[Reader-list] Gun Salutes for August 15

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear Sonia,

Many thanks again for your responses and clarifications. There is one  
point on which I am totally in agreement with you. You said,

>
> Two years ago, during the so-called sex scandal, ‘the people’ razed  
> the home of Sabina, the sex-worker, to the ground.  Does one extend  
> the same understanding to these mobs, ‘of disarming the  
> infrastructure of oppression’?  I can only conjecture that some  
> participants believed they were responding to historic wrongs of  
> the Shi’as, as others, in the case of Sabina, felt morally  
> justified in taking the law into their hands against a woman they  
> believed was the source of all corruption.

I think (in agreement with you) that this was totally wrong. I have  
always maintained that groups in opposition to the Indian state, no  
matter whether they be in Kashmir, or in the North East, or in  
Central India, often try and act as a very repressive moral police,  
in order to try and portray themselves as righteous defenders of what  
they see as 'civic virtue'. This makes their actions no different  
from fascism of the worst kind. In the specific case that you  
mention, there may have been a justified anger at the fact that  
minors may or may not have been trafficked, and that there may or may  
not have been coercion used. But the burning down of Sabina's house  
first of all, ended all possibilities of grounding these suspicions  
in evidence, (and so was totally counter-productive) and secondly,  
demonstrated the kind of puritanical moral outrage that I would  
oppose, as a matter of principle. I see nothing wrong in sex work  
(provided it does not involve coercion or minors), and I do not see  
why popular anger against state repression has to find such weak and  
irrelevant targets.

Notwithstanding anything that I might say in opposition to the Indian  
state's brutality, in Kashmir, or elsewhere, I recognize the fact  
that the opposition to that brutality often ends up being the mirror  
image of the repressive apparatus it seeks to oppose.

My disagreement with the cult of macho violence (or self-denying 'non- 
violence' of the repressive Gandian variety) as a tool for politics  
stems from the fact that it inevitably breeds a masculinist, elite  
section within the opposition that ultimately denies agency to acts  
and ways of being and relating to others, to the land, to identities,  
even to the concrete and banal realities of day to day living outside  
of the binary tropes of nationalities and fortified identities, of  
'us' and 'them'. I find martyrs and martyrdom, for instance,  
particularly depressing. The nation, or 'community' in each instance,  
becomes a means by which the immense array of individual and  
interpersonal variations is flattened away. I wish every 'martyr' had  
betrayed the urge to seek death and had chosen life instead.

Which is why, national liberation movements the world over, end up as  
oppressors, once they attain power. It is high time we all started  
looking, especially in Kashmir, and in relation to Kashmir (and no, I  
do not think that this is a luxury that can be afforded only once  
'azaadi' is attained, by then it will be too late) for more  
imaginative methods and languages for political action than some of  
the tired and tested slogans and attitudes that have both fuelled and  
crippled the opposition in Kashmir. For instance, I find it tragic  
when people chant 'Pakistan Zindabad' in response to 'Hindustan  
ZIndabad', as if they were participating in some bizarre and macabre  
contest to see which flavour of repression tastes better on the tongue.

For now, I maintain, that the actions of the Indian state in the past  
few days in the Kashmir valley, have been heinous. And I hope that  
everyone concerned acts in a manner that ensures that more lives are  
not lost, in Jammu and in Kashmir.

I also agree with your desire for the de-militarization of Jammu and  
Kashmir, I think normal, everyday political and social processes can  
find life and vigour only when armies retreat. For this to happen,  
first of all the Indian and Pakistani military forces that are in  
occupation of different parts of the undivided state of Jammu and  
Kashmir must leave, and repressive laws such as the Armed Forces  
Special Powers Act must be repealed, prisoners and detainees held  
under repressive laws like the Public Safety Act must be released  
(and these acts, or variations of them are also in operation in Pak  
Occupied kashmir and in the Northern Areas ) correspondingly and  
simultaneously, all insurgent forces must de-commission and destroy  
weapons and disband militias, (similar processes have happened, for  
instance in Northern Ireland, and there is no reason why they cannot  
occur in Jammu and Kashmir). There has also, of necessity, to be  
liberty of movement for people in different parts of the region.  
People must be able to travel across the line of control and the  
international border in safety and without harrassment from armies  
and militias on either side. The liberty of movement necessarily  
requires that all people displaced against their will, be they  
Kashmiri Pandits, or others, have a 'right to return', and that there  
be guarantees in place to enable the peaceful exercise of this right.

Further, the governments of India and Pakistan must provide  
guarantees, firstly, to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, India and  
Pakistan and then to the international community that they will  
ensure that all sections of the population of Jammu and Kashmir  
(including Ladakh and the Northern Areas, and displaced populations  
be they Kashmiri pandits or Kashmiri muslims, many of whom live in  
exile in POK) will be able (in an internationally monitored) series  
of exercises to choose their own destiny in a free, peaceful and a  
fair manner. First of all, this calls for the recognition of the fact  
that Jammu and Kashmir is not a 'bilateral' issue that can be decided  
between representatives of the governments of India and Pakistan. It  
means international recognition of the fact that the people of Jammu  
and Kashmir (and their freely chosen representatives) are parties to  
this dispute, and that any decisions that does not involve them as  
parties is unacceptable. It calls for multi-lateral talks without  
conditions such as the 'framework of the constitution of India'  or  
the 'two nation theory' and for making arrangements for a plebiscite  
under international supervision - which has been a long-standing  
demand of a large section of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. What  
results from this exercise may be an arrangement between nation  
states, the emergence of a new nation state or new nation states, or  
the de facto emergence of territories that do not define themselves  
as nation states. The world will not come to and end if the political  
map of the northern part of South Asia changes shapes and colours in  
order to ensure peace, stability and prosperity of the people who  
happen to live in these territories.

I do not think that these are unrealistic and utopian demands, some  
instances of arrangements of this nature have in fact been tried out  
between states and populations in other parts of the world, and there  
is no reason why they cannot be emulated in this case. What it  
requires is imagination and pragmatic intelligence The situation as  
it obtains on the ground today requires us all to think all these  
issues through with urgency, compassion, courage and intelligence . I  
hope that we can see this happen in our lifetime, and that Kashmir,  
instead of being a valley torn as it is today can become a bridgehead  
for peace and co-operation between the peoples of south and central  
asia. I hope to set foot in such a Kashmir one day.

regards

Shuddha



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Shuddhabrata Sengupta