[Reader-list] By R.J. Rummel

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear Pawan,

Thank you for your answers, I take it then that by saying "to a kashmiri 
when any innocent dies ; the peace dies" - that you are offering, if not 
an apology, then at least a qualified note of regret, for the thousands 
of non-combatants (who were not militants and had not taken up arms) who 
were killed, or hurt, or who disappeared as a result of the Indian 
state's military forces occupation of the Kashmir valley, so that 
Kashmir could remain a part of the Indian Union.

I am not talking here of people who were killed by militants, or even of 
people who were killed in what is euphemistally called 'cross fire'. I 
am talking about people who were picked up, taken away and killed, or 
imprisoned, or tortured by the armed forces of the Indian state. I think 
these occurence, are comparable in scale and scope to similar patterns 
in Argentina, Chile, Israel, Turkey, Central Africa, Iran, Iraq, the 
former Yugoslavia and Indonesia throughout the eighties and nineties of 
the twentieth Century. In some instances, as in Argentina, Chile, Iraq 
and the former Yugoslavia, there have been imperfect and flawed non 
partisan efforts to bring the perpetrators of these state sponsored 
'crimes against humanity' to account and to justice. I see no reason why 
the same should not happen with regard to those specifically resonsible 
within the political, military and intelligence apparatuses of the 
Indian state when dealing with well documented and provable instances of 
state terror in Kashmir, Punjab or the North East in the eighties, 
nineties and today.

As for your questions, let me first of all say, that I hold no brief for 
either Yasin Malik, or Bitta Karatey, or any other person. My natural 
political instincts incline me to be suspicious and skeptical of all 
individuals who taken on the mantle of the 'librators' of their 
peoples.This does not exclude the incumbent leadership of the JKLF or 
any other political formation in the valley, or outside it, which makes 
a claim to speak on behalf of the Kashmiri people. It also extends to 
all Indian politicians, and politicans everywhere.

As a writer I admire, Bertholt Brecht once said, 'Pity the people that 
need heroes'. So for me, 'liberators' particularly those with an 
evolving cult of personality, be they Yasin Malik, or Yasser Arafat, or 
Dr. Agnishekhar of 'Panun Kashmir', or any other such person, are all 
deeply suspect. So I will not be pushed into a corner where I have to 
'defend' the record of any such person. Frankly, I don't care, whether 
tomorrow, such persons remain acknowledged as 'liberators'or get exposed 
as pawns in larger political machinations. It often turns out that way.

However, I have heard Yasin Malik offer a regret and an apology for what 
happenned in Kashmir to the Pandits. And since such a statement was 
given at a public forum, at the World Social Forum in Mumbai I cannot, 
and will not disregard it, (incidentally there is a reader list thread 
of a discussion between me and Zainab on this issue, where again, issues 
to do with freedom of expression are raised), And once again, I 
reiterate, I have not heard any Indain Nationalist offer such an 
unconditional apology to the people of Kashmir, and until that happens, 
Yasin Malik, well, will have a better score card in the apology 
olympics. Pardon my flippant tone, but I do think apologies are 
important here. And no matter what I think or do not think of Yasin 
Malik, his apology will stand as a significant testimonial that we 
cannot ignore.

To the best of my knowledge, Bitta Karatey has served time in prison 
from 1990 to October 2006, which is a total of 16 years in Prison. He is 
out at the moment on conditional bail, while trial proceedings continue. 
If he is found guilty of homicide in a free and fair trial, he should 
undoubtedly serve the time in prison that is necessary. I am not, like 
Rashneek, a believer in Capital Punishment, and I will not advocate 
capital punishment.

Yasin Malik has had more several spells in prison, the first began when 
he was detained for one year under the Public Safety Act in 1987, he was 
later detained for seven years, including a long spell in Jodhpur 
Central Jail. Again, if he, or any other person is found guilty in a 
free  and fair trial of the homicide of non combatants then they should 
serve prison sentences for that offence.

As for the deaths of Indian State and Armed Forces Personnel. Let me 
make my position clear. I am not a votary of pursuing politics by 
violence, no matter who does it. Not because I have a moral position vis 
a vis violence, but because I believe that the strategy of terror, no 
matter who pursues it, invariably leads to secretive, un-accountable and 
un-democratic politics, which leads to popular movements being corrupted 
and infiltrated by the very forces that they are opposing. I think this 
has happenned in Kashmir, and it happenned both because of the 
machinations of the Indian state and the political immaturity of the pro 
Azadi 'tanzeems' in Jammu and Kashmir, and in the Kashmiri diaspora.

However, having said that, I recognize that Kashmir is a place that 
actually is in the midst of a protracted armed conflict, with a very 
powerful state imposing its will on a population on the basis of its 
military might.Let us not forget, that people like Yasin Malik made 
every effort to enter the peaceful, democratic, electoral process. Yasin 
Malik was a young election agent in the fatally rigged election in Jammu 
and Kashmir of 1987.

It is the Indian State's sustained and continuing refusal to engage with 
the democratic aspirations and politics in Kashmir, that is primarily 
responsible for leading these young men (young at that time) towards 
militancy. Militancy for many of them was, and remains, a flawed, last 
option, but it was and is the only option offered to them by the 
Government of India.

The first guns to be raised in Kashmir, in 1988, were not of the 
'militants', but of the CRPF, when an ordinary protest against an 
electricity failure on a cold winter night in 1988 turned into a bloodbath.

This occurred before a single Pandit was killed. The first target of 
militancy were not Pandits, but political party personnel associated 
with a corrupt administration imposed, not through elections, but 
through fraud. You forget that the first targets are in fact political 
workers of the National Conference, beginning with the well known 
assasination of a block president of the National Conference, a man 
called Yusuf Halwai on the 21st of August, 1988. This is part of the 
historical record.

The second assasination is of Tika Lal Taploo, the first Pandit to be 
attacked, on the 14th of September, 1988, not because he is a Pandit, 
but because he is J&K state BJP president, in the unlikely event of the 
BJP having a Muslim state president in J&K, I am sure it is he who would 
have been the target. This is followed by the assasination of Justice 
Ganjoo, remembered for handing down the death sentence on Maqbool Butt. 
Again, had the judge been a Muslim, he would have been a target.

Then, after contiuning harsh reprisals by the state armed forces, come 
the selective assasinations of high ranking government servants and 
political figures, in which Muslims far outnumber Pandits. Several pro 
Azadi political figures are also killed in assasinations at this time, 
including Mirwaiz Farooq. By this time, it is quite unclear as to which 
agencies are involved, whom they owe alleigance to (pro Azadi elements, 
Pro Pakistan elements, agent provocateurs acting under orders from 
Indian intelligence agents - and with people switching patronage quite 
rapidly in a murky shadow play that continues in Kashmir, where a 
'militant' may be working for several different, antagonistic forces, 
all at once) in how many killings, targetting whom.

I am deliberately here not detailing the history of massacres of unarmed 
crowds by Indian armed forces, including the famous Gawakadal Massacre 
on Gawakadal Bridge in Srinagar on January 20, 1990.

If, however, as in any armed conflict, or occupation, the personnel of 
the armed services, and the echelons of the state of the occupying power 
get targetted by elements in the population who are resisting that 
occupation, I cannot but see that violence as a measure taken by a 
population to defend itself against the occupation. A measure whose 
political consequences may actually, tragically, backfire on the same 
population, through an exponential increase in the violence of that 
occupation. As it has done in Kashmir.

As for the harrassment or violence to the persons or property of Pandits 
that occurred in the valley in the immediate period after 1989, I have 
no hesitation in condemning it, un-equivocally, no matter who did it. 
And it is upto those who conducted that violence to apologize for it, 
not me.

I do know however, as has been shown in the dark and murky history of 
the Chattisinghpura massacre, that elements close to state power did 
enter the ranks of militants, or masqueraded as militants, and 
deliberately carried out some, (not all) of these massacres, in a well 
proven strategy to produce and sustain a climate of tension, and to 
persuade the Pandits to leave Kashmir. The experience of the 
infiltration, masquerade and creation of the spectacle of 'Red Terror' 
in the nineteen eighties and before in Italy, Belgium and elsewhere in 
Europe, under Operation Gladio, or the measured that have been used 
often in Turkey vis a vis the insurgency in Kurdistan, or the Israeli 
secret agencies role in the early days of Hamas, which are all well 
documented, and some of which I have written about elsewhere, are 
indicative of this process. The Indian state is not alone in pursuing 
these tactics.

So, I am not confident that all the attacks on Pandits that happenned, 
such as those perpetrated by the groups who later became identified as 
'Ikhwanis' were not also engineered by what I have called the 'deep 
state' in India.

For a fuller account of the 'Ikhwanis' and their activities please see

A 'Human Rights Watch' Report of May 1996, Vol 8. No.4 (C)
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kashmir/1996/

I will quote here only one statement from this report which says -

"Many incidents of violence in Kashmir go unattributed and unpunished. 
The impunity enjoyed by the security forces for a wide range of abuses, 
and the murderous internecine battles among the various militant groups 
has created a climate of violence in which murder has become routine. By 
creating its own militias to fight the militant groups, India has 
fostered conditions bordering on anarchy in Kashmir. In many cases, it 
is impossible to know whether militants or state-sponsored paramilitary 
groups are behind particular acts of violence."

Clearly, we need a fuller account of the events of the shadowy 1989 and 
post 1989 history of Kashmir before we begin apportioning blame for the 
attacks on Pandits. As of now, the secrecy that shrouds the Indian 
state's operations in Kashmir makes that difficult.

One thing is clear, the Indian state inflicted enormous violence on non 
combatants in Kashmir from 1989 onwards. Would you now agree, Pawan, 
that for this violence, it needs to be held accountable, in terms that 
have been laid down in international law, as has happenned in Argentina 
and Central Africa, under the general category of 'Crimes against Humanity'?

Let me finally state something quite simple. I do not care, whether, 
tomorrow, Kashmir becomes independent, stays with India, or is absorbed 
by Pakistan, or becomes part of some confederation of future Central 
Asian states, or becomes part of some joint arrangement between India 
and Pakistan. Whether the future rulers of Kashmir come from the 
Hurriyet, the JKLF, the National Conference, Panun Kashmir or some long 
lost descendent of Zainal Abedin, or Lalitaditya is of no concern to 
me.I hold no brief for any aspirant to power.

It is actually not up to me to care which flags, or how many flags, or 
which combination of flags flies in Kashmir. It is upto the people of 
Kashmir, and I am constrained to respect whatever they choose, even if I 
am not in agreement with it. I am not a Kashmiri, I do not live in 
Kashmir. All I care about is, that whatever happens should have the 
consent of the majority of people who are Kashmiris and live in Kashmir, 
and that this consent should be ascertained by free and fair means in a 
manner that is transparent to the international community.

I do however care about the fact that as an Indian citizen, the 
continued occupation of the Indian occupied part of Kashmir, happens in 
my name, without either my consent (and there are many like me) or the 
consent of the people so occupied. Hence, I, and all Indian citizens are 
being made complicit in this brutal occupation, unless we take a stand 
to the contrary. That is what I am doing. I am not interested in being 
made party to this continuing state of violence.

I think that relationships between people in Kashmir and the rest of 
South Asia, which includes all of us who live in India can become 
normal, mutually affirming, generous and productive, if all Kashmiris 
(without exception) are allowed a say in what their future will be. As 
someone who is not a nationalist, I have no interest in providing the 
blueprint of a future Kashmiri nation state, or even endorsing a 
possible future Kashmiri nation state, but I do have an interest in 
trying to ensure that all and any people be free to choose their own 
destiny, and choose their own version of disaster or paradise, as they 
see fit, especially when the possibility of that choice is made 
difficult by a policy of rule that implicates me, as a citizen/subject 
of this Republic.

I know that the first condition of that situation is a withdrawal of the 
armed forces of the Indian Republic from the Indian occupied part of 
Jammu and Kashmir and the withdrawal of the armed forces of the Islamic 
Republic of Pakistan from the territory held by them since 1948. What 
follows after this, is anyone's guess, and should be the subject of 
creative political imaginations,  but examples as banal and diverse as 
the recent histories of places as far flung as Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
Northern Ireland and East Timor do suggest that a variety of workable 
options can be found, which need not necessarily violate the consent of 
the local populations. What solutions are found in the interim, is again 
something that the people of Kashmir should be the first and last 
arbiters of.

I hope I have made myself clear on this score.

regards

Shuddha




Pawan Durani wrote:

> Shuddha ,
> 
> Since I have answered you , I wish you too have an answer for these two
> questions of mine
> 
> 1. Do you condemn Yasin malik and his likes like Bitta karate for their
> killings of Kashmiri pandit and Indian armed personels and do you want him
> to be bought to justice ?
> 
> 2. Do you condemn the killings of minorties in Kashmir ?
> 
> In your own words "These are very simple question, and it has two very
> simple answers,either yes, or no. The maybe option does not exist,."
> 
> Waiting for a simple answer.......Hope you do what you preach.
> 
> Lastly , a bit of advise . Do not call Kashmir as "Occupied Kashmir" .
> 
> Pawan Durani
> 
> 
> On 9/3/07, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>Dear Sen ,
>>
>>I belong to a community which has no history of violence. I belong to a
>>community which has never even picked up a stone to throw at somebody, leave
>>aside knives and guns.
>>
>>As a Kashmiri Hindu and as a responsible Indian , i do grieve at any
>>innocent life which is lost, whether it is in Kashmir , Darfur or
>>Afghanistan.And this is not a ststement I am giving you , this i told in
>>an interview to BBC & CNN -IBN even when we were protesting against Yasin
>>Malik when he sat with the families of missing people in Delhi.
>>
>>To a father, when his child dies, the future dies; to a child, when his
>>parents die, the past dies ; to a kashmiri when any innocent dies ; the
>>peace dies.
>>
>>IRegards
>>
>>Pawan Durani
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> 
>