[Reader-list] 'Why object to Islamic rule in Kashmir' - The Geelani interview

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear Kshmendra,

Thank you for your posting on highlighting Syed Ali Shah Geelani's  
opinions. There is nothing new in what Geelani has said, and his  
position is quite well known, both within Kashmir, as well as amongst  
those who have a long-standing interest in the matter. I am  
responding to this question not because I have a personal axe to  
grind pro or anti S.A.S Geelani, but because the question you raise  
implicitly has important shades, and I would like not to let go of  
their significance. I will turn to them briefly at the end of this  
posting.

Let me begin by saying that I agree with you on the completely  
nonsensical nature of S.A.S Geelani's half baked views on the subject  
of the future governance of Kashmir. There is, as you rightly point  
out, no single accepted interpretation of what exactly constitutes  
Islamic jurisprudence and statecraft , so it is clear that when he  
talks of using that as a guide with which to govern (nizam) Kashmir  
he is clearly intent on imposing his own narrow, secterian view,  
which would be anathema even to the majority of Muslims in Kashmir.

  When anyone, let alone someone like S.A.S Geelani (who should know  
better, because he claims to be a scholar of Islam) talks about  
Islamic  Socio-Economic conditions, or Islamic Culture (which one,  
the one of Andalusia, Java, the Levant, Shi'a Iran, Bektashi  
European, Turkish Ottoman, or Hejazi, or Peasant Bengali), or about  
the Sunnah as a guide to governance and everyday living (on which  
there is no consensus within Islam)  he is  clearly talking utter  
nonsense (such guidance does not exist in any clear form and would  
have to be invented)  and it should be absolutely clear to everyone  
that as a possible future ruler he would be the worst disaster to  
have befallen the unhappy people of Kashmir. Just as every modern  
Muslim Fundamentalist Ruler has been a disaster for every single  
people whom they have had the misfortune to rule.

I have to say that he reminds me a lot of a man venerated by many in  
the 'pantheon' of the Indian struggle for Indendence. Subhash Chandra  
Bose - charismatic, doctrinaire, reportedly honest, willing to sup  
with fascists and nazis, authoritarian and fascinated by authority,  
and with a vain, arrogant yet thuggish streak that would have made  
him a disaster as a possible ruler of Independent India (and dare I  
say,even more of a disaster for Kashmir), This part of the world was  
spared much misfortune by that airplane that never quite made it over  
the straits of Formosa after the second world war. (His brother,  
Sarat Bose however, was in my opinion one of the most interesting and  
creative political actors of his generation). So, India was spared  
Subhash Bose by an air mishap, and S.A.S Geelani's advancing age may  
also deliver him from Kashmir, and yet allow Kashmir to remember him  
with some hazy residual fondness for his reported honesty, personal  
civility and straightforwardness.

Having said all this, I am surprised that you say that the opinions  
expressed on the Reader List that are not in accordance with the  
standard Indian state's position on Kashmir are 'muted' when it comes  
to S.A.S Geelani. I think they occupy a fairly wide spectrum, some  
are indifferent, some are muted, some are possibly in agreement, some  
are in mild disagreement, some are in total disagreement (like mine).  
This spectrum,  to me, is a sign of the health of what you call the  
'pro-separatist' and what I would characterize the 'pro-withdrawal of  
India from Kashmir' position(s) on the Reader List. Difference, even  
robust difference, is always healthy.

I think the 'pro continued Indian occupation of Kashmir' position on  
this list, in comparison, is far more monotonous. It does not seem to  
have much by way of internal debate or differentiation, or, if it  
does, (with some exceptions, mainly reservations expressed  
occasionally in a minor key by you) it does not appear, at least not  
on this list.

(This list - The Reader List - by the way is a list that is hosted on  
the Sarai website, among other lists. It is not THE Sarai list, it is  
not the SARAI list. And the opinions expressed on this list are not  
the opinions of Sarai, even when they are expressed by people who  
work at Sarai. Sarai does not have an opinion. It cannot, because it  
is neither a person, nor a party, nor an interest group. And Sarai  
hosts many different kinds of curiosities, as researchers, as fellows  
as practitioners, not all of whom have the same opinion on Kashmir,  
or any thing for that matter)

Sorry for that clarificatory digression. But now back to your  
question. Is the so called 'pro-'Azadi' ' camp in Kashmir, elsewhere,  
or on this list, 'mute' about S.A.S Geelani?

Let me begin addressing this question first of all by asking a  
counter-question. Why is it necessary for us to be 'vocal' about  
Geelani at all? As far as I am concerned, he is just another  
politician, perhaps respected by some people in the valley because he  
is seen (by some again, not all) as not having ever been on the  
payroll of the Indian state.  (Many others in the so called  
'separatist' leadership have at one time or another been seen as  
(rightly or wrongly) or have been believed to be compromised by their  
tacit acceptance of  covert 'favours' by the Indian state. But to me,  
this question of 'is Geelani corrupt or not ?' is actually  
irrelevant. Sometimes the most dangerous politics is exercised by  
those who adorn themselves with the charisma of incorruptability and  
the glow of an inability to be flexible. So this alone is not a  
criterion by which I judge what SAS Geelani represents in Kashmir.

For me, the opinions of this octegenarian politician (and sometime  
member of the Legislative Assembly of Jammu & Kashmir - which proves  
that even S.A.S Geelani has been different things at different times)  
is of less consequence than the logic of what impels the people of  
Kashmir to reject the Indian state. Today, more than ever before in  
Kashmir, the people are ahead of their leaders. The initiative is  
really in their hands, and the Indian state is terribly confused  
because there is little that it can achieve even by playing games of  
intrigue within and between the factions of the Hurriyat Conference,  
because frankly, neither the Hurriyet Leadership, nor the Militants,  
nor the ISI, nor the mainstream political parties, are running the  
show. The show is running, despite, not because of them.

The logic of how the show runs, how the people of Kashmir enact their  
refusal of the Indian state has to do with the stranglehold that the  
Indian state has exercised over aspect of life in Kashmir, and its  
absolute refusal to let people live in peace. Only today, we have  
read a report in the Indian Express that speaks of the repressive  
apparatus of the state attacking ambulances and ambulance crews. And  
we have read earlier of police and CRPF using violence in the  
casualty wards of hospitals, intimidating doctors and nurses as they  
tend to the wounded. I have been in Kashmir, I have seen an Army unit  
burn a village, I have seen the fear in a father's face as he spoke  
to me, thinking that as an 'indian', i could have some influence in  
helping get his teenage daughter back from the clutches of an army  
patrol who were holding her hostage. If I were a villager who lived  
in that village, why would you expect me to feel anything but hatred  
and fear for the state that does these things. That is why, my  
standing by the movement against the Indian occupation has more to do  
with standing by these people rather than anything to do with the  
ephemerality of a so called 'leadership'. Let us not forget, that  
S.A.S Geelani's claim to 'leadership' is far from being uncontested.  
He had to leave his own party, the Jamaat e Islam, because no one  
took him seriously, and the 'Tehreek -e-Hurriyat' which has been his  
refuge in recent days is a far more heterodox and complex formation  
than he is actually comfortable with. S.A,S Geelani routinely listens  
only to those who say yes to him, and the fact that the crowd that  
did not take his 'claim to leadership' at the rally after which he  
had to apologize is a pointer of the fact that in front of  
constituencies other than his own, his authority is not that high,  
even though there may be a grudging respect for his moral standing.

At the same time, in the maelstorm that is Kashmir, there must be  
several, brutalized, humiliated, scorned, who would think -  "Why  
should I not turn to a man who speaks a clear and forthright anger  
against these violences. Why would I not take his idiom seriously.  
Why, when I have nothing left to cling to, should I not reach out and  
hold on to the surety of an iron clad faith that he holds out to me."  
and that perhaps explains S.A.S Geelani's desparate constituency. His  
appeal, however much of it exists, and it exists, not for a single  
reason, or even in a simple way, (I know for instance, that people  
weep for him and curse him at the same time). It is an index of how  
far the people of Kashmir have been pushed to the wall.

I understand this, and yet I think that this is a profound tragedy.  
S.A.S Geelani, once a minor, unpopular politician in the Jamaat e  
Islami, a sometime MLA for a party with two seats that were scrounged  
and won in fraudulent elections, a party that no one really cared for  
in Kashmir, is what he is today, thanks to the Indian state.

Through the fifties, sixities, seventies, eighties it suffocated  
every other form of opposition. It engineered the imprisonment of  
every dissident voice, toppled governments at will, and capriciously  
arranged for the rise and fall of this or that figure and then  
arranged for the execution of Maqbool Butt, the exile of Amanullah  
Khan, the targetted assasinations of figures like Dr. Guru, Hriday  
Nath Wanchoo, the elder Mirwaiz, Abdul Ghani Lone  and many others  
who were of much greater stature than S.A.S Geelani in the eyes of  
the people of Kashmir and who could have, at times like this,  
provided some of  the ethical and intellectual anchors, even some of  
the personal succor that the movement  needs today.

Who was left? Who was transformed from a virtual non-entity to the  
man in shining incorruptible armour - S.A.S Geelani. He suited the  
Indian state best. He could be demonized, he could be portrayed as a  
bigot, which he is. He held out for a corrupt military dictatorship  
in Pakistan. His malignant ideas about what kind of Kashmir he wants  
can be ridiculed, and so, by extension, the movement as a whole could  
be tarred by having him identified as the leader, as the qaid.

Something similar happenned in Iran. The Shah of Iran completely  
destroyed every form of opposition, other than the clerics of Qom. A  
surprised Khomeini, who could at least go into exile in Iraq and  
France, while the non-Islamist or moderate Muslim opposition found  
itself shot with bullets in the back of the neck, found the moral  
leadership of the Iranian revolution gifted to him by the fleeing  
Shah of Iran. The Indian state, by using money, guns and intrigue,  
has left Geelani (the apparently incorruptible, honest and  
straightforward, but reactionary, proto-fascist Geelani) holding  
himself out as the pretender to the throne of the leadership of the  
movement for Azadi in Kashmir. It is not the people of Kashmir as  
much as Iovernment of India that has crowned Geelani by demonizing  
him. The people of Kashmir, in their bitteness, have sometimes looked  
up to the man that the Government of India loathes most of all. This  
may not be as accurate an index of their esteem for that man as it is  
a mark of their hatred for that government. It is for the same reason  
that Bose became wildly  popular (even in areas where he had no base)  
in the bitter forties of the last century in India, when the British  
Raj was on its last and in some ways most desperate legs in India.

Ask the successive home ministers, prime ministers and intelligence  
officers of India why they brought Kashmir to this state that Geelani  
can appear sometimes as if he could be a saviour to the same people  
that he also infuriates with his obstinacy, his retrograde statements  
and reactionary outlook on life.

As for what I think of him and what he represents. And I can speak  
only for myself here. I have always been clear.

At the risk of repetition, let me quote from two postings -

------------------------------------

Re: [Reader-list] Gun Salutes for August 15
	Date: 	16 August 2008 5:11:19 PM GMT+05:30

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.

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.

[I posted this because it was Geelani who raised the ridiculous bogey  
of the 'demographic shift' in Kashmir, even as he (correctly, in my  
view) pointed out that the anger about the alienation of land in  
Kashmir has to do with the arbitrary  occupation of acres and acres  
of land by the Armed Forces of India.]


Re: [Reader-list] Gun Salutes for August 15
	Date: 	21 August 2008 3:45:48 AM GMT+05:30

I disagree with anyone who calls for 'Nizam-E-Mustafa' because I  
disagree with the idea or imagination of any 'Nizam' or regime that  
finds it necessary to protect itself from question by adorning the  
mantle of unquestionable sanctity. The word 'Mustafa' means 'Chosen'  
in Arabic. And the idea of a 'NIzam-E-Mustafa' meaning, the 'state of  
the chosen'  has an uncanny resemblance to the idea of the return of  
the 'chosen people' to their state, which is the foundational myth,  
if you like of Zionism. I know that Syed Ali Shah Geelani would  
probably be horrified to think that his vision of 'Azaadi' has a  
striking parallel of the founding myth of the State of Israel.(and it  
is actually the founding myth of all hitherto oppressed people who  
are led to believe that once they achieve a statehood congruent with  
their idea of who they are, all will be well - this is the general  
condition of all secular, radical, liberal or conservative notions of  
nationalism, of which, Zionism and the idea of the  'Nizam e Mustafa'  
are perhaps the clearest exemplars.)

The perception of a 'State' as the 'Manifest Destiny' of a people  
chosen by God or History, or both, contains within it the seed of a  
terrible tragedy, of yesterday's victims transforming themselves into  
tomorrows tormentors. Of the Pakistani army conducting mass murder in  
what was once East Pakistan, and thus destroying once and for all,  
the delusion of a brotherhood forged on the basis of Islam alone. No  
one could imagine that those who laid the foundations of the Jewish  
state of Israel in the wake of the holocaust would be laying the  
foundations of a detention facility for Palestinians. No one could  
imagine that those who led the oppressed people of India into her  
'tryst with destiny' in 1947, so radiant in the first flush of what  
they called freedom, would turn Kashmir or the North East or much of  
Central India into death camps. We, especially those of us who stand  
by Kashmiris today, against Indian and Pakistani occupation, must  
imagine the possibility  that an 'Azaad' Kashmir, whether it is  
independent, or a part of Pakistan, may also be a similar bitter  
harvest. Nothing can be more lethal than the assumption that victims  
are innocent per se. We must recognize clearly, especially if we  
invest in the idea of 'Azaadi' that those who speak of freedom in  
Kashmir today, may turn out to be oppressors tomorrow. It is because  
of this, that I disagree with any attempt to cloak the idea of the  
state (even, and especially if it claims to speak for and on behalf  
of the oppressed) with any sanctity. As long as the state as a form  
of organising and administering human society remains, we must be  
vigilant, I believe, to ensure that those who lead the state are not  
able to adorn themselves with the concealing cloak of sanctity of any  
kind. The sanctity and glamour of the yesterday's state of being  
oppressed is a weapon in the arsenal of tomorrow's oppressor. This  
applies, without any qualification to the present and future destiny  
of Kashmir, and the people of Kashmir must be vigilant against all  
those who act in the name of the sacred, and most of all, in their  
name, in the name of the people of Kashmir.

---------------------------

  Let me now come to whether the fact that S A S Geelani makes  
himself out to be a man of religion, or whether the fact that the  
Mirwaiz speaks from a pulpit and is a religious figure of some  
consequence in Kashmir should make any different to our assessment of  
these individuals. Personally, no. I am not religious myself, but I  
do believe that several of the most creative political thinkers and  
activists of our times have been motivated by their religious  
convictions, and have spoken politically in a religious idiom. These  
include the Liberation Theologian and Nicaraguan Revolutionary  
Ernesto Cardenal, Tenzing Gyaltso -  the fourteenth Dalai Lama,  
Martin Luther King Jr., Swami Sahajanand Saraswati (A Dandin Sannyasi  
and Bihar Peasant leader and sometime member of the Communist Party)  
and Rahul Sankrityayan (Ordained Buddhist monk and maverick  
Communist), For me, a staunch non-believer, the secular-religious  
divide is not as important as the humanist-non-humanist divide. For  
me, as i have stated above, the key test is, does the person  
concerned hold out his views and ideology as sacred and beyond  
question, if he does, regardless of whether he or she is devout or an  
atheist, they are bad news.

Finally, a cause may be just, even if it is saddled by an  
incompetent, or disagreeable protagonist. Similarly, a cause may be  
unjust, even though it may be represented by agreeable and  
intelligent people. I believe that the cause of Azadi for Kashmir is  
just, even though I find some of its protagonists incompetent and  
disagreeable (I feel that S.A.S Geelani may be honest, but as a  
political protagonist he is both incompetent and disagreeable) . I  
believe that the cause of having India hold on to Kashmir is unjust  
even as I may find some of its proponents agreeable at a personal  
level. I am sure you understand what I mean.

regards

Shuddha


On 26-Aug-08, at 6:06 PM, Kshmendra Kaul wrote:

> If, any deserving to be taken seriously voice were to say that  
> 'India should be declared as a Hindu country', there would be many  
> a million voices (including mine) that would stridently condemn  
> such a statement, that would be gravitated to campaign for and  
> garner widespread public opinion against such a statement.
>
> We would find some of the most brilliantly argued, impressively  
> articulate, eloquent and even 'wordy' dismissals of such a  
> statement in SARAI itself.
>
> On SARAI we have quite a few brilliantly argumentatitive,  
> impressively articulate, eloquent and often wordy opinions  
> expressed in favour of the 'separatists' of Kashmir. Surprisingly,  
> they are rather muted in their comments about Geelani's position.  
> Demure almost in their referring to him in-passing and generally  
> conveying the impression that the Geelani (and his support base)  
> position is not of any real significance and of not much  
> consequence in the "separatist movement". That tells me (at least),  
> how much these people are in touch with the 'realities' of Kashmir  
> or the "separatist movement".
>
>

Shuddhabrata Sengupta