[Reader-list] Thus Shuddha concludes...

[inder salim]

Thus Shuddha concludes " No particular faith has a monopoly
insofar as persecution or intolerance is concerned. No particular faith
is more tolerant than others, just as none is necessarily more
intolerant than others."

If this is the mantra then believers are unlikely to sing it.
Ironically, the believers sing non-violence, compassion and ethics all
the time; and so whatever it finally means to drift along with the sea
of believers?  I guess, a personal (spiritual) journey begins the
moment one feels  drifting against her/his will. So alternative
practices of doing art and politics come into force. I remember, few
yeas back, how Romilla Thapar spoke like an artist at IIC on Somnath
Temple. That day she was like a magician who exorcized many a ghosts.
Now Shuddha is playing the role of a magician to tackle the Kashmiri
ghosts and for that I am personally delighted.

 " The history of Kashmir, especially, in my view,
demonstrates that no community can claim for itself a monopoly of
victimhood and innocence. The ordinary people of every community in
Kashmir have suffered, and those from within each community who have had
access to power have also had blood on their hands. Privileging the
suffering, or historical experience of any one community over that of
others (while neglecting to discuss the destiny of Kashmiri people as a
whole) amounts, in my view, to the unleashing of an epistemic violence
that perpetuates patterns of arrogance and impunity, leading to the
continuation of the spiral of violence"

I believe, this is the most important piece of thought in the whole of
Shuddha's Kashmir pre-Islamic research. The term ' destiny of Kashmiri
People' which explicitly talks about the on going conflict in Kashmir,
which has a capacity to understand the history of past in a more
scientific way. The  more we talk about the Kashmir, the more it is
likely to benefit our understanding of the past and how we need to
think about the present.

Just a case in the point, M.H. Zafar, a kashmiri poet intellectual who
is admired by Kashmir Pandits for his open criticism of Sunni style
Militancy in Kashmir, and who even suffered for that, but at the same
time regrets the fact that the ruling elites in India have always
undermined the rich Kashmiri ancient past. The people in power never
cared about the restoration of ancient Buddhist or post Buddhist sites
in Kashmir. He lamented the fact that if we( Kashmiris )  are not
heard it is because we don't live with that rich past which is running
in our veins.  In other sense this is also regretted by Maulana Abdul
Kalam Azad about Nehru's recognition to Aurangzeb against the heroic
martyrdom of Hazrat Sufi Sarmad Shaheed.  No wonder that Congress has
always played the most dirty games in India and Kashmir. They were
party to two nation theory, and that resulted in the suffering of
Kashmir and millions of others who died in Bengal and Punjab.  Now,
how much damage has been done, and so we are rightly accusing American
policy for the Vandalism of Bamiyan Buddha in Afganistan., and just
today when we read again the Talibans have demolished important
Buddhist sites in Pakistan.  So accordingly, who is responsible for
the unfortunate  migration of Pandits from the valley? Who else but
Indian Kashmir policy, and what congress has structured other parties
follow.

The question is about how much we need to disassociate ourselves from
this short sighted vision of the past. Just some one the reader list
talked about Buddha as Kshtriya who was a Prince Siddarth and
therefore a Hindu at his best. While talking about Buddha I am
personally wondering even how to ' his', since I believe the sexual
identity is quite  subjective, but for the most of people it is
absolutely a biological fact. That squarely means that we don't
recognize (his) teachings.  If that is so then the 'change' is an
impossible word. If I am born in a Muslim family, no matter what I do
to become something else, I remain a Muslim, unendingly. Call it
fascism or racism but the fact remains that we are not different from
a Hitler or a Stalin etc.

I know, a lot of paradox outwits us while we approach the
understanding of ' violence'. But I am not personally afraid, and that
is my spiritual journey, and we need to open ended if we want to grow.
Research like Shuddha's is simply a readymade apple juice for thirsty
people like me.
With love
indersalim

http://indersalim.livejournal.com