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 [+] ::