distribute Rs 10000 for the head of each of the “rebel Afghan chief”. Two chiefs including Abdullah Khan, who had slain Burnes, were assassinated during this “operation”. This too did not work to the Empire’s advantage and Mohan Lal could only ensure his own safety; he survived the disaster of British retreat that saw many bigwigs dead including Macnagten, returned to Delhi where he died almost unnoticed in 1877.

More than 170 years after Mohan Lal believed he could facilitate a British victory in Kabul, another bright Kashmiri Professor Amitabh Mattoo visited the war-ravaged Afghanistan in the spring of 2008. Mattoo, then Vice Chancellor of Jammu University, was received in Kabul by Afghan President Hamid Karzai with official protocol on 16 April 2008, two weeks after Professor Matoo had been nominated as Government of India’s nominee on the Board of Directors of India-Afghanistan Foundation (IAF) for two years.

Besides Karzai, Professor Mattoo had a long chat with the Afghan government’s National Security Advisor, Dr Zalmay Rasool whose great grandfather was the last Afghan governor in Jammu and Kashmir. It is interesting to note that in 1831 a Kashmiri academic reached Kabul with a mission and earned a significant if short-lived victory for the Empire and in 2008 another Kashmiri academic landed in Kabul to bolster India’s policy toehold in Afghanistan. Though known in the annals of history as a spymaster, Mohan Lal was a ‘principled intriguer’ who would advise his mentors to the best of his knowledge about Afghan resistance to British occupation.

Burnes ignored his advice and lost his life; Macnagten put down his word of caution against a withdrawal pact with Akbar Khan, son of the deposed ruler Dost Mohammad, and was shot dead with the pistol he had gifted Akbar sometime back; Macnagten’s body was dismembered, his head borne like a trophy and his corpse impaled on a meat hook. Not just this, in all around 12000 British troops and agents died in the much quoted “Death March”, which Mohan Lal had opposed. British did not listen to Mohan Lal and the war went wrong; we don’t know if Professor Mattoo will follow Mohan Lal’s principle, of being honest and accurate while assessing Afghan situation for the mentors, during his tenure as India nominee in India-Afghan Foundation.

Indeed Professor Mattoo and Mohan Lal represent two different eras of Kashmiri disempowerment. While Mohan Lal earned Kashmir a broader mention in the elite war history of British Empire, the community is keenly watching Professor Mattoo. Will he forge a grand reconciliation between Muslim and Pandit sections of the same ethnic stock of Kashmiri society or allow himself to become just an extension of Mohan Lal’s nineteenth century network of secret agents, more politely called as diplomats.

Tailpiece

Speaking in a seminar about Pandit heritage on 31 March 2009, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Chairman of JKLF, advised Kashmiri Pandits against collaboration with the government. “As a student of history I should say it is dangerous for minorities in conflict societies to be affiliated with the government.” Unlike their Muslim natives Pandits don’t lack intellectual capital but in order to stage a social comeback they should listen to this vital piece of advice from a non-intellectual Kashmiri liberal.

riyas.masroor@yahoo.com

Pitfalls of nonviolence

Riyaz Masroor

Violence is not an option for the weak because the outcome of unequal fights has always favored the strong. For past several centuries Kashmiris have always been weak against their tormentors and whenever they chose to confront they were either brutally crushed or sucked into an unpalatable system. The famous American social writer Eric Hoffer has rightly argued that if power corrupts, weakness corrupts too. So, then, is the nonviolence a best, or at least, a better option to usher in desired change? This question is currently a hot topic within our concerned sections.
If Kashmiri youth, who now appear more assertive but devoutly nonviolent, begin to feel that the nonviolence is not the right tool to usher in political change, the consequences can only be imagined. In the early days of the current movement Hurriyat was termed in newspapers as the “over ground face of militancy” and the state would loudly advocate nonviolence. Nine-eleven or whatever, Hurriyat ‘transformed’ into a louder votary of nonviolence and, shockingly, the state took recourse to the violence. We saw people guarding government and military installations during the past summer’s Azadi campaign and later we saw the same nonviolent crowds being dropped dead by the gun totting cops. A neutral observer would simply conclude that the Hurriyat and the State have contracted each other’s fundamental characteristics of violence and nonviolence. It’s an interesting tragedy that the state ended up ‘transforming’ the social forces but not without going itself astray. The State’s descent into immoral practice – showering bullets against stones – is more serious debate than the youth’s overindulgence in stone pelting. Whether they do it on the Hurriyat’s behest or in spite of it is a different topic.
The nonviolence essentially works on an emotion, which is shame. People in troubled societies tend to believe that for the State ordering massacres would be as equally a shameful act as it is for a civilian. But that, unfortunately, is not true for all regimes. When the privileged people at the top of a regime can remain untouched by massacres a soldier or a cop caught in the crowed will work only as tuned. We have been fed on the wrong diets of violence as well as nonviolence. Earlier the people held out their life for sacrifice when they were asked to grab the gun. Now, when they are being wooed toward a nonviolent form, they have already sacrificed sixty two lives and left thousand and a half wounded for life. London-based Independent journalist Gwynne Dyer wrote in 2008: “Nonviolent tactic (protest) does not work against a regime that is willing to commit a massacre, and can persuade (dictate) its troops to carry out its orders.” Who in Kashmir is the problem, the regime or the people?


Author is a prominent journalist
(riyaz.masroor@yahoo.com)