[Reader-list] Gun Salutes for August 15

[S. Jabbar]

Hey Shuddha,

Thanks for the mails & sorry I haven¹t had the time to even read them
properly let alone frame a response as I am leaving Delhi tomorrow night for
a whole month & have a load of stuff to do.

I promise I will try & do so in a few days.  And yes, it is entirely
possible to have disagreements without being disagreeable.

Cheers!
sj


On 8/16/08 5:11 PM, "Shuddhabrata Sengupta" <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:

> Dear Sonia, 
> 
> 
> 
> Having spelt out what I agree with you on, in my previous post, let me, in all
> fairness, come to what I disagree with you on. Actually, disagreement, is not
> necessarily what I have in mind, what I mean is where I see things differently
> from you. I hope that in the course of reading this exchange, our young friend
> Aditya Raj Kaul will recognize that it is possible for people to see things
> differently, and even to disagree, without having to search for new ways of
> insulting each other.
> 
> 
> 
> You said, 
> 
> 
> 
> I read with some surprise your taking issue with my use of the phrase,
>> 
>> Œbaying for blood¹ and your accompanying list of slogans used during the
>> 
>> protests.  It is incomplete and I could add a few more but I really don¹t
>> 
>> want to vitiate and already horrible situation.  I¹m sure you remember 1989
>> 
>> and the slogan ŒJai Sri Ram.¹  Advani had used a similar argument when
>> 
>> challenged.  He said something like, what is communal or provocative about
>> 
>> taking God¹s name?  What, indeed, except when there is a thousand strong mob
>> 
>> screaming God¹s name and marching towards Muslim localities as they did in
>> 
>> Œ92 and Œ93.  I would describe that as baying for blood.
> 
> 
> The difference between Advani's justification of the Jai Shri Ram slogan in
> 1989 and what I am trying to point in relation to the events of the past few
> days in the Kashmir valley lies in the fact that the protestors on the roads
> and highways of Kashmir were not 'screaming God's name and marching towards
> (any particular community's) localities.' Had the march been to Jammu, or
> Amarnath, not Muzaffarabad, and had they been seeking a deliberate
> confrontation with the crowds rallying to the SASS slogans, or the pilgrims to
> Amarnath, then you would have been absolutely right. As it happens this did
> not occur. And as I have pointed out before, a record number of pilgrims
> travelled safely to Amarnath this year, in the yatra which has just
> concluded.In this case, the protestors in Kashmir were marching not with
> aggressive intent towards another community, but towards the LOC, demanding
> that the borders be opened. I think there is a world of a difference in these
> two trajectories. I think this does suggest that we could recognize that the
> articulation of anger in Kashmir today is more mature than it was even in '89.
> This is all the more evident when we realize that every single person in any
> role of leadership of consequence in the Kashmir valley has called for
> peaceful protest, and for the maintenance of communal harmony.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> I can¹t help hearing the ringing similarity between Œinfrastructure of
>> 
>> oppression¹ and the chilling phrase we used to hear pre-1992, Œdisputed
>> 
>> structure,¹ Œsymbol of Hindu oppression.¹  Do you remember Naipaul¹s defence
>> 
>> of Hindutva and why the tearing down of the Babri Masjid was but natural for
>> 
>> a people who had been oppressed by Muslim rulers for 500 years?  The point
>> 
>> I¹m trying to make is that once you give a group a carte blanche to do as
>> 
>> they please, to destroy what they consider symbols of oppression, you have
>> 
>> very little ground to stand on when others whom you may not agree with
>> 
>> politically do the same.  That is why laws exist and ought to be followed.
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> Again, there is a difference, I think you will agree, between an attack on a
> 16th century mosque, and the disarming of a CRPF bunker. The mosque, can for
> the sake of an argument,(though I do not buy that argument) be seen by those
> who wanted to raze it to the ground as a 'sign' of perceived communitarian
> oppression. The bunker, is much more than a 'sign', it is the actual locus of
> oppression. It is a place that bullets are fired from. Again, had there been
> attacks on temples, or even on the homes left behind by the Pandits, or the
> schools and colleges that still bear names and signs of Pandit or Dogra
> presence, your argument would have had credence. From the reports that we have
> received, this did not happen. Signs and symbols were not touched, what was
> sought to be dismantled, was the 'infrastructure' of oppression itself, and
> this was done without a single policeman or CRPF person losing their life. As
> we all know, there are enough loose weapons and explosives in the valley. And
> it is not as if CRPF personnel or policemen have not been made targets before.
> They are sitting targets. Again, I would point out to you, two policemen have
> lost their lives in Jammu, no policeman, CRPF personnel, or jawan has lost
> their lives in the past few days in Kashmir. I hope that this continues to be
> the case. 
> 
> 
> 
> During the 'quit India' movement in 1942, there was a significant disruption
> caused to the 'infrastructure' of the colonial state. Police pickets, radio
> towers and wireless transmission systems, for instance were disabled, and care
> was taken to see that lives were not lost. The people who participated in
> these attacks did not see what they were doing as 'violent', indeed, some, if
> not the majority of them, were passionate advocates of 'non-violence'.
> 
> 
> 
> For years, the insurgency in Kashmir has been attacked on the grounds that it
> was only the handwork of a handful of murderous 'terrorists' with no popular
> base. Now that the 'people' are out on the streets, not just in thousands, but
> in tens of thousands, and they are not wielding AK-47s, or assasinating
> anyone, they are being criticized as being present in threateningly large
> numbers. This seems disingenous to me, you can't malign a movement when the
> people are not on the streets on the grounds that it is not popular, and then,
> when the people turn up, criticize them for being so many.
> 
> 
> 
> Further, I do not agree that laws ought to be followed because they exist. We
> must, in each case, ask, which law, to what purpose, and wielded by whom,
> against whom, for whom. In this case, there is a contradiction between the law
> that guarantees the right to free assembly, and the law that prohibits
> assembly. It could be argued that the people of Kashmir are following the
> spirit of the first law in order to violate the letter of the second law. And,
> we all know that patently bad laws exist in Kashmir. Laws such as the Armed
> Forces Special Powers Act. I think it is ethically wrong to obey such a law.
> The question to be asking then, is not, why are the people of Kashmir not
> following the law, but, why are soldiers in the Indian armed forces obeying an
> ethically wrong law. 
> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Re. the 100 acres of land & its distribution: this fact came to light only
>> 
>> about 10 days ago when the land records were pulled out and examined and was
>> 
>> not the spark that lit the agitation in Kashmir, sadly.  What did was the
>> 
>> canard that the SASB acquiring 100 acres was the first step towards Hindus
>> 
>> settling in the valley by a government that was intent on demographic
>> 
>> change. Communal? Maybe, maybe not. Xenophobic,yes. Justified, not
>> 
>> justified: I don¹t care. It¹s just plain silly and tragic to have such a
>> 
>> brouhaha with people being killed about something that¹s a bare-faced lie!
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> I agree, the question of demographic change with regard to the transfer of the
> Amarnath land is a red herring, and a bare faced lie, and smacks of
> xenophobia. 100 acres do not, and cannot lead to a demographic change. And
> everyone must counsel people in Kashmir to abandon this train of thought.
>  When Kashmiri leaders, for whatever reason, talk about 'demographic' threats,
> they sound exactly as foolish and xenophobic as the chauvinist Indian,
> especialy Hindu Right politicians do when they fulminate against 'demographic
> change' that will occur because of Bangladeshi immigration. The protest in
> Kashmir has enough justification, in terms of an anger against the alienation
> of land and against the violence of the state, not to have to get bogged down
> in the chimera of confronting demographic change. 
> 
> 
> 
> I thank you again for this exchange, as I believe that it has led us all in
> the direction of expressing our thoughts without getting caught in the trap of
> abuse, and recrimination, which some people on the list seem unfortunately to
> have become habituated to.
> 
> 
> 
> regards, 
> 
> 
> 
> Shuddha
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> 
> 
>  
> 
>