[Reader-list] Kashmir Session at WSF

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear Zainab and everyone,

Many thanks, Zainab, for filling in a much more vivid and detailed picture of 
the Kashmir panel that I had mentioned at the WSF. I did not stay right till 
the end of the panel, and so was not aware of what transpired at the question 
and answer session. (and I must add that I was also not present at the 
juncure when a Kashmiri Pandit lady who was present, protested, and who you 
say was silenced). Of course, my report, was incomplete, and your testimony 
only points to the fact that there can never be a record of an event that is 
anything other than what the witness saw, or, more interestingly, perhaps 
chose to see. I saw, or chose to see, a certain slice of the event, and that 
is what i have written about, it needs to be qualified and seen in relation 
to what you saw, and what you reported, that is why this is a discussion list 
and not a seminar. So thanks for that ! After all, we did sit next to each 
other for a while when both of us were present. And what would be the point 
of both of us being on this list, if at least we could not enjoy the fact of 
complicating each other's narrative, in a Rashomonesque sort of way !

I did notice that while  I was there and Yasin Malik was speaking, a 
gentleman did make some loud interjections, especially when Yasin Malik was 
speaking about Gandhi, and that the some from amongst the audience counter 
interjected, saying Yasin Malik should be allowed to speak. I do not think 
that there is anything wrong about that. However, if that same person, is not 
allowed their turn to speak at all during a question answer session where the 
audience is meant to be involved, then I think there is definitely something 
wrong going on. However, as you say, following the interjection of two ladies 
sitting in the audience who said "Let him speak! If he does not get a chance 
to speak at WSF, where else will he speak?”" he did get his chance to say 
what he had been wanting to say. 

I think that this is a very interesting instance. When Yasin Malik (a voice 
that is not given much space in 'India') is speaking, someone interrupts, and 
then those who interrupt the interrupter, do so on grounds that are the same 
, that is - 

"Let him speak! If he does not get a chance to speak at WSF, where else will 
he speak?”"

And then, when the original interrupter asks for his turn to speak at the 
end, and is again himself interrupted, two other ladies interrupt again and 
say, "Let him speak! If he does not get a chance to speak at WSF, where else 
will he speak?”"

What is interesting about this episode is that both these people, Yasin Malik 
and the interrupter, could say what they wanted to say, in their own very 
different ways and voices, because people in the audience essentially said 
"Let him speak! If he does not get a chance to speak at WSF, where else will 
he speak?”"

This brings me to a point that I am trying to think through a lot lately, 
about the authorised and the unauthorised interlocutor. Something that came 
up briefly in the Sarai panel at the WSF titled "Crisis/Media for the 
Millennium". The authorised interlocutor is someone who can jump into the 
fray of the discourse and speak his/her mind without anyone doubting what 
Arundhati Roy in the 'God of Small Things" called their 'Locusts Stand I' or, 
what in legalistic latin is "Locus Standi" and in filmi Hindi is called 
'Aukaad' as in "saale, apni aukaad samajhke baat kar, nahin to kaan ke neeche 
yun bajaa dunga" - you get my drift.

The authorised interlocuter, can become unauthorised, not necessarily because 
of the content of their statement, but the timing, manner, tone and style in 
which they say what they want to say. And surely, democratic and open forms 
of discourse are such which encourage a diversity of rhythms, manners, tones 
and styles, which is why the most 'free thinking' people can sometimes also 
come across as the most pugnaciously imperious and forbidding, not because of 
what they say, but because of the way in which they say or dont say things.

Anyway, the point I am trying to arrive at is, of course, seminars and panels 
or anything that foregrounds the speaker as an 'Expert' automatically prefix 
the 'Authorised' tag on to some intorlocuters as opposed to thers. And of 
course, we should try and arrive at a variety of forms in which discourse can 
happen. A discussion list like this, is hopefully, precisely something that a 
seminar or an expert panel is. We do not interrupt each other here. We 
cannot. There are no experts, no panelists here, there cannot be. And no one 
can ask of another the question - "What gives you the authority to say this 
or that" because no one has given anyone any authority on this list. And I do 
hope that we all realize that this is precisely what makes list culture and 
list ettiquette so special.

In fact, if a successful seminar is one in which some people say most things 
most of the time. Then a successful list is one in which something very 
different happens. Not 'no one saying hardly anything most of the time', but 
' a lot of people, saying lots of things, a lot of the time' 

But, lets come back to Yasin Malik and the gentleman who interrupted. The 
interrupter who demands to know what right Yasin Malik, a person who has been 
a part of, and a votary of, armed struggle, has to invoke Gandhi, is also 
asking Yasin Malik, basically, the "Saale teri aukaad kya hai, tery yeh 
majaal" or "what is your 'locusts stand i' ", question. 

He too wants Yasin Malik to cease speech. Just as others want him to cease 
speaking. Just as many in this country who protest against the censorship of 
some books, or films, are in agreement with the decision to censor and ban 
other books and fllms. Perhaps they see themselves as 'Authorised 
Interlocutors' who consider themselves better placed to know what to ban, and 
what not to ban. 

I am not a Gandhian, in fact, I am someone who considers Gandhi wanting not 
because he foregrounds ethics, but because I think he foregrounds ethics not 
in a fundamental, but in a tactical sense. In the sense that he never opposed 
capital punishment, even though he opposed terrorism. He never opposed the 
right of the Indian state to send in its military into Kashmir, even though 
he opposed the right of any people to take up arms to defend themselves. I 
would think that non violence would imply an absolute rejection of the 
violence of the state (especially when the state is something that you have a 
hand in the making of) even as it implies a categorical rejection of the 
violence of the insurgent. No, I am not a Gandhian, and I do not respect 
Gandhi's philosophy, even if I do acknoweldge the creativity of Gandhi's 
practice of poltics. But what I do not understand, is why, someone like Yasin 
Malik should not have the right to invoke Gandhi, whenever he feels like it. 

Gandhi too, did serve in advancing the cause of the British military in South 
Africa, even as he was initiating his experiments with truth and non 
violence. In that sense Gandhi in the course of  his life is as morally 
implicated in acts of war, as Yasin Malik may be in acts of insurgency. I may 
be wrong but I think Yasin Malik is younger now then what Gandhi was when he 
returned to India. If the Gandhi we know, who experimented with racism (he 
time and again said that Indians were better than Africans in South Africa, 
and supported a full on war in South Africa in a direct and activist manner) 
can transform, or be transformed, or allow himself to be transformed into the 
Mahatma of non violence, then what's wrong with letting Yasin Malik figuring 
out which way he wants to go? And why should Yasin Malik not given the 
lattitude (to experiment with the ideas of tolerance, forgiveness and non 
violence) that we have so readily extended to M.K. Gandhi. 

This posting has gone astray, its gone far far away from being about what 
happenned at the Kashmir panel at the WSF. But then this is not a seminar, 
and I am not an expert.

And I would like to thank Zainab with all the affection that I can muster, 
for the necessary corrections and amplifications she made in response to my 
testimony, and for the provocation to stray from the topic! And it somehow 
makes the excercise of being at the WSF, of being an incomplete, imperfect 
witness, just that little more worthwhile.

Cheers

Shuddha

-- 
Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Raqs Media Collective)
Sarai
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054
Phone : 91 11 23942199 Ext 305
www.sarai.net