Jashn-e-Azadi

Does the idea of India rest on Kashmir?

In an interesting and thoughtful review of Sanjay Kak’s documentary Jashn-e-Azadi, Ananya Vajpeyi argues in favor of azadi for the Kashmiri people. She links the movement for azadi in Kashmir to India’s own freedom struggle, and expects understanding from the Indian people.

Vajpeyi cites what she calls three barriers which Indians mustcross before they can appreciate the yearning for azadi. First, the baggage of partition and India’s rejection of the two-nation theory, and her status as a secular country.Second, the ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits; as Vajpeyi her self acknowledges–despite some perfunctory apologies–the Kashmiri Muslim leaders have made no attempt to correct the gross injustices meted out to the the Pandits. Third, the Islamic nature of the conflict with Kashmir as an outpost for global Jihad with an influx of foreign terrorists—most of whom have little in common with common Kashmiris or the decidedly eclectic version of Kashmiri Islam with its heave suffusion of Sufism.

The latter two arguments are more easily refutable for they are not really barriers but the essential prism through which the;Kashmiri struggle must be viewed. The expulsion of the Pandits is essentially linked to the Islamic nature of Kashmir’s uprising. It is extremely difficult to view with any sympathy a movement which thought it necessary to expel those who had been part and parcel of Kashmir for hundreds of years. Further, despite what the Muslim leadership may now claim, the ethnic cleansing of the Pandits was carried out by local militants with the Jammu; Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) still the dominant militant movement in Kashmir in the late eighties and even in the early nineties. Indeed, one must ask: Why shouldn’t the Kashmiri movement be judged with the same harshness one judges the Serbs or the fanatical Arabs responsible for deaths of hundreds of thousands in Darfur? Thus, to blame the common Indian for the failure of the Kashmiri movement to offer a vision of inclusiveness is plainly disingenuous.

An essential element which would naturally color the vision of any Indian would be the Pakistani support–both overt and covert—for the movement in Kashmir. Pakistan, a state whose raison d’être is balkanization of India, has long captured the movement from the indigenous militant groups and has made it a virtual extension of its strategic vision.Coupled with its previous conflicts with India including the support for Khalistani terrorists, it is extremely hard for the common Indian to appreciate the Kashmiri movement as independent of an attempt to bleed the Indian state. Further, the subjugation of the Kashmiri movement to the global Islamic Jihad would necessarily cloud the judgment of even the most sympathetic Indian. Here again the blame squarely lies with the Kashmiri leaders.

What is far more interesting is the question whether Kashmir is a victim of Indian pluralism. Are Indian secularism and its repudiation of the idea of Pakistan predicated on Kashmir’s acceptance of the idea of India as a nation for Indians—irrespective of their religious affiliation? As someone who heartily endorses the idea of Indian nationhood and upholds and celebrates its moral superiority Vis-à-vis Pakistan, the idea of Indian nationhood being founded on such a narrow premise is deeply troubling.

But I must confess that there is some truth to this argument. Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state of the Union. Its secession from the Union on the principle of religious incompatibility would question the very idea of India as a secular state. Here secular must be understood in its broadest term; in its ability to transcend barriers of languages/ethnicity/religion et al. India’s ability to manage its internal contradiction essentially rests on the principle that the the ‘’Indian’’ encompasses multiple identities which are not in conflict with each other. As Nitin Pai has eloquently put it:

It is possible to be an India lover and a Kannada lover and a Ghazal lover and a Hilsa lover and a Mac lover and a Scotch lover and a freedom lover at the same time. But is possible only if India remains a country of freedom lovers.[link]

That raises yet another interesting question: Should the Kashmiris be denied their azadi merely to uphold the idea of India? Is the idea of India as a modern-nation state; the idea of Indian as an independent identity so weak that might be swept away by Kashmir’s independence? Or has the idea of India taken enough roots and has enough believers to be able to withstand such assaults?

But then what is the idea of India? Is an India an ”unnatural country” as Ram Chandra Guha puts it or has it managed to create an independent identity beyond the geographical cohesiveness?

The reason why this question holds particular fascination for me is because as someone who believes in a strong nation state and yet very strongly upholds the idea of individual liberties, (1)the notion of a nation state being defined by suppression of individual (or in this case collective desire of a group of people) is not completely palatable. So are, as Gaurav has argued, freedom lovers and India lovers in diametrically opposite camps?

One hastens to add that for the purpose of this discussion, one has assumed that Kashmiris really do want freedom. That may not actually be so. In any struggle between state and the amorphous terrorist, the anger of the common man would always be more easily directed towards the former. One, because its very structure allows for higher expectations and grievance redressal. Second, the state is always held to the higher standard of conduct—as it must be. Quite naturally, an essential element missing from all accounts of struggle in ‘occupied territories is the brutal nature of the resistance. How many Iraqis have been killed by Americans? How many on the other hand have died by the hands of the likes of Zarqawi.

Of course, this is a largely academic debate. The very idea of Kashmiri independence is a fig leaf of overactive imagination borne out of a romantic reading of history and a blinding ignorance of geo-politics. Neither India nor Pakistan will ever allow an independent Kashmir. (Assuming such a land-locked entity can actually survive.) Despite all its ‘’love’’ for Kashmirs, the situation in the Pakistan occupied Kashmir is terrible. In fact, one could argue with some justification that those who speak of azadi and merger with Pakistan in the same breadth are living in a fools’ paradise.

(Been to busy to post too much here. So cross posting from the other blog. )