[Reader-list] Gun Salutes for August 15

[inder salim]

SAY YES TO UTOPIA IN KASHMIR
.

I believe, following points emerged after going through an interesting
exchange between Sonia and Shuddha, which can become part of further
debate on Kashmir issue:

1. Kashmir is not a bilateral issue between Pakistan and India. People
of Jammu and Kashmir have to be a part of any understanding on it.
Representatives of Kashmir need to work out a clear policy. The
present Hurriyat conference is a divided house. National Conference,
Congress and PDP  etc are/were always opportunistic in dealing the
issue at the core, and therefore, there should be a clear scheme in
sight on how to recognize a genuine representative body in Kashmir.

2. A Naya Free Kashmir ( new Kashmir ) may be a place where anybody
can live freely, but should not be allowed to acquire land for greed.
Government land should be allotted to landless families.  Kashmiri
families who want to return be included in allotment schemes.

3. Demilitarization of Kashmir should begin at the earliest. Those
who demand it should also learn to live without a security cover.
Representative bodies of Kashmir should guide people on how to deal
with rogue militants.

4. To confront the law is reasonable when Law of the Occupied is in
vogue. But, laws which are acceptable to people should be charted out.
For example, Gandhi suggested people not to used British goods, and
simultaneously suggested how to spun khadi. Millions of people
followed him and something similar can happen in Kashmir, if there is
a will to achieve something unique.

5. Supporters of a free Tibet are everywhere because of their inherent
non-violent  ways of dealing with the Chinese occupation. It  was a
British citizen who hoisted Tibet slogan/flag in Beijing Olympics.
Something similar can happen if Kashmiris become creative in protests.
The recent peaceful protest in the valley  is a positive beginning.
Gun culture should be abandoned completely, which has become an excuse
for Indian security forces to stay there in large numbers.

6. I see nothing wrong in sex work (provided it does not involve
coercion or minors), I too agree with Shuddha, but the new
representatives for a free Kashmir need to include this in their
agenda.  Having said this, I believe the level of violence in Kashmir
against women is quite less in comparison to violence in India or in
Pakistan. But Kashmiri MALES  need to provide spaces to women while
electing new representatives for a free Kashmir.  They need to have a
scientific outlook while dealing with women's issues.

7. Environment is the new wave which can dismantle solid words like
Freedom, Plebiscite, Rights, etc unless new ways are not discovered to
understand new politics.  Environmentally speaking , Kashmiris and all
the people of the world are a tightly woven fabric, and we don't know
how to cut it and where to stitch it for our day to day use. We are
truly clueless with regard to energy requirements once the oil
reserves begin to disappear.  Human beings are growing at the expense
of other species on this planet. We have to find an answer to all the
environmental crises. That is too urgent.

8. A  Naya free Kashmir must create a space for so called confused
peoples, ( as Aditya Raj kaul found me )  because I believe,
musicians, poets artists and performers are a confused lot in the
first place, and therefore, must be seen as integral part of society.
Too many journalists, advocates and the present lot of politicians in
the new representative body will spoil the dream of a free Kashmir.

9.  A new free Kashmir should not interfere in the religious matters
at all. People should be advised/motivated not to donate money at
shrines, or if they do so they money should be go social and cultural
activists.

10. Recently I did a short opera on river in Kashmir, Te Vyeth Rooz
Pakkan ( The river jehlum moves on ) in U.K.  . This was arranged by
Luton mela committee in Luton, which has a 25% population from Azad
kashmir. Mr. Zulfikar Ahmed is the chairman of the committee, who
invited us for a dinner next to a place which was occupied by
Amman-Ula-khan for quite some time. Secretrary of  J&K cultural
academy Zaffar Iqbal khan Minhas was also there, but as it happens
now, it happened there also; we talked on politics and nothing on the
art and culture.

Mr. Zulfikar regretted that the present Luton's  A.Kashmir population
is  divided into Chaudhries, Rajas and Maliks, although they donate
some pounds to sufi musicians from Pakistan  as and when they sing a
ghazal or so in their honour, but they are quite worried about the
fate of their children who are neither Pakistanis, nor kashmiris nor
Brits. The worst is that British public and police is a little
uncomfortable with large muslim population there. Zulfikar is a
worried person, who has  clueless about future of these kashmiri
children. Nobody speaks kashmiri language there, let alone going back
to Azad Kashmir.

At the moment, I think it is enough for a new free Kashmir, but
suggestion and alteration are welcome. I know, it will be hazy in the
end, but …

With love and regards
Inder salim









On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 5:34 PM, S. Jabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Shuddha,
>
> Thanks for the mails & sorry I haven¹t had the time to even read them
> properly let alone frame a response as I am leaving Delhi tomorrow night for
> a whole month & have a load of stuff to do.
>
> I promise I will try & do so in a few days.  And yes, it is entirely
> possible to have disagreements without being disagreeable.
>
> Cheers!
> sj
>
>
> On 8/16/08 5:11 PM, "Shuddhabrata Sengupta" <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
>
>> Dear Sonia,
>>
>>
>>
>> Having spelt out what I agree with you on, in my previous post, let me, in all
>> fairness, come to what I disagree with you on. Actually, disagreement, is not
>> necessarily what I have in mind, what I mean is where I see things differently
>> from you. I hope that in the course of reading this exchange,our young friend
>> Aditya Raj Kaul will recognize that it is possible for people to see things
>> differently, and even to disagree, without having to search for new ways of
>> insulting each other.
>>
>>
>>
>> You said,
>>
>>
>>
>> I read with some surprise your taking issue with my use of the phrase,
>>>
>>> Œbaying for blood¹ and your accompanying list of slogans used during the
>>>
>>> protests.  It is incomplete and I could add a few more but I really don¹t
>>>
>>> want to vitiate and already horrible situation.  I¹m sure you remember 1989
>>>
>>> and the slogan ŒJai Sri Ram.¹  Advani had used a similar argument when
>>>
>>> challenged.  He said something like, what is communal or provocative about
>>>
>>> taking God¹s name?  What, indeed, except when there is a thousand strong mob
>>>
>>> screaming God¹s name and marching towards Muslim localities as they did in
>>>
>>> Œ92 and Œ93.  I would describe that as baying for blood.
>>
>>
>> The difference between Advani's justification of the Jai Shri Ram slogan in
>> 1989 and what I am trying to point in relation to the events of the past few
>> days in the Kashmir valley lies in the fact that the protestors on the roads
>> and highways of Kashmir were not 'screaming God's name and marching towards
>> (any particular community's) localities.' Had the march been to Jammu, or
>> Amarnath, not Muzaffarabad, and had they been seeking a deliberate
>> confrontation with the crowds rallying to the SASS slogans, or the pilgrims to
>> Amarnath, then you would have been absolutely right. As it happens this did
>> not occur. And as I have pointed out before, a record number of pilgrims
>> travelled safely to Amarnath this year, in the yatra which has just
>> concluded.In this case, the protestors in Kashmir were marching not with
>> aggressive intent towards another community, but towards the LOC, demanding
>> that the borders be opened. I think there is a world of a difference in these
>> two trajectories. I think this does suggest that we could recognize that the
>> articulation of anger in Kashmir today is more mature than it was even in '89.
>> This is all the more evident when we realize that every single person in any
>> role of leadership of consequence in the Kashmir valley has called for
>> peaceful protest, and for the maintenance of communal harmony.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> I can¹t help hearing the ringing similarity between Œinfrastructure of
>>>
>>> oppression¹ and the chilling phrase we used to hear pre-1992, Œdisputed
>>>
>>> structure,¹ Œsymbol of Hindu oppression.¹  Do you remember Naipaul¹s defence
>>>
>>> of Hindutva and why the tearing down of the Babri Masjid was but natural for
>>>
>>> a people who had been oppressed by Muslim rulers for 500 years?  The point
>>>
>>> I¹m trying to make is that once you give a group a carte blanche to do as
>>>
>>> they please, to destroy what they consider symbols of oppression, you have
>>>
>>> very little ground to stand on when others whom you may not agree with
>>>
>>> politically do the same.  That is why laws exist and ought to be followed.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Again, there is a difference, I think you will agree, between an attack on a
>> 16th century mosque, and the disarming of a CRPF bunker. The mosque, can for
>> the sake of an argument,(though I do not buy that argument) be seen by those
>> who wanted to raze it to the ground as a 'sign' of perceived communitarian
>> oppression. The bunker, is much more than a 'sign', it is the actual locus of
>> oppression. It is a place that bullets are fired from. Again, had there been
>> attacks on temples, or even on the homes left behind by the Pandits, or the
>> schools and colleges that still bear names and signs of Pandit or Dogra
>> presence, your argument would have had credence. From the reports that we have
>> received, this did not happen. Signs and symbols were not touched, what was
>> sought to be dismantled, was the 'infrastructure' of oppression itself, and
>> this was done without a single policeman or CRPF person losing their life. As
>> we all know, there are enough loose weapons and explosives in the valley. And
>> it is not as if CRPF personnel or policemen have not been made targets before.
>> They are sitting targets. Again, I would point out to you, two policemen have
>> lost their lives in Jammu, no policeman, CRPF personnel, or jawan has lost
>> their lives in the past few days in Kashmir. I hope that this continues to be
>> the case.
>>
>>
>>
>> During the 'quit India' movement in 1942, there was a significant disruption
>> caused to the 'infrastructure' of the colonial state. Police pickets, radio
>> towers and wireless transmission systems, for instance were disabled, and care
>> was taken to see that lives were not lost. The people who participated in
>> these attacks did not see what they were doing as 'violent', indeed, some, if
>> not the majority of them, were passionate advocates of 'non-violence'.
>>
>>
>>
>> For years, the insurgency in Kashmir has been attacked on the grounds that it
>> was only the handwork of a handful of murderous 'terrorists' with no popular
>> base. Now that the 'people' are out on the streets, not just in thousands, but
>> in tens of thousands, and they are not wielding AK-47s, or assasinating
>> anyone, they are being criticized as being present in threateningly large
>> numbers. This seems disingenous to me, you can't malign a movement when the
>> people are not on the streets on the grounds that it is not popular, and then,
>> when the people turn up, criticize them for being so many.
>>
>>
>>
>> Further, I do not agree that laws ought to be followed because they exist. We
>> must, in each case, ask, which law, to what purpose, and wielded by whom,
>> against whom, for whom. In this case, there is a contradiction between the law
>> that guarantees the right to free assembly, and the law that prohibits
>> assembly. It could be argued that the people of Kashmir are following the
>> spirit of the first law in order to violate the letter of the second law. And,
>> we all know that patently bad laws exist in Kashmir. Laws such as the Armed
>> Forces Special Powers Act. I think it is ethically wrong to obey such a law.
>> The question to be asking then, is not, why are the people of Kashmir not
>> following the law, but, why are soldiers in the Indian armed forces obeying an
>> ethically wrong law.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Re. the 100 acres of land & its distribution: this fact came to light only
>>>
>>> about 10 days ago when the land records were pulled out and examined and was
>>>
>>> not the spark that lit the agitation in Kashmir, sadly.  What did was the
>>>
>>> canard that the SASB acquiring 100 acres was the first step towards Hindus
>>>
>>> settling in the valley by a government that was intent on demographic
>>>
>>> change. Communal? Maybe, maybe not. Xenophobic,yes. Justified, not
>>>
>>> justified: I don¹t care. It¹s just plain silly and tragic to have such a
>>>
>>> brouhaha with people being killed about something that¹s a bare-faced lie!
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> I agree, the question of demographic change with regard to the transfer of the
>> Amarnath land is a red herring, and a bare faced lie, and smacks of
>> xenophobia. 100 acres do not, and cannot lead to a demographic change. And
>> everyone must counsel people in Kashmir to abandon this train of thought.
>>  When Kashmiri leaders, for whatever reason, talk about 'demographic' threats,
>> they sound exactly as foolish and xenophobic as the chauvinist Indian,
>> especialy Hindu Right politicians do when they fulminate against 'demographic
>> change' that will occur because of Bangladeshi immigration. The protest in
>> Kashmir has enough justification, in terms of an anger against the alienation
>> of land and against the violence of the state, not to have to get bogged down
>> in the chimera of confronting demographic change.
>>
>>
>>
>> I thank you again for this exchange, as I believe that it has led us all in
>> the direction of expressing our thoughts without getting caught in the trap of
>> abuse, and recrimination, which some people on the list seem unfortunately to
>> have become habituated to.
>>
>>
>>
>> regards,
>>
>>
>>
>> Shuddha
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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