What's a blog?

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Jun 7 21:11:04 PDT 2002


On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Vikash Yadav wrote:


> At the risk of shameless self-promotion

Hmmm, are you sure you're cut out to be a blogger? :o)


> ... [here] is a link to a blog I recently started on South Asian
> politics: www.ssc.upenn.edu/~vikash1/sasia/

And it looks pretty good, Vikash. I hope you and your comrade Conrad won't mind if I post today's comment on Kashmir. I liked it.

Future of Kashmir:

The Kashmir situation now occupies centre stage, so I think it is

worthwhile putting some of my thoughts down the subject. This is no

place to go into the details of the Kashmir issue - indeed many

have spun a career out of investigating, analysing and pronouncing

on the same but as it casts such a long shadow over the future of

Indo-Pak relations we must seriously address the situation. There

are two immediate problems as I see it both of which have

superficial yet belie deeper more pathological causes behind their

exteriors. The first is the Pakistani involvement in Kashmir; this

is something that India has unsuccessfully been trying to convince

the world of for some time. Though it is difficult to put an exact

date on these things, I would estimate that it would have been

sometime in the mid-1990's that Pakistan started interfering with a

heavy hand in the Valley and introduced its jihadi soldiers who

brought a virulent form of fundamentalism in their struggle against

the Indian security forces. This has led to many difficulties: a

movement based on regional resistance to federal authority and

which was couched in the idiom of a Kashmiriyat identity has now

turned into one based at least part fundamentalist understandings

of religion. The most popular militant outfit in the valley has

been the JKLF which always wanted an independent Kashmir separate

from both India and Pakistan: this strain of Kashmiri nationalism

has been drowned out by the politics of religious fundamentalism.

Understandably many Kashmiris, Muslim or not are not happy about

the "jihadisation" of their conflict and this is part of the reason

behind the assassination the moderate leader Lone, recently. It

also has embittered India, which was incensed by the lack of

attention given to the issue of Pakistani support for the militants

before the events of September last year and the nuclearisation of

the region. These two factors have added a volatile element to any

confrontation over Kashmir. Unfortunately, the Indian stance while

excessively idealistic has now become disillusioned with the

dealings of the international community over Kashmir and had

hardened New Delhi's approach to the state - the presence of a

coalition dominated by a Hindu Fundamentalist party has hardly

helped matters. The last element in this problem turns on the

nature of Kashmir's significance for Pakistan - why exactly is it

so important for Pakistan to acquire Kashmir? The answer to this

question addresses in part the true nature of the unfinished

business of partition: can Pakistan maintain it's identity as an

Islamic state if a region predominantly Muslim on its borders

chooses to remain within a Secular India. Jinnah's two-nation

theory was already dealt a severe blow with the creation of

Bangladesh, which proved that religion was not strong enough when

confronted with ethnicity and culture as a basis for nation-making.

Pakistani designs on Kashmir have a long history from the tribal

invasion in 1948 to the attempt to cause an uprising by

infiltration in the lead up to the 1965 war. Both cases show the

real approach of Pakistan to the region: a reliance on covert

aggressive manoeuvres designed to create a crisis which would

facilitate a Pakistani annexation. This shows the unwillingness to

consider the wishes of the Kashmiri people and also a basic

distrust of the ultimate decision they may reach: of course one

should not be surprised given the lack of respect for democracy

within Pakistan itself. If Kashmir is indeed central to Pakistans

self-perception as an Islamic state then it is difficult to see how

short of major shifts within the nature of Pakistani society and

polity, Pakistan's claim on Kashmir will be satisfied with anything

less than full acquisition. But unless Pakistan accepts that it

cannot acquire Kashmir by pure military diktat or without

respecting the wishes of Kashmiris themselves then it will not be

ready for a real solution. After all if Pakistan is unable to

control the Mohajir population in Karachi, what hope would they

have of controlling an entire province with a much larger

potentially hostile population?

There is a complementary Indian problem: India has to accept that

there can be no military solution to the Kashmir issue. The erosion

of the legitimacy of the Indian state has reached a level where, a

political solution must be part of any package that seeks to

restore peace to the Valley. Given the relative support extended by

most Kashmiris in the early years of accession to India, including

the wholehearted support during the 1965 war when the native

population refused to engage in any uprising despite Pakistani

instigation has now been steadily lost. Arguably from the

imprisonment of Sheikh Abdullah to the repeated rigging of

elections this goodwill has slowly been deliberately run down over

the years. One could argue that India should have held a

transparent plebiscite in the years following the UN settlement

when it had a high chance of winning. This chance has now been

lost. The conduct of various governors such as Jagmohan who have

followed the behest of the central government and interefered with

the internal affairs of the state and the mounting incidents of

abuse by the security forces can hardly have endeared the Kashmiris

to the regime in New Delhi. India needs to realise the depth of

disillusionment and address the genuine demands for democracy that

the state deserves. I feel some amusement for the Indian state -

after all they had rigged elections on a smaller but consistent

level in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal and eleswhere before:

intimidation of voters, misuse of government property and money for

electioneering and capture of poll booths are endemic features of

Indian democracy in much of the country - the political elite must

have been surprised that the Kashmiris refused to stand for it and

actually took up arms whereas elsewhere voters patiently put up

with the corruption of the system, why did the Kashmiris become so

aggrieved the great and the powerful in New Delhi must have

wondered? What have we done to them that we haven't done to others?

This answer lies partly in the ugly religious nature the separatist

movement took on, arousing the slumbering monster of communal

politics and the shaky nature of the state's accession to the

Indian Union as well as the manipulations of Pakistan behind the

wings - ever eager to foster unrest. But this is only a superficial

reason - a deeper one I think points to the real failure of the

Indian state in the region - namely the establishment of

deep-rooted democratic institutions and culture. This is what has

seeped into society in the other states of the Indian Union,

including those who were erstwhile Princely states and had no

tradition of decomcratic politics or electoral competition and why

despite all the faults of the democratic system the majority of the

disenfranchised masses continue to repose their trust in it. In

Kashmir the stifling of opposition to the National Conference

prevented a healthy multi-party system from emerging. The clientist

culture -- which in the rest of India has already given way to

mass based demands in the form of populism of various kinds such

as regional parties and parties of the assertive lower socio-

economic groups, still existed in the valley. And the alliance

between the National Conference and the Congress - supposedly the

two main opposition parties in the state - destroyed what little

faith there was in the electoral system, which now provided no

outlet for dissent and which was shown to be morally and

politically bankrupt.

The failure to democratise the institutional and political culture

and to allow the growth of real mass-based politics is the deepest

failure of the Indian state in Kashmir and it is still paying the

price of that failure even now. It is time this failure was

acknowledged and the steps to rectify it taken. I fear that this is

the only real chance for peace.

:: Conrad Barwa 9:07 PM [+] ::



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list