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