December 2002 Issue

By A.K. Watal

The mass exodus of Kashmir Hindus from Kashmir valley took place in 1990, when their psyche came under tremendous strain while observing that:-

i) A movement for killing prominent Kashmiri Hindus has started in 1989.

ii) The fate of Kashmiri Hindus women was heading towards a black and dark future.

iii) The militant organisations had given on open press call for vacation of the valley by Hindus.

iv) Large processions were being carried out in the Valley at different places in support of Azadi.

And in most of the instances Muslim well wishers suggested, rather advised their fellow Hindus to leave the Valley for a period of two to three months, leaving the things to cool down. A few families came out in taxies, while a number of them were transported by trucks driven by fellow Muslims.

After some time when Sh. Jagmohan took over as Governor of J&K on 19/1/1990 some insane elements blamed him for the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the Valley, who were already in trauma and under strained conditions.

Post Exodus Period

The condition of Hindus who were seen running out of the Valley in truck loads, buses, vans, cars and taxies was pathetic. They were a depressed and dejected lot and found themselves hapless and helpless in the increasing temperature of the plains viz Udhampur, Jammu, Delhi and other cities. Most of the migrant lot was accommodated in tented accommodations at Udhampur. (Sports Stadium, Battal Ballian, Garhi). Jammu (Nagrota, Muthi, Purkho, Mishriwala, Jhiri, Railway station etc.) and Delhi.

The allowance of free ration and a meager relief of Rs 300 per head per family of unemployed persons and leave salary to employed ones by the then government was a big respite to the displaced community. Now that the community has seen different phases of evolutions during last thirteen years of exodus, they have been able to reconcile a bit, because of certain advantages, though they would always be nostalgic because of many a dis-advantages.

Advantages

Not with standing the fact, that Kashmiri Hindus have lost their homes and hearths their land of peace, moderate to cold temperature zone and their culture is at the verge of disappearance, yet the following advantages can not be neglected.

(i) The economics of Kashmiri Hindus which was based on either government employment or agriculture business has become broad based. though the consolation and mental solace is at the lowest ebb.

(ii) The educational standards have gone up, because of certain dispensations extended by a few state government, especially Maharashtra. The community ought to give the credit to one of its revered members, Sh. M.K. Kaw, who was instrumental in broadening the net of education for Kashmiri migrants.

Disadvantages

The major disadvantage of the migration could be summed up as under:-

(ii) The elders have lost their mental peace, balance, social status and health for the causes and after-effects of the migration.

It has been seen that diseases like cardiac problems, hypertension, dementia, diabetes, arthritis and sun-strokes have been common in elders of the community, who got suddenly exposed to the vagaries of weather.

(ii) The middle aged and the students have got more exposure in the garb of development which has lead to many a social problems.

(iii) The children, on account of media boost are being groomed in a culturally different way than it used to be in Kashmir, keeping the social ethos at bay.

(iv) It should not be construed as a conservative ness, if we advocate that the inter caste and in caste marriages have failed to a great extent, because of inbuilt effects of maladjustment and loss of values and tolerance.

(v) The great disadvantage is that the minuscule minority of Kashmiri Hindus oftenly classified as KP's will decay away with the passage of time, in case steps are not taken to address this issue.

(vi) A lot of displaced persons were bitten by snakes in the camps and a few consumed by gushing water of canals.

(vii) The most unfortunate disadvantages is that Kashmiri Hindus are living a life of refugees in their own country under appalling sanitary and unhygienic slum conditions.

Future

The future of the community lies in the hands of one and all, who have an iota of belongingness the valley of "Kashyap Rishi". In this regard it may not be out of place to mention that the future of this community will be bright and illuminated, in case a consideration is given to the following aspects:-

(i) World KP's Directory:

 A directory of all the KP's living across the world needs to be made and published at the earliest as a data base. Some efforts have been made by Kashmiri Samiti Delhi, which need to be re-doubled.

(ii) All the KP's organisations need to come under one umbrella like APHC in J&K to achieve a common goal of political value for Kashmiri Hindus and thus increase their density.

(iii) To fight for our common cause like Tibetans, while establishing Health and Educational Institutions like SGPC, Muslim Auqaf Trust, Christian Societies and other minority bodies.

(iv) To create a "World Kashmiri Hindus Crisis Management Group" to look after the economic interests of the community while looking towards the industrial sector.

(v) In case the Kashmiri Hindus have to last, everybody has to come up, co-operate and help in the establishment of:

(a) Cottage, small scale, medium scale and large scale industries.

(b) Health, Education and Research Institutions.

(c) Educational Institutions and universities.

(d) An International confederation of Kashmiri Hindus.

Potential

Kashmiri Hindus at large have the potential of creating the aforementioned institutions, provided they give a little pause and thought to their duties, responsibilities and rights.

*The writer is a social activist, based in Ambala.

By Col. D.S. Jamwal

There seems to be a misconception in the minds of the Valley leaders, and also with so-called secular experts in Delhi, that Kashmiris of the Valley specifically are a special people, need extra special treatment and therefore must be molly-coddied. It is indeed a travesty that this false impression has been created over the years. Does it imply that Valley Kashmiri’s face different problems of economic, social, educational, financial and administrative nature which are different from the citizens of the other two regions of the State and the rest of the States of the Union?

Local political parties of other States of the Union as well as all-India level political groups are individually and collectively concerned about improving the lives of their countrymen, and in the process, promise better governance, administration and other benefit and facilities. Yet, rather than work to this end, with malafide intent, Valley-based leaders continue to mislead their followers with trans-national thinking, encouraging political activity of a nefarious variety, and concocting hare-brained schemes.

The Accords of 1952, 1975 and 1986 with Congress-run Central governments were obviously blackmailing tactics for more ‘concessions’ despite Article 370. As a matter of fact, the administrative set-up progressively became more inefficient and politically, the situation worsened. These armtwisting tactics of the Valley leadership now need to be finally stopped once for all.

The question that begs an honest answer therefore is that how does autonomy, more political concessions, pre-1953 status, etc. give them an edge on overall improvement. Surely that all-India yardsticks for a better life, applicable to all communities in India, should also apply to them. Article 370 has already granted them extensive funds, multifarious loans and unfettered advances, much above all-India averages. If anything, this magnanimous licence to Central largesse, practically unaudited and totally misused, needs to be curbed and sensibly re-distributed within the State. Particularly, that it does not reach anti-India groups in the Valley, as has been the case so far.

The elections that were held in October 2002 elected representatives to the Legislative Assembly, must be equally adjudged against the present legislative layout of the three provinces of the State, Ladakh, Jammu and the Valley, and whether after the past 50 years with so many elections having been held earlier, the aspirations of the three areas have been fulfilled. If not, the reasons behind this lack of performance.

Legislative Index, Impact & Fallout

As per the Indian Constitution, seat allotment in legislative assemblies is on the basis of geographical size, population, road communications etc. The criteria laid down specifies the number of seats that must be allotted against these yardsticks. This aspect is covered by the Representation of J&K People's Act as per Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.

In this context, the “Table of Population on “Census and Area” under “Fact and figures”, Kashmir valley has an area of 16000 kms, and a population of 31.0 lacs. Jammu Province an area of 26,500 kms and population of 27.0 lacs and Ladakh an area of 96,700 kms with a population of around 14.0 lacs.

Population figures are based on 1981 census.

Applicability of the number of seats is therefore to be based on the following facts. Firstly, Jammu Region is one and a half times the size of the Valley and comprises 45 percent of the States population; Secondly, Ladakh Province is the largest of all the regions with its population thinly spread over a large area; Thirdly; The Valley is much smaller in size and has a comparatively denser population (only); and lastly; The Ladakh and Jammu regions combined overall comprise more than half the States area and over 50 percent of the total population.

Despite these basic parameters, the initial De-Limitation Commission, obviously under misadvised political pressure at that point of time, made seat allotments to the State Legislative Assembly in an inconsistent and unproportionate manner, effects of which have had long reaching consequences on the J&K scenario. Before proceeding further, it would be appropriate to study the seat allotments as made by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah past-1947 after accession of the State to the Indian Union.

Jammu was initially given 30 seats, (later raised to 32 seats), while Ladakh was given a paltry 2 seats. The Valley was given a total of 43 seats. This was a patently un-equitably allotment put across under a stage-managed show of representation, which unfortunately under Sheikh Abdullah’s influence on the then PM, went unnoticed. Subsequently the last De-Limitation Commission, failed to correct the biased and parochial representation and proceeded to retain the imbalance by giving Jammu 37 seats but unnecessarily without valid reasons increased the Valley representation to 46 seats. Ladakh was not given any additional seats despite several protestations.

After the Praja Parishad agitation and recommendations made under Governor rule, the Wazir Commission was subsequently set-up in 1983 to go into these complaints of the Jammu and Ladakh regions. The Commission came under severe pressure from the State Government of Dr Farooq Abdullah to ensure that the overall majority allotments to the Valley were not damaged and that the status-quo in the imbalance was maintained.

The Wazir Commission, while staying quiet on the assembly seat ratios, held that three more districts be created in Jammu Region, at Reasi, Kishtwar and Bhau, and that there was no necessity for any changes in the Valley and Ladakh. This was over-ruled by the State government which felt that adding another three districts to Jammu would convey too much weightage to the region and create complications for them later. Instead, three new districts of Badgam, Kupwara and Baramulla in the Valley and a Shia-dominated district specifically created in Ladakh on the sensitive Srinagar-Leh Road at Kargil.

The Ladakh Buddhist Association vehemently protested against this discriminatory and potentially dangerous act of unnecessarily carving out of a Shia District in Ladakh. Dr Farooq Abdullah’s sop of granting two additional MLA seats for Ladakh did not satisfy the Ladakhi people, who fully supported by the Jammu Region, commenced a determined agitation with strikes, administrative logjams and representations to the Central government. It was indeed a fortunate circumstance that immediately thereafter, President Rule came into operation in J&K. The Ladakh Region’s Autonomous Hill Council status was approved, something which could never have happened under the National Conference government.

Additionally, for reasons unknown, the Valley returns representatives to the Lok Sabha as MP’s, at the rate of one per 10 lac people, whereas Jammu and Ladakh regions have reps respectively in the Lok Sabha at the rate of one per 14 lakh people. This is a further political imbalance based on incorrect norms. The Gajendragadkar Commission in its 1986 Report made many detailed comments on the discrimination shown and its after effects. Unfortunately matters were allowed to drift. Even the Sarkaria Commission failed to spot this weightage since it was being fed with inputs from the state government and given no special aspects to consider.

In the Future Contest

From all these observations, it can be seen how legislative manipulation has ensured that the Valley has dominated the entire geographical territory of J&K State. There can be no gain saying the fact that overtly and covertly, the Valley based leadership, have aimed at, practiced unhindered, and brazenly endorsed the fact of Kashmir valley precedence in all the three regions, despite geographic, demographic, cultural factors dictating otherwise. This has been done by passing legislation at will, and then claiming it represented the people’s wishes as expressed in the State Legislative.

Under the present allocation of MLA seats, the overwhelming legislative majority is with the Valley, Already this excessive majority element in the Assembly has created problems through embarrassing resolutions time and again.

The Valley only does not comprise J&K State. What is suitable to the Valley, does not necessarily endorse itself to being suitable for the other two regions. The existing dichtomy needs to be corrected at the earliest by the creation of equally balanced representation within the State Legislative Assembly. Only this can give the other two provinces of J&K a chance to fulfill there aspirations without being legislatively overshadowed and dominated. The demand for trifurcation is based on these incontroversial facts and hence needs to be addressed at this crucial stage. The imbalance must be corrected so that adjustments fit into our future plans for the State.

“Devolution talks” should be to enforce better governance and specifically decentralization of powers, presently totally with the Valley; definitely not to jeopardies our security, solidarity and integrity. Devolution of powers must also re-adjust the seat allotments rationally and not pamper to or promote secessionist ideas based on long term plans of anti-India groups. Further concessions of any kind whatsoever will not change the ground situation as a bench-mark has already been reached. Any further erosion of the Valley’s tenuous relationship with the Indian union must not be allowed under any circumstances whatsoever.

By Satya Pal Dang

One of the most importtant tasks before the political ‘class’ of India today is to ensure that mandate given by the people of state of Jammu and Kashmri in the recently held elections is honoured and the Kashmir dispute is finally resolved. This can be discussed fruitfully if relevant background is first recalled.

There were in a manner two Indias before India won her independence. One, British India which was ruled directly by the British imperialist rulers. Second India consisted of 500 Princely states each one of which was being ruled by supposed-to be-autocratic Princes/Maharajas/Kings etc. A few like J&K were big. Some were very tiny. All others were in between, area wise as well as population-wise. In fact all the rulers were puppets of the British. People of the princely states thus  thus suffered under double yoke.

Leadership of the freedom movement/struggle was in the hands of the bourgeois class. It chose to make compromises with the British rulers who had realised that they could not help quitting India and who too therefore were keen to have a compromise/settlement. It was a part of the settlement that sovereignty in relation to the Indian states would rest with the rulers and each ruler would decide whether his state would join India or Pakistan or remain independent.

Maharaja of Kashmir wanted that J&K should join neither India nor Pakistan. He had the support of Praja Parishad (an RSS front organisation) They believed that independent J&K ruled by a Hindu Maharaja would be a Hindu State ala Nepal. Leadership of the National Conference headed by Sheikh Abdullah wanted J&K to be in India as it was the leadership of India’s freedom struggle that had been supporting their struggles against the Princely rule and its oppression and exploitation. In this matter Kashmiris like people of Jammu and Ladakh were whole heartedly with the National Conference.

Rebuffed by the Kashmiris, new rulers of Pakistan sent “raiders” (Army disguised as raiders) into the Kashmir. Indian Army could not be sent as J&K Maharaja had refused to sign the instrument of accession. Resistance was put up only by activists of National Conference and Communists besides the common people. Maharaja at last signed the instrument of accession and agreed to Sheikh Abdullah (father of Farooq Abdullah) taking over as Chief Minister of the State, when Pakistanis were almost at the gate of Srinagar. Indian Army was ordered to enter J&K and throw out the so-called raiders. Indian Army was greeted by Kashmiris with great enthusiasm, welcome-slogans and with flowers and garlands. Valley was got rid of raiders. India had sought the help of the UNO against Pakistani aggression. A cease-fire was ordered. There was also a resolution which said that after Pakistan had withdrawn its forces from the entire state, there would be a plebiscite to decide whether the people of the J&K State as a whole would join India, Pakistan or remain independent. Had Pakistan fulfilled the conditions including withdrawing from the paert beyond the cease-fire line and a plebiscite had then taken place, whole of J&K State would have undoubtedly come to India. Instigated by the British and the USA, Pakistani rulers violated the resolution and refused to withdraw. The resolution therefore lapsed. India had insisted that the resolution was not made enforcible by the UNO. It was under a clause which governed such agreements as would be enforced only by the parties to the agreement. Not long ago it was conceded by the present General Secretary of the UNO that this resolution could not be enforced by UNO. India’s contention has now been recognised even by the “World Community” that the resolution could no longer be invoked after Pakistan’s refusal to comply with the conditions it had agreed to and after ground realities under went many changes.

Unlike most of the rulers, Maharaja of J&K did not agree that Constitution of India would be applicable to J&K too. The leadership of the National Conference too wanted greater autonomy. As a result of mutual negotiations, it was agreed to have Article 370 of the Constitution (originally  its number was different) and that J&K State would have its own constitution to be framed by an elected Constituent Assembly. No body disputes that this Assembly was elected through a completely free and fair elections.

Constitution of J&K adopted by it declared that J&K would be a part of India. It also provided that transfer of more powers to Centre would take place only with the consent of J&K Assembly.

With this essential background, we can discuss mandate of the recent elections to the J&K Assembly and tasks ahead.

***

II. Mandate of the recently held elections is clearly fractured (i) People of J&K as a whole have voted against the rule of the National Conference headed by Farooq Abdullah. Alienation is the result of its failure to continue the struggle for greater autonomy that the state has at present and using the Autonomy slogans only to win elections; its opportunist alliance with BJP and its misgovernance and corruption. The fact that Farooq was all the time flying between Sri Nagar and UK must have also weighed with some voters. (ii) People of Jammu have given a very strong mandate in favour of Congress while BJP stands routed in the entire state including Jammu, earlier its strong hold. RSS slogan that J&K must be trifurcated has been decisively rejected by people of Jammu as well as Kashmir (iii) In the Valley National Conference is still the strongest party. People’s Democratic Party (PDP) comes next with fairly strong support. Congress which has swept Jammu has not faired well  in the Valley. (All this is in terms of seats won and it is that which is relevant as far as formation of Government is concerned. A fully correct picture will emerge when voting figures are available and the same are analysed objectively).

Whatever views one may have, no one can assert that the Congress-PDP government with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed of PDP as the Chief Minister in any way violated the mandate of the people. It needs to be noted that some sort of unwritten cooperation took place between the two parties even during the election itself.

Mandate needs to be examined not only in terms of Government formation but also and much  more deeply as to what the coalition government should do. Clearly and first and foremost it is a mandate against terrorism and for restoration of peace. Clearly also it is a mandate for greater autonomy. People of Jammu have given a mandate to undo injustice done to them by the governments of the National Conference. Within J&K State, they should get regional autonomy. People of Ladakh may be for UT status but they too would welcome regional autonomy which will in fact would be better for them.

Clearly the peace constituency is considerably bigger than would appear from percentage of voters who exercised their voting rights risking their lives. Many though wanting peace must have considered it wiser not to risk their lives by exercising their right to vote. Even if there were complete peace already, 30 to 40 percent may not have exercised their right to vote as happens invariably. On the opposite side of peace can be counted only those who did not vote in response to the call for boycotting elections. They would obviously be a minority-may not be insignificant but surely not a very big minority either. The new government therefore must do all it can for restoration of peace and towards that end it should seek and get full help and cooperation from the government of India.

It would be totally wrong to think as some people seem to that mandate is to crush terrorism in the way the USA has done (!)  it in Afghanistan. It would also be wrong to think that alienation from India which had developed is a thing of the past and we are where we were when Indian Army marched in to Kashmir to throw out the raiders.

Alienation from India had grown mainly because Government of India had been rigging elections to J&K Assembly (except once when Morarji Desai was the Prime Minister, to some extent in 1996, and now in 2002. For the largely fair elections now, India has to be thankful to the Election Commission of India). To some extent, bourgeoisie that grew in Kashmir valley as a result of capitalist development, fuelled the demand for Azad Kashmir because it thought that Azadi would enable it to have the best of both the worlds. Kashmiri Muslims always had kept a long distance from fundamentalism though religious fundamentalism could not in the given circumstances but exercise some influence. Perhaps last straw on the camel's back was the totally wrong and unconstitutional dismissal of Govt. of Farooq Abdullah and installation of Shah as the Chief Minister in 1984. Alienation reached its peak. But for this, terrorism would not have grown on the soil of Kashmir. Cross border terrorism too can succeed only if a section of the people because of their deep rooted grievances is at least sympathetic to it.

Rigging of election was done to ensure a loyal government in the state. And with the help of the loyal governments autonomy of J&K was very much diluted. This could not but evoke strong resentment.

Experience of fight against Khalistani terrorism in Punjab has shown that terrorism can be best fought if it is fought both on law and order as well as political front. The latter to remove/lessen alienation and feeling of injustice, real or imagined, and on law and order front because no government can take the ridiculous position that killings by terrorists must be suffered till a political solution is found. Unfortunately governments of India of various hues never adopted a correct policy in actual practice. Emphasis has been only on "bullet for bullet" and hardly anything to overcome alienation.

For overcoming alienation of the Kashmiris it was necessary to ensure that excesses were not committed during the fight, that every possible effort was made to prevent killings of innocents, where some innocent get killed unavoidably to own it and to render maximum help to the family. Secondly, and this would be the meaning of fighting on political front, to agree to considerably greater autonomy than J&K enjoys today.

Excesses committed by terrorists began alienating them from the people. More than once opportunities came when alienation of the people from India could have been overcome. These were missed. There is a golden opportunity now and this must not be missed. To ensure that, the new government must take steps to undo wrongs done previously.

It should not release any terrorists but those who had not committed any act of terrorism or have surely given up terrorism should be released. Those in the process of giving up terrorism, should be helped by all suitable measure, whether they are outside or inside the jail. Hue and cry being raised by BJP against commitment that POTO would not be used is ill conceived. POTO can do more harm than good just as TADA did that. Infact POTO is worse and a more lawless law. The necessary warning should be that killers must not be shown any mercy and there must be no soft corner as till they give up terrorism.

As far as autonomy for J&K State as a whole is concerned, there may be no going back to pre-1953 position i.e. only 3 departments for the Centre. But state will have to be given considerably greater autonomy than it has today. May be some thing on the lines of 1975 Indira-Sheikh Agreement. Concrete packages will have to be worked out for Jammu as well as Ladakh. J&K government cannot deliver all this. Only the Govt. of India can deliver. State government do whatever it can and press New Delhi for the rest.

State government can deliver a lot in the matter of good governance e.g. ensuring decrease in unemployment, as well as corruption bettering the lot of the poor, etc. It can do that despite its limited powers if the ruling politicians prove to be of a different metal than generally India's politicians are today. Whether in power or in opposition they are governed only by two considerations (i) what will enable them to enrich themselves, and (ii) What will help them to fetch them votes.

There is no such thing as principles or long-term interest of the people. Mehbooba Mufti looks like a politician of the type J&K needs to day. I hope there are many more of the required mould. If J&K politicians-ruling or otherwise-act with the same spirit with which our freedom fighters did, they would save not only their own state but the whole of India. Return of Pandits too must be on their top agenda.

Given advances in the above correct direction and given steps to take the whole truth to the people of Pakistan, it will not be difficult to resolve the Indo-Pak dispute Kashmir. Let us not forget that neither people of India nor of Pakistan want another Indo-Pak war. Both want lasting peace and friendship between the two countries. And this reality will make possible a just and honourable settlement on the basis of Shimla Agreement.

*The author is a veteran communist leader based in Punjab.

By Dr B.N. Sharga

Hinduism is the oldest religion which has not been confined to any time frame and is generally considered as the way of life, based on scientific approach for an all round development of human personality. That is why Hinduism has the greatest power of absorbing and assimilating different faiths and even divergent views into it. It is simply because the Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. According to this concept every body is born as a Hindu and is then taken to different faiths after going through certain prescribed customs and rituals to have his separate distinct identity in the society.

The Vedas are not merely books but they are the accumulated treasure of divine laws discovered by different persons in different times. The discoverers of those divine laws are called as “Rishis” and we honour them as perfect beings. They were actually the original Hindu Philosophers who defined the way of life for all human beings and initiated a process of thought in them.

It is because of all this wisdom and knowledge contained in the Vedas and its interpretation in Brahmanas, Arankyas and Upanishads that it is generally believed that the Hindu Philosophy starts where the Western Philosophy ends. In India Kashmir has always been regarded  as the highest seat of learning from times immemorial, which has produced a galaxy of original thinkers and eminent Philosophers like Kshemendra, Mammat, Kaiyyat, Vijrat, Uvvat, Kalhan, Bilhan, Bhallat and Kantak etc. Acharya Abhinavgupt is being regarded as the founder of Kashmir’s Shaiva Philosophy, which was further elucidated through Tantra Shastra by Acharya Vasugupt. One such outstanding Kashmiri Philosopher and original thinker was Professor Iqbal Krishna Sharga, who elucidated the Vedantic Philosophy in an entirely new perspective correlating it with the modern thought about the theory of evolution after deeply studying the works of reputed western scholars and thinkers.

Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga’s ancestor Pt. Zind Ram Kaul “Dattatreya” was originally a resident of Rainawari Mohalla in the Srinagar district of the Kashmir valley, who came to the imperial capital Delhi during the rule of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707) from the Valley after taking refuge at different places on the way like Murree, Rawalpindi and Lahore. He was a Sanskrit and a Persian scholar. After some time he got a job in the Mughal court and started living in Bazaar Sita Ram with his family members. Not much is known about his son Pandit Sahab Kaul “Dattatreya” as to what type of job he did for his livelihood. Pandit Sahab Kaul “Dattatreya” had two sons. They were Laxmi Narain Kaul and Niranjan Das Kaul.

Since the decline of the Mughal empire started after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, so both these brothers Laxmi Narain Kaul and Niranjan Das Kaul after completing their traditional education in Urdu and Persian language at Delhi came to Oudh during the rule of Nawab Shujaud Daula (1753-1775) to get a good job in his court at Faizabad which was the seat of the provincial government at that time. Since both these brothers were quite robust in health and were stoutely built with very good physique so they got a job very easily in the Shahi Fauj and were made the commanders of its mounted division by the Nawab Shujaud Daula. The Nawab then made them responsible for the security of his daughter in law, Begum Shamsul Nisa and her jagir. The Nawab’s wife Jenab Bahu Begum Ammat-uz-Zuhara became so much pleased with the work of both Laxmi Narain Kaul and Niranjan Das Kaul that she granted them a royal Wasiqa in 1813, a sort of hereditary pension.

When Nawab Asafud Daula shifted his seat of government from Faizabad to Lucknow in 1775 after the death of his father Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula, both these brothers Pandit Laxmi Narain Kaul and Pandit Niranjan Das Kaul came to Lucknow along with the royal entourage and started living in Rani Katra Mohalla which was founded around 1720 by Rani, the wife of a Hindu Risaldar Girdhar Nagar during the rule of Mughal Emperor Mohammed Shah. Pandit Laxmi Narain Kaul and Pandit Niranjan Das Kaul after getting the royal recognition for their services in the form of Wasiqa started writing Kaul Sharga as their surname.

The elder brother Pandit Laxmi Narain Kaul Sharga had three sons. Durga Prasad, Sheo Prasad and Prem Narain while the younger brother Niranjan Das Kaul Sharga had four sons Nar Singh Dutt, Badri Nath, Kanhaiyya Lal and Kedar Nath besides two daughters Chando married in a Mushran family and Meena. Pandit Niranjan Das Kaul Sharga died in 1824. His third son Pandit Kanhaiyya Lal Kaul Sharga had a son whose name was Pandit Sheo Krishna Sharga. The name of his wife was Rameshwari who died around 1878.

Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga was the son of Pt. Sheo Krishna Sharga. He was born around 1861 in Rani Katra, Lucknow. He had his traditional education in Urdu and Persian language under the guidance of learned Maulvis in a nearby Maktab. He then took admission in Government Jubilee College and did his matriculation around 1877. He took admission in Canning College for higher studies which was established by the Taluqdars of Oudh, originally in 1862 in a rented building in Aminabad in memory of Lord Canning. He did his F.A. in 1879 and B.A. in 1881 from this institution, which was affiliated with the Calcutta University at that time. Here it must be kept in mind that the British after taking over the administration of India from the East India Company in 1858, in order to introduce the European pattern of education in this country established initially three universities in India, at its important port cities Calcutta, Bombay and Madras around 1862. The whole of north India from Calcutta to Peshawar was then placed under the jurisdiction of the Calcutta University for conducting the examinations and for awarding the degrees.

Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga after completing his education took up a teaching job around 1883 to became a Professor of Philosophy in Bareilly College, Bareilly. He was a voracious reader and an original thinker, so he became quite popular among his students, who used to listen to his lecturers on Hindu Philosophy with rapt attention. He wrote some books and became a well recognised authority on Hindu Philosophy for his original ideas and interpretations. His basic concept was that the whole Hindu Philosophy originates from the syllable “Om”. This syllable is indeed Brahma; this syllable is highest, whosoever knows this syllable obtains all that he desires.

The goals which all the Vedas declare, which all austerities aim at, and which men desire when they lead a life of contentment is symbolized with this syllable “Om” as per the following saying.

“Na the jab Ved or Brahma

Hua tab Shabd Onkara”

Impressed by Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga’s originality of thought and his interpretation of the Vedantic Philosophy Prof. William Knight of the St. Andrews University of Scotland while commenting on one of his books wrote the following lines “I rejoice that such teachings are given to the young men who attend the lectures at Bareilly”.

Likewise another Professor of Philosophy of the St. Andrews University of Scotland Prof. DG Ritchie commented on Prof. Sharga’s book that it was most admirably written.

Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga was such a learned person that although he was simply a B.A. but he used to teach the Philosophy even to M.A. students with great authority. He was very progressive in his ideas and views and therefore used to keep himself always ahead of his time. He used to command a great respect in the society for his academic depth.

When the annual convention of the Kashmiri Pandits’ National Club was held in 1882 in the historic “Ganju Walon Ka Shadikhana” in Kashmiri Mohalla, Lucknow, he took an active part in that convention in which the prominent leaders of the community from all over the country like Pt. Ayodhya Nath Kunzru, Pt. Shyam Narain Masaldan, Pt. Jagat Narain Malla, Pt. Ganga Prasad Taimni, Pt. Bishna Narain Dar, Pt. Rattan Nath Dar “Sarshar”, Pt. Manohar Nath Sapru, Pt. Bisheshwar Nath Hangal, Pt. Madho Prasad Sharga, Pt. Sangam Lal Chak, Pt. Sri Krishna Tikku, Pt. Bishan Narain Razdan Pt. Brij Narain Gurtu, etc. had participated. The emphasis was laid in this historic convention to bring about social reforms in the community and to encourage the members of the younger generation towards the European education so that they may not feel any difficulty in getting good jobs under the fast changing social and political scenario in the country with the British at its helm of affairs.

Dr. Annie Besant came to India in 1893 to study the Vedas in depth. Later on she formed the Theosophical Society of India for the revival of the Vedantic philosophy and way of life in the country. Pt. Suraj Narain Bahadur, who was a sub judge and an educationist became the secretary of this society. He used to organise its meetings at his residence in Kashmiri Mohalla in which progressive minded and liberal Pandits of the locality like Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga, Hari Krishna Kaul, Sri Krishna Tikku, Jagat Narain Mulla, Bishan Narain Dar, Madho Prasad Sharga and Ratan Nath Dar “Sarshar” etc. generally used to take part in the deliberations. In this way Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga came into close contact with Dr. Annie Besant, who became highly impressed by Prof. Sharga’s command over the English language and his deep knowledge of the Vedantic Philosophy.

Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga also helped and guided Pt. Brij Narain Chakbast to start a library and to form Kashmiri Youngmen’s Association in Kashmiri Mohalla in 1905 to prepare young Kashmiri Pandit boys to face the challenges of life with grit and determination.

In Kashmir after the death of Maharaja Ranbir Singh (1857-1885) in 1885, his son Maharaja Pratap Singh became the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir Riyasat. To provide good education to the people of the Kashmir valley, on the initiative of Dr Annie Besant, Sir Pratap Singh Hindu School was established around 1898 in Srinagar in a rented house at Sattho Barbar Shah which later on became famous as S.P. College at Kothi Bagh on Maulana Azad Road, imputing European pattern of education to its students in the Valley. Actually S.P. College, the prestigious institution of higher education in the Kashmir valley was founded in 1905 as an intermediate college managed by the Central Hindu College Trust, Benaras. Its first Principal was Prof. M.U. Moore a reputed Irish scholar and a graduate of the Cambridge University, London.

He functioned as Principal of this institution upto 1908. After that another European scholar Prof. E. William Collie was appointed as the Principal of this college in 1908, who unfortunately died in the same year due to a fire accident in the houseboat in which he was staying. Then in his place Prof. Vinamali Chakarvorty, a Bengal fellow was appointed as the first Indian Principal of this college. But he could not function as Principal due to certain reasons.

In 1909 Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga along with another Mohalla fellow Pt. Chand Narain Bahadur went to Kashmir just for excursion from Kashmiri Mohalla, Lucknow and became the first Indian and a Kashmiri Principal of SP College whereas Pt. Chand Narain Bahadur became the Professor of English in the same institution. Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga due to his awe inspiring personality and deep knowledge about his subject soon became very popular among his students who used to respect him like anything. He used to live near Amira Kadal, on the Residency Road, besides a famous bakery shop owned by a Parsi fellow nicknamed as Odu. He was fond of wearing the European dress and was a reserved person by temperament. He never used to indulge in loose talks during college hours and was a very strict disciplinarian. He was also a very good chess and Bridge player and a lover of Urdu and Persian poetry. Due to the untirring efforts of Iqbal Krishna Sharga, S.P. College became a degree college in 1911 which was affiliated with the Benaras Hindu University initially. After its take over by the state government in 1911 under the pressure of the British who became alarmed due to the growing influence of Annie Besant in the valley this college was then in 1912, affiliated with the Punjab University of Lahore and the word Hindu was dropped from its name. It was during the tenure of Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga that science classes were introduced upto the intermediate level in this institution. He also started the tradition of celebrating the spring festival in the college premises on a lavish scale every year. Now this college is affiliated with the Kashmir University, Srinagar and Dr SG Sarwar is its Principal at present.

Swami Vivekanand was the first Indian who introduced the essence of the Hindu Philosophy to the Western World when he kept the Americans spell bound for three days by delivering an extempore lecture on Zeero in Chicago in 1894. According to him it can not be proved that thought has been evolved out of matter, and if a philosophical monism is inevitable then spiritual monism is certainly logical and no less desirable than a materialistic monism.

In his words “this life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live, who live for others the rest are more dead than alive”.

Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga during his tenure as the Principal of S.P. College not only toned up its administration but also tried his best to maintain high academic standards in the institution by imparting good education to its students to build up the reputation of the college just to make it one of the best educational institution of the valley and he succeeded to a very great extent in his mission and that too during that period when the percentage of literacy was very low in the Valley. Due to his efforts M.A. classes were started in 1917 in the college. His pioneering efforts in the field of higher education in the Valley will always be remembered. He retired from service in 1921 and after that he went to Benaras (Varanasi) to live with his son who was employed there. He was succeeded by Lawrence Marcdermat, again a British scholar of repute.

Actually Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga was an authority on all the branches of modern Philosophy. He had written a number of books and treatises on various aspects of this subject, which won him both admiration and fame in Europe and America. His comprehensive treatise on the famous Barkley’s theory of vision was highly appreciated in the foreign countries. He used to teach English and Philosophy with equal case. He used to derive great pleasure while teaching his pet subject Philosophy to the post graduate students. He had evolved his own style of teaching. His lectures were always very rich in their contents and his way of explaining even the most complex theories was really very superb. He all through maintained poise and dignity of his profession like a savant. Though his independence of character was not very much appreciated by the then minister in charge of higher education Dr. A. Mitra, a Bengali fellow with a great liking for sycophants around him. To bring about a better understanding between the Hindu and Muslim students in the college he founded the common tea club for them and he used to subsidise it. To encourage the meritorious students he used to give them prizes and awards from his own pocket. He also used to give the financial aid to widows and orphans from his income. To improve the over all performance of the students, he introduced the monthly examination system in the college to assess their knowledge. He used to organise debates and lectures of the eminent people in the college regularly just to broaden the outlook of his students.

Naturally being the Principal of a prestigious college, he was well known among the elite of the town. He also developed a good rapport with Mr. Neidu, the owner of the Neidu’s Hotel in Srinagar.

He was a member of that coterie of Kashmiri Pandits, who went from Kashmiri Mohalla, Lucknow and other places to Kashmir during the British period to take up various jobs there like Pt. Har Sahai Bahadur and his grandson Prof. Chand Narain Bahadur, Raja Suraj Kaul and his son Raja Sir Daya Krishna Kaul, Dr. Roop Narain Haksar, Pt. Sri Ram Taimni, Pt. Brij Lal Nehru, Pt. Shiv Narain Bhan, Pt. Brij Mohan Dattatreya, Pt. Autar Krishna Wattal and Pt. Praduman Krishna Kitchlu etc. who were very close to Maharaja Pratap Singh (1885-1925) and all of them were regarded as his most trusted people at that time.

Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga was married around 1874 with Jai Kishori (Iqbal Rani) who was the daughter of Pt. Kedar Nath Muttoo of Khetgali, Rani Katra. He had a son and a daughter. The name of his son was Pt. Hari Krishna Sharga and that of his daughter was Raj Dulari who was married with Dr. Roop Narain Haksar, the son of Dewan Swaroop Narain Haksar of the Indore State. Dr Roop Narain Haksar was the personal Physician of Maharaja Pratap Singh. He used to live in Srinagar. He died quite young. His wife could not bear the shock of his death and committed suicide by jumping into the well. She had three sons Shyam Sunder Haksar, Ram Chandra Haksar and Mahendra Haksar.

Pt. Hari Krishna Sharga was employed in the education department in the then United Provinces and used to live in Kamachcha in Benaras now Varanasi. He was married with Krishna Dulari who was the daughter of Pt. Ram Narani Channa of Kashmir. He had three daughter Lalita, Kamla and Girja. His eldest daughter Lalita was married with Pt. Chand Narain Haksar. His second daughter Kamla was married with Pt. Madan Mohan Lal Kitchlu the son of Pt. Kishori Lal Kitchlu who was a sub judge in Jammu. His third and youngest daughter Girija was married with Pt. Shyam Sunder Padru.

Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga in the fag end of his life developed throat Cancer, perhaps due to intake of tobacco with beetle leaves, a Lucknavi fad and died due to this dreadful disease around 1925 at the age of about 64 years in Benaras at his son’s place.

Prof. Iqbal Krishna Sharga enjoyed his life in full measure and did remarkable work in the field of Hindu Philosophy. He used to say that Vedas teach us that creation is with out any beginning or end. The science on the other hand has proved that the sum total of cosmic energy always remains the same. Then if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy then? This million dollar question is still eluding a clear cut convincing answer to satisfy the seekers of knowledge. This fallacy forces me to quote the following words of Adlai Stevensen in this regard.

“It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge, if you think you look funny on a horse”.

*The writer has authored four volume history of Kashmiri Pandits, 'Kashmir Ke Anmol Ratan' and is based in Lucknow. His researches into unknown aspects of social history of Kashmiri  Pandits have won wide acclaim. He has been making untiring effforts to bring old Kashmiri Pandits, who have lost their language, closer to Kashmiri-speaking Pandits.

Differentiations and Contradictions

By Prof. Mohan Lal Koul

Deeply embedded in the rural ambience of Kashmir Nund Rishi, a first generation convert of Rajput origins from Kishtwar, can be characterised as the saviour of peasant masses in the wake of their conversion to the Islamic faith through ‘Qahran va Jabran’ as history frankly told in the Baharistan-i-Shahi, a Muslim chronicle in Persian. Inspired by ‘old inheritance’ and ‘indigenous culture model’, he in a saint-like humility placed himself in the uninterrupted line of rishis thereby aligning himself with the entire repertoire of rishi tradition rooted in the vedic age. The Sayyid-sufis as fugitives from Central Asia operating under the protective shield of the Muslim state power brought about the destruction and forcible occupation of the hermitages (ashramas) radiating the light of humanitarian spirituality. As evidenced by the Neelmatpuran, such hermitages set up within the locales of secluded spots were littered over the entire picturesque landscape of the Valley of Kashmir. The present day ziarats or astans (asthapans) of rishis were the same old hermitages that were cruelly destructed and then used for installation of graves or samadhis of the rishis who in the apt and pithiful words of Abul Fazl formed a specific cult within the matrix of Hinduism. Islam in Kashmir was just sixty year old when Nund Rishi emerged on the scene to assert the native roots and ethos which were under onslaught from the Central Asian Sayyid-Sufis and Ulemas.

The whole lot of Sayyid-Sufis and other theologians were wedded to mundane politics and were fully conversant with the role and importance of political power to weed out infidelity as a pre-requisite to expand the space for Islam. As an expression of their religious culture they were extremely uncharitable in condemning the natives as ‘kafirs’ and their religious practices and customs as ‘heretical’. Shariat (Islamic law and precedent), to them, was the light-house and Persian, their native language, was the store-house of all knowledge. Having a deep streak of hubris and arrogance in their personal culture they openly spurned the natives of all shades as ‘wretched people’ given to polytheistic, animistic and other pagan practices. As they had no smattering in the local dialect they could not have close rapport or inter-action with the natives with a view to transforming their pagan behaviour for a new baptisation. Yet they created a critical situation for the natives through cynical rejection of indigenous belief systems, traditions and mythic lore without filling in the empty space thus created by an alternate culture model, which is the product of generations of value accumulation. In view of resistance from the sub-jugated natives they made lot many compromises which despite their orthodoxy could not be termed as truly Islamic in content and spirit. Prayers as per the Islamic way were not digested as spiritually elevating and the Sayyid-Sufis and Ulemas meekly gave in to allow the Hindu manner of hymn-singing (kirtan) though with a changed content of alien origins. Over-awed by the sweep and vast range of indigenous social codes and axiologies the Sayyid-Sufis in a steep climb-down introduced Hanafi brand of jurisprudence for the natives lest they should slip out of the tenuous Islamic fold to their birth religion which appeared to them more liberal than the new imposition. Stuck to orthodox religiosity they were the least spiritual and their concepts and precepts about spiritual goals and trajectories were dim, feeble and blurred. Many an eminent sociologist has termed conversions in Kashmir as anything but spiritual for the converted lot, termed as ‘statistical Muslims’ never abandoned their Buddhist-cum-Hindu practices, customs, attitudes and value systems.

As a prescient representative of native roots, ethos and milieu Nund Rishi spear-headed a rishi cult, purely spiritual in content and perception, to revive and reinforce the ramparts of the indigenous identity of natives who were completely alienated from the foreign Sayid-Sufis and Ulemas enjoying unprecedented favours and patronage from the Muslim state that had negated and rendered false the so-called e galitarian content of Islam through pursuit of paradigms that were iniquitous and crass cruel. Nund Rishi was in the theologian by culture and orientation. He called himself Nunda Sanz stands testified by his shrukhs (slokas) and also by the elegy written by Shyama, an inmate of the khanqah, in the wake of his death. Jonraj in his Rajtarangini names him as Noor-ud-Din and that testifies to his having been re-christened as Noor-ud-Din by the same oppressive forces even though he had flimsy and cosmetic Islamic bring-up. He provided substantial cultural succour and support to a large section of peasant masses through his poetical outpourings that are suffused with indigenous lore and learning, cultural moares and motifs. Given to asceticism and self-mortification he struck a note that evoked a vibrant and spontaneous response from the peasant plebians who were the recipients of ascetical and introspective mind and temperament as heritage from the Buddhists and Vedantins of yore.

What can be gleaned from historical and other literary sources is that caste barriers in Kashmir were not the same rigid and hide-bound as we find them in the Smriti-Puranic belt. As an impact of the Buddhist ideology and committed egalitarianism the caste hierarchies had loosened, weakened and nearly crumbled. The crippling conversions unleashed by the Sayyid-Sufis with an active support of the Muslim state had no social significance in the sense of regeneration and revitalisation. As a paradoxical social milieu the amorphous ranks of Muslims, better termed as ‘statistical Muslims’, got vertically divided into ‘ashraf’ and ‘ajlaf’, one comprising high-brow and high-bred foreigners from Central Asian lands and the other comprising the mass of neo-converts, dubbed as deviants, idolatrous and ‘wicked’. The Sayyids as a distinct class of glory and grandeur crowned the battered social pyramid for the affinity they claimed to the Prophet’s family. The mass of ‘cultural destitutes’, a phrase from Nirad C. Choudhary, suffered a severe trauma both psychological and social, as they had no such lineage as could get them closer to the people of foreign extraction. In utter desperation some of them invented their new genealogies which were rejected as absurd and ludicrous by the superior brand of Muslims treating them as ‘low as dust’, a phrase from Srivar. Having realised the predicament of the ‘cultural destitutes’ floating in mid-air, more Hindus, less Muslims, Nund Rishi assured them of an equalitarian status in the rishi cult with khanqah as its fulcrum. Be it said that khanqah as an institution is a variant of the Buddhist Vihara.

The foreign Sayyid-Sufis were a breed entirely different from the native stock of rishis. They were vituperative hard-liners sticking to shariat and at one stroke they polarised the broad waters of Kashmiri society into lagoons of Hindus and Muslims. Sufism by and large has supposedly been associated at least in theory with love, humility, philanthropy and more than most belief in brotherhood of man. But the Central Asian sufis who poured into Kashmir as persecuted people sowed the seeds of hate and incoclasm and invoked ‘divine sanctions’ and ‘quranic tenets’ for eradication of infidelity and infidels. They as it appears can be featured as the direct recipients of the spirit of old Israel. They preached and practised blatant discrimination and hatred on grounds of race, religion, and creed and harnessed the Muslim state power for forcible conversions and destruction of indigenous roots. The author of the Zakhiratual-Muluk, a Kubrawi Sayyid-Sufi, has drawn a catalogue of twenty conditions for application to non-Muslims and prescribed without any qualms loot and murder of hard nuts daring to flout them. The Tohfatul-Ahbab, a Muslim work in Persian, has delineated the Sayyid-Sufis battened on beef and enormous quantities of food waging war on the natives who thwarted and resisted their iconoclastic activities.

Islam, to the Sayyid-Sufis, was imposition, infact, imposition at pain of death. It had no humanistic facets which have been the essence of Hindu faith facing extermination at their hands. They conceived of nothing but conversions and beyond that they harboured no visions to re-orientate and rejuvenate the society as a whole on the sound foundation of equity, humanism and justice. They were so narrow-minded that they could not see all shades of humans emanating from the same Divine Essence. The Central Asian Sayyid-Sufis including the Khurasanian brand, no doubt, carried the imprint of Buddhistic and Vedantic influences. But, despite that, their views on ‘kufra’, ‘religious conversions’ and ‘treatment to be meted out to men of other faiths’ were the same hide-bound and fanatical. They were not only an integral part of the unjust system established by Muslims but also perpetuated it through their scholastic tradition.

The native rishis as models of ascelicism and quietism with no interest in affairs mundane walked not in harmony but in total discord with the foreign Sayyid-Sufis out to spill blood in the name of Islam. They were holymen of peace, harmony, piety, non-violence and non-injury. The assiduous cultivation of noble qualities as already mentioned was a ‘value’ with them. They were so much humanised that they saw life and its vital pulsations in all manifestations of natural life. Any injury inflicted on any form of Divine manifestation was detested as sinful and ignoble. Generation of debilitating conflict, discord and disharmony was never their mission. ‘Peace with all’ as a Buddhist value was their hall-mark. The message of rishis was to endeavour to tear away from meshes of the world for attainment of a new uplifted incarnation through emergence into and identity with God. They shunned and detested the company of greats like kings, nobles and glamarous people in the corridors of power. They were humble, calm and spiritually on higher perches with contempt for material goods and material well-being.

The Sayyid -Sufis and Ulemas under the motivations of their religio-political culture totally rejected the spiritual goals  of rishies  and also the methodologies that they adhered to for attainment of the objective of their quest. The native concepts of spirituality were beyond their ken and experience. Deficient in sense and spirit of enquiry they had no faculties to know and learn about them even from theoretical perspective. Cynical rejection was all that they could conceive of. They spurned the rishis as a class of recluses having no credibility as per the Islamic tenets. The practice of visiting the graves or samadhis of rishis to implore for their intercession had no sanction from Islamic authorities. So the Sayyid-Sufis detested them as shirk, a deviation from the real Islam. Rishis detested meat-eating and lived on locally grown specific greens. Many of them had given up even the greens and lived just on water. To induce them to meat-eating of all types termed as ‘halal’ hagiographers mostly of foreign origins have figmented spiritual conferences to impress its obligation under ‘Suna’ and ‘Shariat’. Hari Rishi was denounced for breaking his rigorous fasts with pebbles and stones. To the Sayyid-Sufis Nund Rishi was illiterate and ignorant having no knowledge of Islamic scriptures. His going into lent (Chillas) was a practice that was denounced totally as un-Islamic. The rishis as a class had gained popularity with the mass of devotees not for their strict adherence to Hadith and Sharia but for their asceticism, meditation and hard living like the native ‘hatha-yogis’.

Secessionist violence in Kashmir represents a major challenge to the stability of the Indian nation state. It is a direct assault on two significant features of Indian polity - democracy and secularism.. In terms of security forces deployment it is India’s largest and most significant counter-insurgency to date. The expulsion of the entire Hindu community through a process of ethnic-cleansing has put a question  mark over the future of secularism in India. How India responds to decisively defeat the forces of violence and communalism in Kashmir will have profound bearing on future of democracy and secularism as vital ingredients in nation-building exercise.

Indian political leadership, during the past thirteen years, has blundered too often in handling the insurgency in Kashmir. Lack of vision and political will besides the manipulative role played by international agencies and country’s corrupt decadent metropolitan elite have thwarted all positive initiatives. Opportunities turned into liabilities.

What has led to the snowballing of the fundamentalist rebellion in Valley? Is rise of separatist sentiment only a recent arrival? Who is the Villain in the entire drama? All this has baffled scholars, politicians and the people alike. Much of the scholarship on Kashmir remains prejudiced, polemical, incomplete and self-serving. No one seems to be interested in addressing the fundamentals. Harangues on alienation and victim-hood of Kashmiri Muslims pass as serious scholarship. All this has served to obfuscate the real issue at stake - Kashmir’s survival as a democratic and secular society.

The crisis in Kashmir by Sumit Ganguly is another addition to this skewed scholarship on Kashmir. Published as a part of Woodrow Wilson Center series, this volume does not add something, which is not known. It hashes and rehashes the old formulations in a new package. At times these formulations seem too simplistic. Mere linking the rise of insurgency to so-called second wave of ethnolinguistic assertion in India or the curbing of democratic dissent does not explain the evolution of insurgency or its social and political content. This book enjoys considerable exposure in the US media for the only reason that the author underplays Pakistan’s role in stoking the insurgency and advocates conferring protectorate status on Kashmir as a solution to the impasse.

Legacy of Muslim Question:

Terrorist campaign in Kashmir can be better understood if it is situated in the context of the Muslim question and not the national question. In the Leninist sense there is no national question in India. There is no dominant nationality, which oppresses other national groups. Neither before 1947 or after it has self-determination ever been on the agenda of the political emancipation movements of Indian people. Colonial policies pursued by the British to consolidate their rule weakened the basis of linguistic subnationalism but strengthened religious sub-nationalism. The Muslim question is a legacy of British Colonial rule.

Would Kashmir have responded the same way with federal Centre had it been a Hindu-majority region? What would have been the Contours of Kashmiriat then?

The main challenges to Indian unity have surfaced in those peripheral border regions, where the dominant social group is also a national religious minority. Even in case of Punjab, majority of the Sikhs did not feel fundamentally alienated from the Indian state. They had specific grievances against Congress and the Central government. In North-East twin process of underdevelopment and modernisation superimposed on the tribal nature of society fuelled the revolt. Christian missionary zealots and the external agencies played no less role in converting routine discontent into full-blown rebellion. Similarly failure of Indian state to check demographic invasion by Bangladeshi Muslims turned a section of Assamese against Delhi.

Limitations of Ethnic Muslim Nationalism

Fundamentalist insurgency in Kashmir is a consequence of a complex interplay of internal and external factors. Inherent contradictions in ethnic Muslim nationalism influenced the political line of National Conference, the premier political organisation of Kashmiris. Its ambignity towards secession and anti-secular character need to be studied in this context. Subsequent role of Sheikh Abdullah and National Conference i.g loud thinking on “Independence”, launching of Plebiscite Front, hobknobbings with Jamaat Islami, hostile attitude towards Kashmiri Pandits and people of Jammu and Ladakh are an extension of this political line. Intra - Muslim conflict between rural and urban sections or aspiring and ruling middle class would not have led to insurgency had not the 1973 oil boom in Gulf and Soviet intervention in Afghanistan created the ideological and politico-military infrastructure. The role of Americans and Pakistan has also been critical to the emergence of secessionist movement. US has been guilty on many counts. Its  map-making intrigues on Kashmir, raising doubts about accession, raking up bogey of human rights’ excesses, conniving in Pakistan’s blackmail on war and stalling effective action against terrorists or terrorist bases in PoK, are direct incitement to terrorists to carry on the campaign. Pakistan’s blatant sponsorship of cross-border terrorism has made Kashmir impervious to resolution at least, in the short term. ‘Militancy is on last legs’ or attributing terrorist acts to desperation do not reflect reality on the ground. It has to be a long haul in Valley. Successful Indian strategy would have to address reducing the costs of fighting proxy-war by localising the arena of conflict, denying the hideout to subversives and raising stakes constantly for Pakistan to force it to abandon the proxy-war. At the international level, Indian diplomats need to link resolution of Kashmir issue with the secular principle and highlight the multi-ethnic, multireligious character of society in J&K.

The inherent limitations in the secular and nationalistic character of National Conference made separatism a perpetual phenomenon since 1948. Its leadership headed by Sheikh Abdullah and Mirza Afzal Beg promoted Muslim identity at the cost of secular identity. Generations of Kashmiris were brought up on the politics of Plebiscite and Muslim exclusivist identity. How could secular institutions or opposition be nurtured in this atmosphere? Jamaat Islami only added a fundamentalist hue to what Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference were preaching. In 1965 the leadership of Ghulam Sadiq more than anything else was responsible for defeating the Pak game. He never wavered in his commitment to Indian Unity. On the contrary, Sheikh Abdullah, who knew about Operation  Gibraltor as per recent disclosures, did not take Indian leadership in confidence.

Sumit Ganguly’s study lacks historical perspective and is poor in analysis. It remotely touches the issues/phenomena linked with rise of fundamentalist violence in Kashmir. To him the rise of this sentiment is a recent development and pacification of ‘disgruntled’ Kashmiris the only issue at stake. His whole analysis is reduced to one argument that insurgency is product of political mobilisation and institutional decay. He argues that as part of wooing strategy the Indian state went out of way to expand literacy, mass and higher education in J&K. This process produced a generation of politically knowledgeable and “sophisticated” Kashm-iris. Simultaneously, the national government, fearful of potential secessionist proclivities among the Kashmirs, systematically stultified the development of political institutions in the state. Unable to express dissent in an institutional context, the new generation of Kashmiris resorted to violence. Even the rise of indigenous Islamist movement he attributes simply to a conspiracy by immigrant Bangladeshi and Assemese Moulvis. Prof. Mustafa  Kamal Pasha’s work on this dimension seems more convicting.

Rigging Factor

Rigging factor has been overplayed in Kashmir, and invariably the blame has been laid at Centre. It is strong competitive politics that generates accountability. Sheikh Abdullah’s organisation, National Conference stood aloof from electoral politics till 1975 and championed the separatist politics of plebiscite. In 1977 and 1983 Centre did not create any obstacles for NC’s return to power. In fact in these competitive elections, it were the minority groups that were sidelined through fraudulent delimitation, rigging and physical harassment. If curbing of democratic dissent and rigging were enough justification for resorting to violence, the minority groups should have been up in arms.

Dismissal of Farooq Abdullah government in 1984 or rigging in 1987 elections need to be seen in the context of launching of ‘Operation Topac’ by ISI in 1979. Hype on greater autonomy or moving of Resettlement Bill were not isolated acts. These motivated agendas had serious ramifications for national security. ISI as part of ‘Operation Topac’, was trying to cultivate politicians and members of bureaucracy for smooth-sailing of the plan. There were strong allegations that NC leadership was hob-nobbing with Sikh extremists in Punjab and a training camp was held at Shaja Marg (Pulwama). Mysterious agencies and people visited the state during this period and had access to the highest authorities. Senior Ministers in Abdullah’s cabinet were issuing provocative statements against tiny minority of Kashmiri Hindus. Army generals were publicly saying that their sources on the border were drying up due to political-bureaucratic interference. As per media reports, even General Hamid Gul, the then ISI chief is alleged to have visited J&K a number of times. At a seminar in Srinagar Club in September 1989, the man to whom Sheikh Abdullah dictated his memoirs stunned the audience by claiming, “Agar Sheikh Sahib Zinda Hoteh Voh Jail Meh Hoteh”.. What was the state government doing to foil ISI’s gameplan? It is true that installation of GM Shah was a remedy worse than the disease, but many would agree that continuation of Farooq Ministry was not in national interest then.

In 1987 elections, MUF game was not to test the fairness of elections. As part of Pak game-plan its design was to capture power for administrative subversion. It openly exploited religious sentiments and harassed its opponents/minority groups. Even MUF leadership in private said that it could not win more than twelve seats in a fai election. Ganguly fails to locate the causes of 1984 and 1987 episodes and blames Mrs. Gandhi for playing a game of one upmanship against Farooq Abdullah. Referring to Farooq Abdullah’s meeting with Bhindrawn Wale, Ganguly apologetically comments, “The meeting took place during a ceremonial visit that he had paid to the Golden Temple in Amritsar. It lasted all of fifteen minutes. The symbolism of the meeting, however, was infelicitous. At that time it was well known to all political observers in India that Bhindran Wale had close links with various secessionist Sikh groups in the Punjab.”

Fundamentalist Generation

Kashmir’s new generation of youth in late 70’s and 80’s grew under the shadow of Zia’s Islamisation programme in Pakistan, Khomeinist revolution and militarised Pan-Islamist movements in the Muslim world. This generation was fundamentalist to the core and detested secularism in any form. It was strongly anti-Hindu, Jehadist in outlook and disliked democracy or democratic institutions. It was inspired by the Jehadist dream of carving out a new Islamist caliphate extending from Turkey to Indonesia. Ganguly does not address this and resorts to polemics, “More disturbing, the domestic gains of the 1971 war were also frittered away. The 1975 Beg-Parthasarthi Accord, despite all its limitations, could have placed the Central government’s relations with Kashmir on a more secure footing. Unfortunately, even the limited provisions of the accord were never implemented... In the background of this political scene, Kashmiris were becoming better educated and more politically aware...Finding virtually all institutional channels of expressing their discontent closed, they mobilised and resorted to other, more violent methods of protest. Since secular politics, as represented by the NC was corrupt and undemocratic, it is not surprising that the movement took on an ethnoreligious dimension". This generation which imbibed the retograde ideology of theo-fascism is described by Ganguly as "politically knowledgeable" and " sophisticated". New youth's utter contempt for democratic dissent was indicative from attacks on communist leaders, Mr HK Surjeet in Khanyar (1982) and Mr HN Wanchoo in Batmaloo (1984). These youth would often convert agitations on Price-Rise or against raised Power tariff into communal or secessionist issues. The new Muslim youth opposed democratic movements in Pakistan and endorsed fascist military junta and Jehadi elements. On the middle-east these youth did not identify with secular movements led by Palestinians or other democratic elements.

The rise of this generation on Kashmir's political scene was a direct threat to pluralistic co-existence. Attacks on Pandits in 1986 or subsequent ethnic-cleansing was a logical corollary of the politics these youth practised. In a guarded defence of these revanchist elements, Ganguly comments, "As law and order in Kashmir deteriorated, relations between members of the minority Pandit (Hindu) community and their Muslim Counterparts in the Valley started to fray. Historically, unlike other parts of India, Kashmir had not been witness to widespread communal tension and violence. However, two factors undermined sense of security and safety of the Pandit community in Kashmir. First, the governor hinted that the safety and security of the Hindu community could not be guaranteed. Second, the fanatical religious zeal of some of the insurgent groups instilled fear among the Hindus of the Valley".

The author attributes the ethnoreligious mobilisation to four factors--predominantly Muslim character of Valley, the geographical isolation of Valley which insulated Kashmiri Islam from larger currents of Muslim politics in India, failure of secular politics and lastly the role of Pakistan in fomenting subversion. These arguments look incomplete. Right since 1930 Kashmir's mainstream political mobilisation has been along ethno-communal lines. It never allowed secular politics or institutions to flourish. The author's observation seems to be off the mark, when he comments, "since secular politics, as represented by the NC, was corrupt and undemocratic, it is not surprising that the movement took an ethnoreligious dimension". The premise itself is wrong, as NC never subscribed to secular politics. The politics of autonomy, regional autonomy report or the Resettlement Bill negate the essence of secularism.

Indian state too contributed to the mess. It appeased too often the Muslim communal groups in Kashmir and lapped up communal-secessionist agendas as commitments made by the nation. The Indian leadership undermined the position of nationalistic groups in the state and discouraged patriotic elements among Kashmir Muslims, who were willing to contest the separatist politics.

Sumit Ganguly refers to Bhutto-Swaran Singh talks at length. He says Nehru called off  these talks when Indian was handed an Anglo-American proposal, demanding giving up substantial portions of the Kashmir valley to Pakistan, besides total autonomy to the remaining portion. Bakshi Gh. Mohd's role during this period and subsequently his removal under Kamraj Plan has also not been dealt.

The author ascribes "Operation Gibralter" to three miscalculations by Pakistan. First, in the wake of Nehru's death, the potential for disintegration in India was great. Second, on the basis of the popular discontent in the aftermath of the Hazratbal episode, Pakistan believed that widespread pro-Pakistani sentiment existed in the Valley. Third, bizarre, and essentially racist notion of the inherent martial prowess of the Pakistani  (Muslim) army. Ganguly's observations on the Hazratbal Episode (1963) and Sheikh Abdullah's role during the crucial years 1962-1965, look commonplace. Why was Sheikh adopting an increasingly intemperate and, on occasion, even taking on a communal tenor in his public speeches? Ganguly's argument is reductionist. He remarks that Abdullah's attempts to generate widespread dissatisfaction against Sadiq regime were prompted by a desire to oppose greater integration with India. It may be recalled first Youth League and then Al-Fatah armed outfits were launched, some say, with blessings from Plebiscite Front leadership, to stoke subversion in 60's.

1971 War and its Aftermath

The outcome of the 1971 war had significant consequences for the Kashmir dispute. The author sums up the gains - it significantly undermined the Pakistani irredentist claim on Kashmir; with the breakup of Pakistan, the emergent structure of power on the sub-continent now dramatically favoured India; there was little or no opportunity for Pakistan to exploit the situation in Kashmir and lastly, the Simla Agreement addressed one of India's long-standing concerns - de-internationalisation of the Kashmir dispute. Though GoI failed to get Pakistan around for accepting LoC as international border, the Simla Agreement's explicit recognition of the principle of bilateralism in Indo-Pakistani relations was widely construed in Indian policy-making circles as a major diplomatic victory. India's problems were further eased by other related developments. Political developments in Pakistan increasingly drew Bhutto's attention away from Kashmir. Insurgency in Baluchistan and ethnic violence in Sind left him little time for Kashmir. With the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973 in the wake of the third Arab-Israeli conflict, relations with the Arab Middle East States and Iran became important concerns for Pakistan. But this shift in Pakistan's foreign policy concerns and priorities and India's brief sense of euphoria as the emergent great power in the region made India complacent to internal security, particularly in Kashmir.

About Rubiya Sayed episode, the author says that the release of militants signalled to the insurgent groups in Valley that the new government "lacked the necessary discipline to stand firm when confronted by an act of terror." He adds the government of VP Singh failed to fashion a coherent strategy to deal with the emerging political crisis in Kashmir. This major failure he attributes to two factors. At the national level, VP Singh government remained preoccupied with imperatives of political survival. At the state level, Farooq Abdullah appeared at a complete loss to curb the growing lawlessness and violence.

Ganguly's observations on Jagmohan's tenure are that his "iron-hand" strategy "proved to be costly from the outset but had only very limited success in blunting the insurgency". About Kunan-Poshpora, he remarks, "the true story may never be unraveled. The villagers' accounts cannot be accepted as completely reliable because they are riddled with inconsistencies. The Press Council report appears too ready to grant the army the benefit of the doubt".

The handling of the Chrar-e-Sharief episode, Ganguly says, from its start to its tragic end, revealed the lack of a clear-cut set of procedures and directives for dealing with such a crisis, though there was no lack of precedent. He explains the fiasco at Chrar-e-Sharif as, "the blame cannot be placed on the tactics adopted by the army and the BSF. Rather, civilian authorities in Srinagar and New Delhi were at fault". "Strangely enough, Ganguly describes GoI's willingness to dilute sovereignty over Kashmir "as the only positive development that ensued in the wake of the destruction of the shrine". The author refers to a little known fact that Qazi Nissar was assassinated because he had accepted the role of intermediary to seek release of son of David Housego, the former correspondent of the Financial Times In India. There are references to Chavan-Pilot feud and Sheikh Abdullah's authoritarian style.

Conclusions

What are the prospects for this fundamentalist insurgency to succeed? Ganguly believes it is highly unlikely that the insurgents can prevail on the battle-field or can effectively obtain the intervention of the international community. India's staying power on the ground in Kashmir is inestimable. The Indian state has historically fought and successfully fended off previous challenges to its integrity even at a time when it possessed significantly less coercive power. However, he hastens to add the continued sanguinary conflict in Kashmir may indeed be extremely corrosive to the ethos of the Indian army, not to mention the paramilitary forces.

Ganguly concedes that the overwhelming opinion in India feels that the government has not responded with sufficient vigor in dealing with the insurgents or their principal supporter, Pakistan. There are compelling reasons why India will not concede Kashmir. First, virtually all Indians Consider Kashmir to be a part of India. The Kashmiri insurgent claim of national self-determination, if allowed to prevail, could lead to disintegration of the Indian state. The demonstration effects of Kashmir seceding from India would be profound. Second, Ganguly says, the secession of Kashmir would unwittingly implicate the remaining Muslim population in India, Third, the insurgent claim for self-determination is itself prolematic. The vast majority of the insurgents would not extend the privilege of self-determination to members of other communities.

The author discusses various strategies and options to resolve the crisis. He refers to Ethnic flooding, the Mailed-Fist strategy, The Wear-Down option, conceding the Valley, Shared Sovereignty, Holding Plebiscite, Independence, The Protectorate Option etc.. He says given India's unhappy experience with the Kashmir issue at the UN, it is doubtful that India will allow the issue to be internationalised. The best hope for the redressal of the grievances of all minorities, Ganguly remarks, remains within the ambit of a secular, democratic, and federal Indian polity.

*The Crisis in Kashmir

Author: Sumit Ganguly

Price: Rs 395-00

Published: Foundation Books

By 4764/2A, 23 Ansari Road,  Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002

By Dr. Ajay Chrungoo

Pak Claims

Pakistan right since its inception has been engaged in destabilizing Kashmir to annex it eventually on the basis of two nation theory. It makes a dangerous claim that Kashmir was unfinished agenda of Partition. If this premise is accepted then the position of 14 crore Muslim community living in rest of India becomes untenable. Pakistan’s real strategic objectives in pursuing its game plan in Kashmir can be enumerated as:-

*seeking parity with India by fomenting separatist stife;

*pursuing the goal of strategic depth;

*building  justification for army’s permanent involvement in Pak politics;

*Play its role as the frontline Muslim state for eastward expansion of Islamic fundamentalism;

*dismantling India’s Northern Frontier and

*finally facilitating India’s encirclement by hostile countries and internal balkanisation.

 Internationally Pakistan is trying to project itself as an aggrieved party claiming that India has not fulfilled the international commitments it made on Kashmir. The truth, however, remains that the basic requisite for this commitment i.e, vacation of Pakistani troops from PoK was never implemented by Pakistan. Pakistan also created hurdles by joining the cold war to complicate the Kashmir issue. And finally by annexing the northern territories it projected itself as a party that treated Kashmir issue as a real estate and a game of sharing spoils. The numerous agreements have superseded the so-called international commitments of earlier years.

Much is being made of India’s so-called commitment to Kashmiris that the future of Kashmir would be settled by reference to the wishes of the Kashmiri People. Under the Indian Independence Act the future of princely states was to be settled by the ruler. Accession of Kashmir to India was perfectly legal and it was unique in the sense that both the ruler and the then popular leadership of the Valley endorsed it. Neither the ruler nor the popular leadership attached any conditionalities to the issue of accession.

Mountbatten’s desire that the reference be made after the accession to the wishes of the people has neither any legal nor moral binding. In fact it carried the seeds of a future destabilization. Nehru made a larger commitment to the Indian nation that Kashmir would become India’s secular crown. India rightly regards accession of Kashmir as a refutation of two nation theory. Secondly, accessions cannot be done and undone every now and then. Any dilution of sovereignty of India over Kashmir will have a domino effect and hasten the process of balkanisation.

Harold S. Johnson in his celebrated work, “Self determination within the community of Nations”, rightly observes, “A belief in Self-determination can have anarchical implications within the present international state system. It suggests the opportunity for a group of individuals to disregard all established political relationship in search for new ones...No government could hope to survive which consented in principle to a secession of a part of its territory by a vote of secessionist groups. The stability of the state itself rejects any such claim.”

Blinkered Vision

The founding fathers of Indian republic recognised  continued accession of Kashmir with India as a key element in India’s pursuit of secular nation building. Yet their blinkered vision did not link Kashmir’s functioning as a secular society with India’s secular nation building process. The problem was further compounded as the leaders of Indian national movement over estimated the secularism of Sheikh Mohd Abdullah and ignored the strong undercurrents of communalism in the ideology of National Conference.

In many respects the National Conference was pursuing a strategy which was not fundamentally different from the path chosen by Muslim League in the pre-Independence India. Delineating the many strands in Sheikh Abdullah’s ideological outlook, Dr K.N. Pandita remarks:

“Sheikh Abdullah did try for rapprochement with the Muslim League and Jinnah in 1944-45 but Jinnah was unaccommodating. In 1947 again, Sheikh tried to toe the PC Joshi and Adhikari line (on Two-Nation Theory). P.N. Bazaz who had worked closely with Sheikh and who understood him far better than anybody else, stated that the NC and Sheikh stood for Muslim nationalism and Muslim precedence in the state of J&K but for Congress and secularism outside the state of J&K. One may call it sheer opportunism, nevertheless it was the Central feature of Muslim question in India...The National Conference continued its tactical support to accession but ensured to prevent the integration of Kashmiri Muslims with India (Kashmiri Muslims: Vexed Identity, Business and Political observer, New Delhi 5th June, 1993).  

A full scale review of the history and social background of the Kashmiri anti-autocratic movement lead by National Conference is outside the scope of this write up. There was inherent incompatibility in the nation building models pursued by Indian National Congress and the National Conference. Leaders of Indian National Congress visualized the success of secularism through delegtimising religion based identity politics. But the very ‘raison-d-etre’ of National Conference politics was avowed pursuit of Muslim identity politics., In the situation aggravated by imperialist intervention Indian leadership resorted to short cuts. They ignored that the secularization of Kashmiri society would be the soul of Kashmir’s continued accession with India. Indian leadership abandoned non-Muslim and pro-India social groups in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to the mercy of Muslim communal leadership of Valley and overlooked the calculated attempts by Kashmiri Muslim leadership to inject communalism in the body politic of Jammu and Kashmir.

To counter the secessionism which was in built in this situation Indian leadership decided to patronise pro-accession communal politics. Prof M.K. Teng, the distinguished Political Scientist explains:

“The Congress leaders had always believed that improvised power equations, redistribution of political patronage and wider financial inputs into Muslim communalism would end the “Muslim alienation” in Kashmir and provide the settlement for peace. In sheer self-conceit, they clung tenaciously to their belief that the Muslimisation of the state did not conflict with Indian secularism, and they could strike a bargain with the militant regimes, even if it was at the cost of the Hindus and the other minorities.” (Kashmir-Myth of Autonomy, Anmol Publications).

Over a period of time pro-accession and anti-accession communal politics developed a symbiotic relationship. While the anti-accession groups were building separatist movement to detach Kashmir from India, the pro-accession groups were using separatism as a lever to blackmail Centre and squeeze the non-Muslim groups in the state. Both groups cooperated in strengthening the Muslim precedence, facilitating Muslimisation and the Islamisation of Kashmir and adjoining regions of Doda and Kargil and weakening Kashmir’s link with India through instrumentalities of Article 370 or outright secession.

Root Cause

The emergence of secessionist movement in Kashmir cannot be delinked from the changing sociology of Kashmir Society over the years and the rise of militarised trans-national Islamic fundamentalism.

In the first two decades since independence urban Muslim middle class and the  commercial bourgeoisie were co-opted in the political power structure of Kashmir. However, these very groups subsequently thwarted the aspirations of lower middle class in urban areas and resisted the strong urge of the rural propertied groups for rightful share in the political power structure. This created the groundswell which facilitated the rise of disaffected political groups in the Kashmir valley. Indian leadership’s policy of patronising personalised politics syndrome strengthened the oligarchic tendencies among the ruling families of Kashmir. These families created a network of interests which looted the public exchequer, creating a big rentier class and alienating people through rampant misgovernance. Pakistan was quick to reach out to disaffected political sections and the alienated populace rallied behind these disaffected political groups.

Prof. Mustapha Kamal Pasha has examined this phenomenon in his essay “Between the Two-Nation Divide: Kashmir and Islam” (Perspectives on Kashmir ed. Raju Thomas). He says:

“Increasing social differentiation and rising political consciousness among new social groups coincided with kleptocracy, nepotism, corruption and the politics of greed, rather than a functioning democratic order with political accountability as its chief aspiration”.

Rise of transnational Islamic fundamentalism both in the context of Gulf oil boom in 1973 and the Afghan war 1979 onwards created social and logistic base for Pakistani intervention in Kashmir and arms-financial pipeline for sustaining the terrorist movement. The western powers’ global designs helped provide the crucial diplomatic support to the terrorist movement in Kashmir.

The unwillingness of the national political leadership of India to adequately fathom the subversive potentialities of the National Conference politics is the main reason that solutions to end militancy elude us. There are three genres of separatist politics in Kashmir. One the avowedly pro-Pak groups which seek annexation with Pakistan. Secondly, the so-called pro-independence groups which seek an independent Islamic state. Thirdly pro-autonomy groups which seek an Islamic state on the territory of India with weak constitutional and political links with the country.

The subversive potentialities in National Conference politics can be enumerated as:-

1. Its penchant to link the Muslim majority character of Kashmir with accession and weaken the constitutional links with the country.

2. Its pursuit of Dixon Plan which implies in the first stage to create Greater Muslim Kashmir and in the second stage an autonomous Greater Muslim Kashmir.

Sheikh Abdullah is on record having endorsed the dangerous Dixon Plan, which seeks to take Kashmir valley away from India. In a letter to Col. GA Naseer, the then President of Egypt, in 1965, Sheikh wrote:

“Sir Owen took a detached view of things and considered this as the best practicable solution under the circumstances. It appears to be a fair method of resolving the present tangle. In order to avoid a number of complications, that might arise by holding a plebiscite immediately in the territory referred to in clause (c) above, a reasonable way can be found in keeping the said territory under UN Trusteeship for a specified period (i.e. 5 to 10 years) The people of the territory can be given an opportunity for the exercise of the right of self-determination in a suitable way, after that period.”

In 1948 NC created Doda district in Jammu province to consolidate Muslims in Jammu region. This facilitated the spillover of plebiscite and later fundamentalist militancy politics into the Doda region. In 1979 when Sheikh Abdullah was at the helm NC created Kargil district as a Muslim majority district to consolidate the Muslim identity there. The dangerous regional autonomy plan of NC seeks to balkanise Jammu province on communal basis. NC’s patronage to Chenab Development Council which seeks to merge Gool and Mahore tehsils of Udhampur with Doda leaves no one in doubt about the seriousness of NC to implement Dixon Plan.

Similarly NC has been trying to patronise Muslim groups in Poonch, Rajouri and Bani (Kathua) to weaken the Dogra identity of Jammu. In Jammu also patriotic groups have alleged that under a definite plan National Conference has a greater design to change the demography of Jammu province. Praveen Swami, a well-known journalist and author of “The Kargil War” exposes National Conference’s game-plan to undermine secular-plural identity of Jammu. He observes“:

The  Regional Autonomy Report forms an important backdrop to recent events, and underlining the multiple ways in which democracy and secularism in J&K have come under assault. Released by the RAC, the Report calls for the historic regional formations of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh to be broken up into new entities. In some important senses this holds out more fundamental threats to the prospect of a secular and democratic J&K than any number of Lashkar-e-Toiba insurgents.. But the most dramatic impact of the RAC recommendations would be on Jammu. The district of Doda, and the single Muslim dominated tehsil of Mahore from the adjoining district of Udhampur, would be made into a new Chenab Valley Province. Largely Hindu Jammu, Kathua and Udhampur districts would become the Jammu province. Poonch and Rajouri districts, for their part, would form the Pir Panjal province. The existing Province of Jammu would thus be turned into three provincial blocks divided along the geographical fault lines of Hindu and Muslim majorities..The strange history of the RAC and its equally bizarre recommendations, suggest that meaningful democratic change is the last thing on the National Conference’s mind...The sole outcome of the RAC proposals will be to enable National Conference politicians in the Jammu region to represent themselves as defenders of local Muslim communities against a largely fictional hegemony of Jammu’s largely Hindu urban trading communities.” (The Kargil War).

National Conference is trying to silence the criticism of pro-India groups by pursuing a policy of ethnic preference and ethnic exclusion. In the Ladakh region it is patronising the minority Argon Kashmir Muslim group to under cut the Buddhist majority. In Kargil district aspirations of the Zanskari Buddhist are being counteracted by adding Muslim areas to the Zanskar assembly constituency.

The interests of the strongly patriotic 16 lakh strong community of Gujjar Muslims are being harmed by subverting the benefits of ST reservation and raking up Paharis as a counter group.

In the wake of ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Kashmir, Doda, Udhampur, Poonch and Rajouri the policies of ruling National Conference have created a situation where the exiled Hindus can never go back to their homes.

Stakes

In the context of separatist violence in Kashmir there are four issues which need to be addressed

1. Restoration of the law and order by ending the terrorist violence.

2. Reversing the genocide against Kashmiri Pandits and Hindus in Jammu region.

3. Rebuilding the edifice of participatory democracy in the state.

4. Weaning Kashmir Muslim populace away from the separatist politics.

Terrorist violence in Kashmir is still not being treated as a war by the Indian leadership. There is an inherent contradiction in the policy of Govt. of India. It only seeks bringing down the terrorist violence to manageable levels in the hope that it would create space for a political solution. Due to this flawed approach destroying the support structures of terrorists does not become a priority. To defeat the terrorism comprehensively the Indian state needs  a new military doctrine.

A key objective of Pakistan’s game plan in Kashmir is to push out Hindus from the Muslim majority areas. This is being achieved through physical destabilization of Hindu minority and by imposing genocide. So far the successive leaderships at the Centre have demonstrated total lack of vision and will in evolving a doctrine of survival for these patriotic minority groups. The communalisation of the Kashmiri Muslim society and its intense socialisation with separatist politics has contributed to the destabilization of the Hindu groups. Thus reversing of genocide entails secular governance as well as secularisation of Kashmir society.

Policy of promoting Muslim precedence by National Conference has lead to the political marginalisation of people of Ladakh, Dogras, Kashmiri Pandits and Gujjars. Even a partisan writer like Gautam Navlakha, whose sympathies lie with Muslim communal leadership of Kashmir concedes:

“It goes without saying that the absence of a clear cut policy towrds non-Muslims is a shortcoming of the political leadership in Kashmir. It has seldom bothered to go beyond the generalities, which only assuage the insecurity felt by Kashmiri Pandits” (Economic and Political Weekly, Bombay November 6, 1993).

There has to be a new approach in ending communal and ethnic descrimination against the patriotic groups.  Restoration of participatory democracy, which accommodates aspirations of all ethnic groups will strengthen the nationalist base of polity in J&K.

The Muslim alienation in Kashmir has many strands. One section has political grievance that the ruling national conference has thwarted their chances of upward mobility by following oligarchic policies. Second section is alienated because of rampant misgovernance. The third section feels alienated from India because of heightened sense of communal identity reinforced by autonomy politics, and Islamic fundamentalism practised by Jamaati-Islami. There is a need to reorient the politics by building high stakes for separatist politics and communally oriented agendas. At the same time attention has to be paid to evolve a methodology for the entry of disgruntled political groups into the political mainstream and rebuilding the edifice of good governance.

Prospect

The practice of Muslim precedence politics and the long legacy of separatist politics has made Jammu and Ladakh colonies of Kashmir and pushed out Kashmiri Pandits from their homeland. After throwing Kashmiri Pandits out from Kashmir, the Kashmir Muslim leadership is engaged in destroying the secular and plural identities of Jammu and Ladakh. Continuation of Jammu and Kashmir as a unitary state has not only lead to the politico-economic marginalisation of people living in Jammu and Ladakh but it has also lead to the spill-over of terrorist violence and separatist politics into these areas. The nation - building model adopted in the form of the present Jammu and Kashmir state is in essence a subversion of secular vision of India.

Panun Kashmir

There is no other solution for restoring the Kashmiri Hindus to their homeland and ending communally motivated regional descrimination against Jammu and Ladakh other than political reorganisation of the Jammu and Kashmir State. This reorganisation which entails the quadripartition of the state would restore secular identity of Jammu and Ladakh and help Kashmiri Pandits recover their homeland.

The creation of Panun Kashmir in Kashmir valley would not only restore Pandits to their homeland but it also holds the potentiality of creating the basis for secular accountability in the Kashmir valley. It is the first strategic response in the Modern India to the sinister proposal of communally motivated Dixon Plan. Panun Kashmir is thus not only a solution to the problem of Kashmiri Pandits as such but is also a solution to the Kashmir problem on a long-term basis. It would raise stakes for pursuit of separatist communal politics in Kashmir and help in consolidating India in Kashmir on its own strength. With creation of Panun Kashmir, the politics of Doda and Kargil will also undergo change. The creation of two political systems in Kashmir valley holds the potential of creating national consensus on Kashmir.

*The writer heads Panun Kashmir

By Dilnaz Boga

A Japanese modelling agency picked him up from a college full of teenage Kashmiri boys in Srinagar, many moons ago. These days, lensmen complain how difficult it is to capture him on camera as he rarely makes eye contact. Yasin Malik, the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief, smiles, and simply dismisses this by saying, "Maybe, I'm camera shy."

Born on April 3, 1966, Malik and his three sisters grew up in a far-from-flashly, two-storied haveli in Srinagar, where he still lives. "Living with one another at close quarters inculcates a strong sense of belonging. You won't find this in any upper-class colony. Here, each child belongs to the whole mohalla."

Malik's participation in "the freedom movement" began 17 years ago, when his "motivation for freedom was born out of events." He says, "We never got a chance to decide our future. I remember clearly, in July 1980, when I was 14; Shaktiman (an army vehicle) knocked down a man on the street near my house. People reacted and they slapped the drunk driver. The same evening, several defence vehicles lined up on the same street and armed men started burning shops. I hid and witnessed the whole tragedy. I don't know how I was saved. I can still remember chickens squawking as they were being burnt alive. That was the first time I was convinced that we were slaves".

Despite his radical views on Kashmir and its people, Malik is a poet at heart. "I love Kahlil Gibran, Iqbal and Faiz." That's probably why he scribbled, "Courage, confidence and patience is tested here," on the wall of his death cell in Agra's Central Prison. "I used to stare at that sentence for 24 hours," recalls the soft-spoken leader, who is a visiting lecturer at Harvard University.

Spending over a decade in jail has taken a toll on Malik's health. Instances of food poisoning, infections and lack of treatment further deteriorated his condition. In a bid to escape being captured by the Border Security Force years ago, Malik's only escape route was to jump from a five-storeyed building. "I was the most wanted man. I was in coma after the jump. I was later told that I was vomitting blood and my ears were bleeding profusely. I was given 10 pints of blood. The doctors wrote me off and rumours were rife that I was dead. I was confined to bed for three months".

In February 1992, Malik underwent surgery to replace a heart valve. He was placed in solitary confinement for long spells on several occasions. "That is where I read almost 1,000 books". A staunch vegetarian for 12 years, he recently switched to meat for health reasons on the advice of his friends and family. "I even smoked my first cigarette in prison," he remembers.

Life has been far from easy for Malik, and death, according to him, will come in its own time and place. Recently released from prison by the government, Malik comments on the state of affairs, "Innocent people have been booked under false cases. They still haven't released all the poor people booked under POTA (Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act)".

Malik is also displeased with the J&K elections. He explains, "People were not allowed to boycott it. What kind of a democracy is this? The chief election commissioner of India stated that the total votes cast were 28.53 per cent. Out of this, five to eight per cent were coercive votes. This means that only 20 per cent voted, whereas 80 per cent abstained. How 'free and fair' is that? Indian intellectuals and the media should have questioned this. Sadly, they are guided by blind Indian nationalism".

He attributes his strength to his family and loved ones. "I have buried dear friends and children. I have no words to express what my family means to me". At the end of the day, all Malik wishes for is freedom.

Source-Times News Network

(15th Dec. 2002)

By Raja Jaikrishan

Can you recall the time

when, in the scorching sun

in the middle of the blackened road

your verse-burning, aflame - was written

in crimson, warm, vibrating dove-blood?

To this question of Abdul Rahman Rahi, a Kashmiri poet, one can recall many instances. One can start from Lal Chowk in Srinagar and go on to Florida, (USA), Bindura (Zimbabwe), and London.

Before 1947 Sher-i-Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah waged a crusade against the monarchy in the state. In 1967 thousands of Pandits dared the government and demanded the right to life, liberty and employment. In the nineties multitudes of Muslims gathered to demand independence from India and usher in Nizam-e-Mustafa.

When Hindu girls were raped and men killed in Anantnag as a precursor to the anti-Pandit crusade in the late eighties, a section of protestors against the politics of fear and intimidation urged the well-settled Pandits outside the Valley to strive for the timely migration of Pandits from the Valley.

The elderly who savoured the cool air of the Valley in summer, while enjoying secure jobs in the plains, questioned this assertion. They said if minorities left the Valley, what would happen to the secular character of the Valley? In this manner they would be handing over Kashmir on a platter to Pakistan. Events that followed, of course, proved them wrong.

Recently when Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal opened the gates of Punjab to besieged Kashmiri Sikhs during the bhog ceremony of 35 Kashmiri Sikhs at Chatti Singhpora, it was evidently welcomed by people of varied political shades.

This politicking with human life and dignity is not confined to politicians of the Indian variety alone. Politicians in Americans are engaged in a battle over the custody of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez who survived a shipwreck escaping from Cuba along with his mother and step-father (the mother didn't survive).

Fidel Castro has said the boy should be reunited with his father. But Elian's Miami relatives want him to remain in the USA. Cuban exiles who fled the country and settled in Florida declare that "we will go the last mile" to prevent Elian from either being re-united with his father or heading back to 'Castroland'.

Cuba is an idea preserved in the lyrical memory of exiled novelist G.Cabrera Durante. He has written that the metaphor of the ship that sinks and a Cuban, Lord Jim, who cowardly saves himself is completed not with Fidel Castro's famous phrase "the rats are leaving the sinking ship", but with the only "Titanic" crew member who had survived - "I didn't abandon my ship, your lordship, my ship abandoned me," he told an English judge.

Cuban exiles in the words of Kassabova, the writer of novel "Reconnaissance", are aware about "those in the freedom and the prosperity of the mature West who suffer from broken manicure, lack of the love and understanding, excessive body hair, failed relationship, paranoia, fatty thighs, ennui and children - they hate us, our misery, our darkness of our East". Still they prefer exile to Castroism.

In Oxfordshire a gang of white youths tried to set on fire a mulatto. The victim, Christopher Barton, escaped with superficial burns but indelible marks on his psyche of hate against whites.

It seems the world over one suffers because a section of society perceives that you are different, they abuse you for being so, and then hound you to the concentration camp or throw you on the pyre.

Dictatorship of or on behalf of the proletariat gobbles up human rights of all, including the dictator.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe supported the right of squatters to invade white farms and asked white farmers "if you can't accept rule by blacks you can leave: no one will stop you from leaving. All doors are open". He listed all the border crossings through which whites could flee Zimbabwe and added, "if you want a plane, we can accompany you to Harare airpoort..let (white) farmers not create unnecessary circumstances that might lead them to being hurt". There was also a vote in Parliament to remove the right to compensation for land seizure.

These utterances and actions by a Non-Alligned Movement leader kindle the historic acts of Sher-i-Kashmir. On assuming the charge of Jammu and Kashmir's Prime Minister after the state's accession to India he ordered land to tillers without compensation by the stroke of a pen, thereby dispossessing many, including Pandits, of their land holdings.

Years later acting on behalf of the Muslim majority in the Valley, Congress Chief Minister Gulam Mohammad Sadiq passed a law to ensure preference to the Muslim majority in state jobs and admission to professional and other educational institutions. These measures curbed the rights of minorities in the Valley and forced them to fend for even small jobs outside the Valley.

The anti-Brahmin movement in Tamil Nadu and other South Indian states proved a precursor to the anti-Mandal agitation which unleashed caste-based majoritarianism. Bihar is the worst example. The majoritarianism in Jammu and Kashmir is of religious variety, different from racial and caste ones. Perpetrators of majoritarianism in the state lack sympathy of the majority in India.

An exile from the state is caught in between the culture within him and the culture of his adopted place. He can't leave the former and accept the latter either. His condition of siege has been described by Keshav Malik as:

But come the hour of ghostly moon

And once more the marauders from the deep

Will batter at the gates of reason-not to retire

Until crimson has been drawn

Upon the heart of peace".

(Source: The Tribune)