- The search for Kashmiriyat goes om still
By Dr Rajkumar Singh
This refusal to integrate Kashmir within the framework of Indian democracy has proved to be the single greatest obstacle to the process of Kashmir’s emotional and political integration with the rest of India. This is why the people of Jammu and Kashmir are so insistent on “freedom” which means freedom from Indian rule. It is the conviction, born of their experiences, that their collective will for democratic responsible and accountable government is incompatible with their presently coerced status as ‘an integral part of India’. It is one of the factors that has changed the social psychology of Kashmir.
Failure of successive governments: Frustration and anger of the new generation accumulated and events began to take a new turn from the mid-1980s. In late 1986 Farooq Abdullah committed a disastrous blunder and concluded a rapprochement with the Centre, whereupon he was reinstalled as Chief Minister pending fresh elections in March 1987. In exchange he agreed to contest the elections in partnership with Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress(I). Although Farooq justified his decision in terms of the hard political reality he had come to accept, the arrangement met with widespread public hostility and contempt because it was an alliance with those who had disrespected and denied Kashmiriyat for 40 years. The development was followed by formation of a coalition in the Valley called Muslim United Front (MUF) to fight the National Conference-Congress alliance at the polls. In an anti-climax MUF eventually won just four seats with the NC-Congress combine taking almost all the rest with the help of rigging and strong arm tactics, booth capturing, people not being allowed to vote and balantant working of the Eadministration in favour of the establishment. Mass arrests of MUF activists had immediately followed the spurious election and in fact it was in prison during 1987 that the five young men formed the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). On their release they took a collective decision to go to Pakistan-Controlled Kashmir in search of military training and weapons. Yasin Mallik, currently chairman of the JKLF, was one of them.
Negative effects of bad Administration: Especially after 1987 all institutional channels of protest and dissent were effectively blocked and even perfectly peaceful agitations were suppressed with lethal force. The first JKLF bombing in Srinagar in late July 1988 signalled the arrival of insurgency. According to US scholar Paula R. Newberg, ‘Kashmiris came to insurgency when all politics seemed to fail, the politics of Kashmir’s traditional politicians, politics between Srinagar and Delhi, and politics between India and Pakistan. They view themselves as victims of profound corruptions that sully the meaning of politics. Indeed, most Kashmiris who developed a renewed commitment to the idea of self-determination by the late 1980 sincerely believe that they have given India’s democracy more than its fair share of chances. The vast majority of Kashmiris are apparently prepared to make considerable sacrifices in order to resist this oppression. And the reason why they seem so insistent on “Freedom” which means freedom from Indian rule, is the conviction, born of their experiences, that their collective will for democratic responsible and accountable government is incompatible with their presently coerced status as ‘an integral part of India.’
The government has neither been able to convince the Kashmiris that the elections would be truly free and fair, nor create the conditions in which the various Kashmiri nationalist groups can agree to fight the election and thereby turn it into a genuine contest for power among the Kashmiris themselves
Two factors were mainly responsible for changing the social psychology in Kashmir. One, the growing perception and public resentment at the proliferation and availability of small arms and ammunition and its use by individuals and groups with impunity. Two, the belief that a sham democracy is a better alternative to anarchy, and a bad government is still a better option than chaos. It is a healthy development if there is an urge in initiating measures to bring an improvement in the governance of the state. Good governance, as some analyst viewed it, is the way out. To some in India better governance in Kashmir means handing the state or the Valley, to army rule. Others see it in terms of a clean development-oriented administration, with or without ‘autonomy’. In their view, all that people in Kashmir want, like people everywhere in India, is a minimum of roads, schools, dispensaries and electricity and an attentive administration. Provide these things, back them up with firm security measures and the militants would be isolated.
Needed a new beginning: It is true that due to over a decade of militancy, religious identities have become more pronounced and thr imposition of a unitary form of constitution on the state has suppressed all forms of identities except those based on religion, thus the distance between Kashmiri Muslims and Hindus has increased, even though they share a common language, culture and heritage. Militancy might have bruised Kashmiriyat, but it never succeeded in diluting it. However, it needs conducive social and political conditions to make this culture thrive again. Kashmir, apart from being a political problem, represents a human tragedy of epic proportions. This task of reconciliation and healing is not one that the government alone can do. Civil society as a whole in the state, as well as in the rest of India, and especially organizations working in the field of inter-faith harmony, would have to get involved in this process which would necessarily take many years to complete. However, a “beginning” must be made without delay.
Thus the political history of India-administered Jammu and Kashmir clearly does not satisfy the minimal conditions and requirements of democratic governance. No Kashmir policy can succeed without taking into account the political and psychological urge of the people. The controversy over whether the policy should be tough or soft, whether it should be based on nationalist or moral appeal, on realpolitik or idealpolitik is unreal and irrelevant. What the question needs is a correct assessment, a correct diagnosis, a correct strategy. The government, despite its attempt to put democracy on the rails in Kashmir, has neither been able to convince the Kashmiris that the elections would be truly free and fair, nor create the conditions in which the various Kashmiri nationalist groups can agree to fight the election and thereby turn it into a genuine contest for power among the Kashmiris themselves. What Kashmir badly needs and sadly lacks is a “healing touch” policy – a step towards a serious, sustained and multidimensional peace process.
The author is a professor and head of the Political Science Department of BNMU, Saharsa, Bihar, India, and can be reached at: [email protected]
