[Reader-list] Kesavan on Kashmir

[S. Jabbar]

Dear Shuddha,

Unfair to accuse Mukul Kesavan of advocating Empire when he clearly
concludes that it is a squalid choice. His article raises questions and ends
in a non-conclusion. These are squalid choices, we have identified them as
such, so are we forced then into making a choice between these two givens or
can we make that quantum leap into something that frees us from these
squalid choices? 

Again, I take the opportunity of trying to slip in between the either and
ors, the this and that, the polar opposites, the idea of a third choice: one
of a South Asian Union, a choice that is inclusive rather than exclusive,
that cleaves to rather than cleaves.  It is Utopian, I admit, but no more so
than Rahmat Ali¹s idea a decade before Pakistan came into being.

As someone deeply uncomfortable with the large presence of Indian troops who
occupy the Kashmir valley I realized very quickly that just taking a moral
stance on demilitarization was not going to do much more than give me a
squeaky clean conscience. My trajectory went from thinking and writing about
it to actually engaging with various processes to try and find a lasting
solution, at least one where people could think of a lasting solution in a
terror-free atmosphere.

I¹d like to share some of my thoughts and experiences:


You have rightly pointed out that Azadi means different things to different
people. I¹d say for most people in J&K Azadi means to be able to live
without the fear of the gun. Khurram has just sent an appeal from various
groups in Kashmir.  Within it is an appeal for a ceasefire to both the
Indian security forces and the militants.  I think this is something that
should be taken up seriously.  Vajpayee¹s unilateral Ramzan ceasefire in
2000-01 was commendable, but it resulted in 151 civilians being killed in
the first 3 months of the ceasefire, clearly showing that if a ceasefire was
to be effective for the entire population then it had to be something that
worked both ways. The Indian government will never again embark on this
experiment unilaterally because it so clearly failed a section of the
Kashmiri population.


Is it possible for the Indian state to withdraw its armies?  Of course it
was since the armies only went in after 1990.  Before that the BSF manned
the borders and the army was confined to various brigade HQ.  The Rashtriya
Rifles did not exist.  Clearly the hellish Œpermanency¹ of the situation was
less than 20 years old and could be reversed.  The condition placed by the
GoI for demilitarization was if levels of violence went down and threat
perceptions decreased.

The peace process between India and Pakistan, spurred on by civil society
pressure groups, addressed this concern and was moving in a calibrated
manner towards these goals, despite opposition from many on both sides.

In formal and informal meetings with Kashmiri separatists or on various
trips to Pakistan and in forums with Pakistani politicians and peace
activists I have raised the question of a ceasefire from the side of the
mujahideen.  Is it possible to have a ceasefire?  If not a ceasefire, is it
possible that the civilian population is not targeted?

While civil society in Kashmir and Pakistan may agree in principle, those in
government disagree. There is a strong feeling among the Pakistani hawks
that India is too powerful a nation to be challenged by conventional means
and that if the pressure from the militants dropped India would be quite
content to allow things to remain unchanged.  It is a feeling based on
mistrust, on the Indian Constitution that doesn¹t allow for the redrawing of
borders, and for a general lack of interest on the Indian side to tamper
with the status quo. And even if the mujahideen were unable to wrest Kashmir
as they wrested Afghanistan from the Soviets, their continued presence would
guarantee the irksome presence of Indian troops that will definitely keep
the Kashmir pot boiling.

The Indian establishment feels that they have already conceded too much when
they mistakenly adopted (or were forced to adopt) a minimalist position in
negotiating on J&K by not challenging Pakistan¹s position of PAK and the
restive Northern Areas ( where, incidentally, for 60 years there has been no
adult franchise, no constitution, no guarantees of fundamental rights or
democratic representation).  They feel if they had upped the ante 60 years
ago, Pakistan would have been content with the give and take that would have
resulted in their keeping PAK and the NA and Indian settling for J&K with
some minor adjustments along the border.

I am sorry for this very long post. I have given this background for those
who may not understand the history of this deadlock and may feel confused by
the complexities.  The deadlock was somewhat loosened with the beginning of
the peace process between India & Pakistan.  Among the CBMs one was hoping
for a quick breakthrough on Sir Creek and Siachen.  These would have paved
the way for greater CBMs in J&K that envisioned the opening of the
Muzaffarabad road for trade and the free flow of pilgrims and tourists from
Pakistan to Kashmir. When Manmohan Singh spoke of Œmaking borders
irrelevant¹ many of us saw the first outlines of a free, stable, peaceful
South Asia.

When Pakistan began imploding in 2006 and the peace process was put on the
backburner, many rightly feared the unraveling of all that had been gained
in J&K.  In May this year, soon after the formation of the civilian
government in Pakistan, for the first time in 5 years there was a meeting
called by the United Jihad Council in Muzaffarabad where weapons were
brandished openly and a call given for the renewal of Jihad in Kashmir.
Pakistani journalist friends saw this as the military and ISI undermining
the civilian government in Pakistan as well as trying to win some popularity
with the conservatives who were outraged by Pakistani gunships bombing
entire villages out of existence in the NWFP and Swat.   This situation
suits Indian hawks too who are only too happy to see things going to pieces
in Pakistan in the hope that things have to get really bad (with the
Balkanization of Pakistan) for things to get better in Kashmir.
 

 I have seen too much of this war to know that things are not going to
change on the ground because 200,000 people came out on the streets or if a
few intellectuals in India have demanded that troops be withdrawn.    To get
the talks back on track should be everyone¹s first priority. We should
pressure the GoI to take the initiative to restart talks between India and
Pakistan, to invigorate the stalled working groups in Kashmir.  We ourselves
need to actively encourage talks between the regions of Jammu and Kashmir
and act as facilitators if & where we are needed to help heal relations that
seem irreparably damaged.

Best regards,
Sonia





On 8/29/08 12:41 PM, "Shuddhabrata Sengupta" <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:

> Dear Rahul, 
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you for your poser. And I hope that all readers will agree with me when
> I say that it is precisely the kind of question that one hopes to see more of
> on this list. I will try and get a handle on this, but, as my grasp on
> technical matters in philosophy is poor, I hope others who are more competent
> will join this discussion. Let me first of all state that the word 'Azadi' or
> 'Freedom' which is used a lot in discussions around Kashmir does not mean the
> same thing for all those who use it. For some it means the freedom to oppress
> others in an Islamist state, for some it means the freedom to oppress oneself
> in a strong secular state. For me, personally, it means the freedom not to be
> oppressed, as far as is possible, by any state. We need to to keep this
> spectrum in mind when we debate the choices apparently offered by Kesavan in
> his article.
> 
> 
> 
> I enjoyed reading Mukul Kesavan's article, because it helped me think quite a
> few things through, even though I do not necessarily come to the same
> conclusions (or non-conclusions, and i have no problem with non-conclusions,
> they are often more useful than limiting conclusions). 
> 
> 
> 
> After spelling out the case against India holding on to Kashmir he says - 
> 
> 
> 
>>> But there is a case against self-determination which needs to be made,
>>> if only to clarify the consequence of endorsing
>>> 
>>> self-determination.
> 
> 
> This is the kind of debate and discussion that we need. One that weighs its
> options not based of inflexible pre-conceived positions, but through a careful
> sifting of argument and reasoning. 
> 
> 
> 
> As I am not a liberal, I cannot speak for liberals. But I appreciate the
> principled stand that many liberals take in the defence of civil liberty.
> Other liberals, I have noticed, tend to cling to the state, (as a sort of
> lesser evil, I deliberately use the term 'lesser evil' here because Kesavan
> uses it himself, to characterize what he thinks are the motives governing the
> choices of those Indian commentators who have spoken in favour of 'Azadi' for
> Kashmir. I do not agree with this binary of 'lesser and greater evils' but, we
> can speak of that, later). Mukul Kesavan, i think is trying to walk the very
> thin wire between these two positions. To be fair, he has not explicitly told
> us where his options lie, he has merely tried to tell us what he thinks the
> options are. But in doing so he has given a reasonably good idea of where he
> would place his bets - with a flawed, compromised secular democratic ideal of
> India (which includes Kashmir) as a 'lesser evil' (to use, again his own
> language) compared to an independent Islamist statelet in Kashmir, or a
> Kashmir that accedes to Pakistan.
> 
> 
> 
> However, characteristically, his options only take the form of either this
> kind of state, or that kind of state. Either secular India, or Islamist
> Kashmir, or an Islamist Kashmir within an Islamist Pakistan. I think the
> limitation of this kind of thinking is that it ties the options available to
> the people of Kashmir only in terms of what Mukul Kesavan thinks operates
> currently on the ground. Why should we have to agree that these indeed exhaust
> all possibilities. Self proclaimed 'pragmatists' may think they do, but I am
> of the opinion that it is the task of writers and intellectuals, and of all
> people working with ideas and images and concepts, to begin working in areas
> that so called 'pragmatists' cannot enter because of their own self defined
> limits of what they think is or is not possible. The idea of universal adult
> suffrage, (which is today considered the staple basis of republican statehood)
> was once considered a laughably utopian idea. But once you accept the
> necessity of a particular form of political expression, then, you can begin to
> think about the most practical means to achieve it in the shortest time. The
> trouble is, as long as commentators think that the solutions to Kashmir, (or
> Ossetia, or Chechnya, or whatever) lie only in a cloning, or division, or
> consolidation, or integration of post-Westphalian states, (and the gamut of
> proposals ranging from an independent secular Kashmir, to an independent
> Islamist Kashmir, to an Independent secular Jammu and Kashmir, to a Kashmir
> that accedes to Pakistan, to a Kashmir that is held by India all fall along
> this 'state' centric spectrum) they are refusing to engage with the
> possibility that it is precisely the 'form' of the nation-state that is the
> wall on which a seemingly intractable reality like Kashmir bangs its head,
> time and again. They refuse, in other words, to think of any other 'form' by
> which peoples can live together in a given territory. The spectre of the
> sovereign refuses to let go of them. They may disagree violently over which
> state they wish to commit to, but they are, in the end, all loyal to the idea
> of the sovereign. 
> 
> 
> 
> In that sense, all these options, to me are, actually - deontological and in
> some cases tend towards a kind of virtue ethics. I say this because they argue
> not in terms of the consequences of the state form, but in terms of our some
> kind of presupposed fidelity to one form or the other of the state itself. 
> 
> 
> 
> Elsewhere in his text, Kesavan also tries to make a weak teleological or
> consequentialist argument, when he raises the spectre of what happenned in
> Yugoslavia, or Sri Lanka as a caveat or warning to those who argue for 'Azadi'
> for Kashmir. Here, I think he is on very slippery ground. For every example of
> what goes wrong when nation states disintegrate, there can be offered counter
> examples of what continues to go wrong when nation states that ought not to be
> so gargantuan in the first place continue to exist by force. The USSR's
> prolonged existence as the inheritor of Czarist Russia's 'prison house of
> nations' (barring a brief post 'Oktober 1917' interregnum when the 'right to
> self determination' actually permitted the separation of Finland, Poland, the
> Baltic Republics and even some Central Asian territories) is an object lesson
> in the continued suffering caused by the perpetuation by force of the
> Soviet/Russian Imeperium. Kesavan invokes the Chechens, but not to mention
> that Stalin's decision to 'wipe Chechnya off the Map' and to deport all
> Chechens (and parts of other ethnicities) to forms of forced internal exile,
> (in the name of the integrity of the Soviet Union under his dictatorship) led
> to many hundreds of thousands of deaths, just as many, if not more than what
> occurred consequent to the break-up of Yugoslavia. 
> 
> 
> 
> Kesavan goes on to give us another reason for opposing the Kashmiri's  right
> to self determination. He says - 
> 
> 
> 
>>> Alternately, he might oppose self-determination because he thinks the
>>> Indian republic is a flawed but valuable experiment in democratic pluralism,
>>> that the Indian national movement and the nation-state it created, tried, in
>>> an
>>> 
>>> unprecedented way, to build a national identity on the idea of
>>> diversity, not homogeneity
> 
> 
> This is frankly, very poor reasoning. Once again, weak consequentialism. It is
> arguing on the basis of one set of perceived consequences against another set
> of imagined consequences. We do not know yet, what an 'Azad' Kashmir is, or
> can be. As I said at the very outset, it means very different things to very
> different people. In the absence of a sure knowledge of what an entity can be
> if it comes into existence, we cannot use our speculation of what we think it
> might be, to argue against the desire to change what exists, when its
> existence becomes unbearable. 
> 
> 
> 
> Finally, again, it presumes that the democratic will of the Kashmiri people is
> not really of consequence. Which is a kind of difficult argument for a liberal
> to make. It is somewhat reminiscent of those liberals in Britain, like John
> Stuart Mill, who believed that a commitment to democracy at home, did not
> necessarily translate into a commitment to democracy in the 'colonies'. This
> is the well known 'rule of colonial difference'. 
> 
> 
> 
> Is Kesavan then offering, as his second option, a lame-liberalism, all too
> reminiscent of the  liberals who wanted to maintain the British Empire as a
> cricket, tea and sandwiches kind of utopia? Where the natives could serve the
> tea and sandwiches, and someday, hope to play cricket? Substitute the word
> British for Indian, and you will know exactly what I mean. The tea, sandwiches
> and cricket can stay the same.
> 
> 
> 
> regards
> 
> 
> 
> Shuddha
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 29-Aug-08, at 5:15 AM, Rahul Asthana wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I am tempted to toss a poser on the list.What kind of ethical framework is,or
>> should be, more in congruence with the liberal line of thinking -teleological
>> or deontological? 
>> 
>> http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blfaq_phileth_sys.htm
>> 
>> P.S. I am fully well aware of the open ended nature of the question,but I
>> think,trying to derive some kind of formalism from Kesavan's advice to
>> liberals may churn up some interesting ideas.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --- On Thu, 8/28/08, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>  
>>> From: Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
>>> 
>>> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Kesavan on Kashmir
>>> 
>>> To: "Sarai" <reader-list at sarai.net>, "S. Jabbar" <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com>
>>> 
>>> Date: Thursday, August 28, 2008, 7:18 PM
>>> 
>>> Most certainly (in my opinion) a fairly and sensibly laid
>>> 
>>> out set of arguments on this issue. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Kshmendra
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --- On Thu, 8/28/08, S. Jabbar
>>> 
>>> <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> From: S. Jabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com>
>>> 
>>> Subject: [Reader-list] Kesavan on Kashmir
>>> 
>>> To: "Sarai" <reader-list at sarai.net>
>>> 
>>> Date: Thursday, August 28, 2008, 7:00 PM
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  From the Telegraph, Calcutta
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> THE TROUBLE WITH EDEN
>>> 
>>> - Kashmir offers a choice between two compromised ideals
>>> 
>>> Mukul Kesavan
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I¹ve never been to Kashmir. I nearly went in 1987 to
>>> 
>>> Srinagar; there¹s a
>>> 
>>> guesthouse there that used to be owned by Grindlays Bank,
>>> 
>>> where I was meant
>>> 
>>> to stay, but then the troubles began and I stayed home. The
>>> 
>>> closest I came
>>> 
>>> to living in Kashmir was living in Kashmiri Gate, a
>>> 
>>> neighbourhood in north
>>> 
>>> Delhi where the walled city ended and the Civil Lines
>>> 
>>> began. There¹s a
>>> 
>>> cinema hall there called the Ritz, where, in the early
>>> 
>>> Sixties, I saw
>>> 
>>> visions of Kashmir in films like Kashmir Ki Kali. Those
>>> 
>>> were the years when
>>> 
>>> Bombay cinema specialized in houseboat and hill-station
>>> 
>>> idylls and in these
>>> 
>>> films Kashmir often stood in for Eden.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Delhi was a Jan Sangh city then; Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a
>>> 
>>> promising local
>>> 
>>> politician. Growing up in Kashmiri Gate, I wasn¹t
>>> 
>>> especially political but I
>>> 
>>> knew that Jan Sanghis blamed Nehru for Kashmir¹s disputed
>>> 
>>> status. If he
>>> 
>>> hadn¹t agreed to a plebiscite, or if he had allowed
>>> 
>>> Indians from outside
>>> 
>>> Kashmir to settle there, or if he hadn¹t made the fatal
>>> 
>>> mistake of Article
>>> 
>>> 370, which gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status within
>>> 
>>> the Union, if he
>>> 
>>> hadn¹t indulged Sheikh Abdullah if he hadn¹t done all of
>>> 
>>> this, we wouldn¹t
>>> 
>>> be wrestling with secessionism and sedition in Kashmir.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> For most of us who, like me, have no first-hand experience
>>> 
>>> of Kashmir, the
>>> 
>>> troubles in the Valley are, for the most part, a series of
>>> 
>>> off-stage noises.
>>> 
>>> Our governors, or more precisely, our proconsuls, sometimes
>>> 
>>> become famous
>>> 
>>> for making bad things worse, wars and skirmishes emblazon
>>> 
>>> names like Kargil
>>> 
>>> on our collective consciousness, newsworthy violence like
>>> 
>>> the purging of
>>> 
>>> Kashmiri Pandits from the valley or the brutalization of
>>> 
>>> Kashmiri Muslims by
>>> 
>>> the security forces surfaces in the newspapers and news
>>> 
>>> channels, and then
>>> 
>>> there are long periods of absent-mindedness when Kashmir
>>> 
>>> disappears and
>>> 
>>> these are the times when it¹s deemed to be calm or inching
>>> 
>>> towards normalcy.
>>> 
>>> Wise men, in these interludes, talk on television about
>>> 
>>> commerce being the
>>> 
>>> key to peace. Tourism¹s up, they say hopefully. Then the
>>> 
>>> valley erupts and
>>> 
>>> half-forgotten names like Hurriyat and Malik and Geelani
>>> 
>>> and Farooq flicker
>>> 
>>> in our heads.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This latest eruption, though, has provoked a set of unusual
>>> 
>>> reactions. The
>>> 
>>> enormous popular mobilization in the Valley after General
>>> 
>>> Sinha, our last
>>> 
>>> governor, stirred the pot by allotting a large plot of land
>>> 
>>> to the Amarnath
>>> 
>>> Shrine Board, and after the security forces, predictably
>>> 
>>> enough, killed
>>> 
>>> Kashmiri Muslims in the demonstrations that followed, has
>>> 
>>> prompted
>>> 
>>> mainstream journalists like Vir Sanghvi and Swaminathan
>>> 
>>> Aiyar to write
>>> 
>>> opinion pieces arguing that India should seriously consider
>>> 
>>> letting Kashmir
>>> 
>>> go. Arundhati Roy, who was present at the enormous rally,
>>> 
>>> made the same
>>> 
>>> point more forcefully, arguing that the pro-Pakistan
>>> 
>>> slogans or the
>>> 
>>> distinctly Islamic idiom of the azadi vanguard, ought not
>>> 
>>> to distract us
>>> 
>>> from the fact that India has no right to hold the Valley¹s
>>> 
>>> Muslims against
>>> 
>>> their will. The routes by which these writers came to their
>>> 
>>> conclusions are
>>> 
>>> different, but the conclusion is the same: that the time
>>> 
>>> has come to think
>>> 
>>> the unthinkable: an azad Kashmir, or even the prospect of
>>> 
>>> Kashmir becoming
>>> 
>>> part of Pakistan.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Are they right? Should Indian liberals and democrats
>>> 
>>> endorse
>>> 
>>> self-determination for Kashmir? Or is it possible to hold
>>> 
>>> another position:
>>> 
>>> can a liberal oppose azadi in Kashmir in good faith? One
>>> 
>>> way of exploring
>>> 
>>> this is to make dhobi lists of the pros and cons of
>>> 
>>> Kashmiri
>>> 
>>> self-determination.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The case for self-determination is contained in the term
>>> 
>>> itself. If we
>>> 
>>> accept that the two hundred thousand Kashmiris who came out
>>> 
>>> to protest
>>> 
>>> against Indian rule, to shout for liberty, to invoke the
>>> 
>>> ideal of an Islamic
>>> 
>>> state, to press the case for union with Pakistan, are
>>> 
>>> representative of
>>> 
>>> Kashmir¹s Muslim population, then pressing India¹s claim
>>> 
>>> to Kashmir with
>>> 
>>> guns and bayonets is a violent negation of their collective
>>> 
>>> will. It¹s hard
>>> 
>>> for a liberal or a democrat to defend that position. No
>>> 
>>> matter how violently
>>> 
>>> you disagree with their ideas, or how convinced you are of
>>> 
>>> Pakistani
>>> 
>>> mischief and instigation, given the violence the Indian
>>> 
>>> state has inflicted
>>> 
>>> on Kashmiris, it¹s hard to argue that India is entitled to
>>> 
>>> the benefit of
>>> 
>>> the doubt. Kashmiri alienation is now of such long standing
>>> 
>>> and the Indian
>>> 
>>> state¹s interventions in Kashmir have been characterized
>>> 
>>> by such
>>> 
>>> unscrupulousness and such ruthless violence that touting
>>> 
>>> India¹s virtues as
>>> 
>>> a secular, democratic state, which Kashmiris should be glad
>>> 
>>> to be part of,
>>> 
>>> feels like a sick joke.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> But there is a case against self-determination which needs
>>> 
>>> to be made, if
>>> 
>>> only to clarify the consequence of endorsing
>>> 
>>> self-determination.
>>> 
>>> Self-determination isn¹t in itself virtuous. The Tamils in
>>> 
>>> Sri Lanka, led by
>>> 
>>> Velupillai Prabhakaran have been fighting a civil war for
>>> 
>>> decades to achieve
>>> 
>>> a separate state, Tamil Eelam. Tamils have suffered
>>> 
>>> violence at the hands of
>>> 
>>> Sinhala chauvinists and discrimination from the Sri Lankan
>>> 
>>> state, which, in
>>> 
>>> the Sixties, defined itself as a hegemonically Buddhist,
>>> 
>>> Sinhalese entity. I
>>> 
>>> knowof very few people outside of Prabhakaran¹s followers
>>> 
>>> who want such a
>>> 
>>> state to come into being. This is partly because
>>> 
>>> Prabhakaran is an
>>> 
>>> old-fashioned totalitarian leader and partly because a
>>> 
>>> tiny, Tamil-majority
>>> 
>>> statelet on a small island doesn¹t feel like a rousing
>>> 
>>> cause.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Sri Lanka aside, we¹ve witnessed the hideously violent
>>> 
>>> unravelling of
>>> 
>>> Yugoslavia in the name of self-determination. We¹ve seen
>>> 
>>> the idea of
>>> 
>>> self-determination taken to its absurd extreme in the
>>> 
>>> elevation of Kosovo
>>> 
>>> and Ossetia, tiny enclaves, barely a million strong, into
>>> 
>>> nations on the
>>> 
>>> ground of ethnic or religious difference. So perhaps, as
>>> 
>>> liberals, we¹re
>>> 
>>> entitled to ask of movements of self-determination, what
>>> 
>>> sort of state they
>>> 
>>> aspire to. If self-determination in Kashmir is meant to
>>> 
>>> create a
>>> 
>>> majoritarian state on the basis of ethnicity or faith (and
>>> 
>>> Arundhati Roy, in
>>> 
>>> her essay, is clear that the tableau of azadi that she
>>> 
>>> witnessed was
>>> 
>>> substantially shaped by Islamic ideas and bound by a sense
>>> 
>>> of Muslim
>>> 
>>> identity), an Indian liberal might still prefer azadi
>>> 
>>> because he thinks
>>> 
>>> chronic, quasi-colonial state violence is worse, but at
>>> 
>>> least he would
>>> 
>>> acknowledge that his was a counsel of despair rather an
>>> 
>>> endorsement of a
>>> 
>>> freedom struggle.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> That same liberal might argue that the expulsion of the
>>> 
>>> Pandits and the
>>> 
>>> violence against them shouldn¹t be accepted as an alibi
>>> 
>>> for holding on to
>>> 
>>> Kashmir, but he would be forced to acknowledge that
>>> 
>>> Kashmiri nationalism in
>>> 
>>> this Muslim variant seeks to draw a border around an
>>> 
>>> ethnically cleansed
>>> 
>>> people.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Alternately, he might oppose self-determination because he
>>> 
>>> thinks the Indian
>>> 
>>> republic is a flawed but valuable experiment in democratic
>>> 
>>> pluralism, that
>>> 
>>> the Indian national movement and the nation-state it
>>> 
>>> created, tried, in an
>>> 
>>> unprecedented way, to build a national identity on the idea
>>> 
>>> of diversity,
>>> 
>>> not homogeneity. It¹s worth mentioning here that the
>>> 
>>> Indian state has never
>>> 
>>> attempted to change the demographic realities in the Valley
>>> 
>>> in the way in
>>> 
>>> which Israel and China have in Palestine and Tibet. The
>>> 
>>> loss of Kashmir, the
>>> 
>>> only Muslim-majority state in the Union, would be a) a
>>> 
>>> massive setback to
>>> 
>>> this pluralist project, and b) a gift to Hindu chauvinists
>>> 
>>> who would cite
>>> 
>>> Kashmiri secession as yet another proof of the
>>> 
>>> impossibility of integrating
>>> 
>>> Muslims into a non-Muslim state.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> To sum up then, the Indian liberal has two options. He can
>>> 
>>> support azadi in
>>> 
>>> Kashmir because it is the lesser evil, knowing that azadi
>>> 
>>> will almost
>>> 
>>> certainly mean either a sectarian Muslim statelet or more
>>> 
>>> territory for a
>>> 
>>> larger sectarian state, Pakistan. Or he can endorse the
>>> 
>>> Indian occupation
>>> 
>>> because, in the larger scheme of things, Kashmiri Muslim
>>> 
>>> suffering is
>>> 
>>> collateral damage, the price that must be paid for the
>>> 
>>> greater good of a
>>> 
>>> pluralist India. Put like that, there¹s no shimmering
>>> 
>>> cause to lift our
>>> 
>>> liberal¹s spirits, just a choice between two squalid,
>>> 
>>> compromised ideals.
>>> 
>>> _________________________________________
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _________________________________________
>> 
>> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>> 
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> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
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