[Reader-list] Book Review and Interview: Wahajat Habibullah - My Kashmir: Conflict and Prospects of Enduring Peace; USIP, 2008

[Kshmendra Kaul]

Some extracts from the Review and Interview that I found interesting/significant.
 
KK
 
FROM THE REVIEW
 
- He points out that the government of India’s constant fear that Kashmiris might gravitate towards Pakistan has meant that ‘national security interests’ have taken precedence over everything else, including the rights of people.
 
- When in 1990, he requested the notoriously anti-Muslim governor Jagmohan to issue an appeal to Pandits (Kashmiri Hindus) not to leave the Kashmir valley and offer them protection, instead, Jagmohan did the opposite, thereby triggering their exodus.
 
- Habibullah offers several examples of how the Indian government and its officials continue to see Kashmir through the prism solely of ‘national security’ concerns, enabling all manner of malpractices that have further fuelled feelings of alienation among Kashmiris.
 
- He makes some insightful observations about the characteristics of the Kashmiri people and calls their dexterity in weaving conspiracy theories legendary.
 
- His assessment of Kashmiri separatists is that they lack leadership and vision and finds them devoid of clarity of thought or goal.
 
- The author contends that ‘Islam has been pivotal to the evolving politics of Kashmir, but more as a symbol of people fighting for identity rather than its religious ramifications’ and discounts any relationship between the Kashmiri militant groups and Al Qaeda as ‘insinuations ostensibly made to curry US favor’
 
- Habibullah stresses the symbolic importance of Kashmir to both India and Pakistan and calls for any settlement to keep in mind the question of national pride in both countries so that no ‘substantial compromise on territory can or should be expected – or even hoped for’.
 
- He accepts that freedom is the ‘dream of every Kashmiri’ but tends to differentiate between freedom and independence, a term Kashmiris usually use interchangeably.
 
- ............. advocates against an independent Kashmir saying that ‘true freedom cannot be
won by independence, which would bring even more suffering and would be unacceptable to both India and Pakistan’.
 
- He laments strongly the oppressive treatment of Kashmiris by the Indian state at various levels, a treatment that could be easily classified as structural violence.
 
- He places the need for the restoration of Kashmiri dignity and self respect at the heart of his argument.
 
- ........ he calls upon India to concede those rights and liberties that are the entitlement of ‘every Indian citizen’ and prophesies that otherwise ‘simmering resentments in Kashmir will render any abiding peace elusive’
 
- Habibullah constantly points out the confusions and contradictions in New Delhi’s Kashmir policy as a result of competing and confusing views across various government departments.
 
- ..... quotes Pakistan’s High Commissioner in India, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, who told him in early 2002 that ‘officially Pakistan was willing to compromise on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir ...however, a settlement along the LoC (Line of Control) would be seen by the Pakistani people as surrender unless the settlement was accompanied by some accommodation on India’s part”.
 
FROM THE INTERVIEW

Q : There is this greater talk about south Asia as a reference point where borders can become irrelevant. Can’t President Musharraf’s ‘Joint management’ plan for Kashmir be the beginning of a post-Westphalian South Asia?
 
A : A counter-question. Why should the people of Jammu and Kashmir submit to management by another or worse still by joint management of more than one? Are any of India’s other States “managed” by the Centre?


--- On Sun, 7/20/08, Kashmir Affairs <kashaffairs at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

From: Kashmir Affairs <kashaffairs at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: [Reader-list] Book Review and Interview: Wahajat Habibullah - My Kashmir: Conflict and Prospects of Enduring Peace; USIP, 2008
To: reader-list at sarai.net
Date: Sunday, July 20, 2008, 2:36 PM

My Kashmir: Conflict and Prospects of
Enduring Peace

By Wajahat Habibullah

United States Institute of Peace,
Washington, 2008

 

Murtaza Shibli

[www.kashmiraffairs.org] 

One of India’s finest and best known
Muslim civil servants, Wajahat Habibullah has remained associated with Kashmir
through his appointments to various bureaucratic posts for nearly three
decades.
This has given him a certain vantage point from which to watch the
socio-political developments as they unfolded. However, his relationship is
formed not only from his professional involvement but also emerges from a
personal commitment that is evident in his book. In Srinagar, he is remembered
as a pro-Kashmiri Indian bureaucrat who believed in dialogue and accommodation;
in the tumultuous decade of the 1990s, he was considered the only human face of
the Indian state, at a time when there was a total breakdown of the social
contract and trust between the latter and the Kashmiri people. Habibullah
worked tirelessly, even risking his life, to repair and restore some semblance
of engagement through his efforts at various levels. 

 

My Kashmir: Conflict and the Prospects
of Enduring Peace
is a perceptive memoir peppered with anecdotes that offer personal and mostly
honest insights into the tensions and distrust between Kashmir and India that
marked the formative years of their relationship and how such mutual suspicion
led to the emergence of one of the deadliest insurgencies in the region that
still claims a heavy toll of lives. The book tries to offer a sympathetic view
of the Kashmir problem – not from an academic angle or political standpoint,
but from a humanitarian perspective. The author draws extensively from his
experiences of working both as an administrator under various local Kashmiri
governments and in the offices of two Indian prime ministers. In his
introduction, Habibullah asserts that although not a Kashmiri himself, he has
tried to see the situation through the eyes of one committed both to India and
to serving the people of Kashmir.  

 

He points out that the government of
India’s constant fear that Kashmiris might gravitate towards Pakistan has
meant
that ‘national security interests’ have taken precedence over everything
else,
including the rights of people. Giving examples from his personal experience,
he tells us how Indian paramilitary forces ‘accosted…and humiliated
[Kashmiris]
as they returned home late from work’ [p.26] in early 1970 or how a top
Border
Security Force (BSF) officer, Brigadier General Randhawa,  threatened to
enter the homes of Kashmiris and ‘shoot anyone they suspected of intending
mischief’. [p.25] This privileging of the ‘national security interest’
affected
the author as well as his civilian authority was often bypassed by the Army and
police and on one occasion earned him a serious reprimand from the Chief
Secretary, the senior-most bureaucrat in the state, for not being quick enough
in issuing warrants for the arrest of the workers of an opposition political
party. When in 1990, he requested the notoriously anti-Muslim governor Jagmohan
to issue an appeal to Pandits (Kashmiri Hindus) not to leave the Kashmir valley
and offer them protection, instead, Jagmohan did the opposite, thereby
triggering their exodus. It also prompted the widely held belief that the
Pandit migration was initiated to clear the field for the Indian Army and
paramilitary forces to target Kashmiri Muslims more freely and without any
collateral damage to Hindu interests. 

 

Habibullah offers several examples of
how the Indian government and its officials continue to see Kashmir through the
prism solely of ‘national security’ concerns, enabling all manner of
malpractices that have further fuelled feelings of alienation among Kashmiris.
He himself became a victim of the same mindset when Governor Girish Saxena
selectively edited his report on the notorious Kunan Poshpora rape of 1992 by
the Indian Army, giving a clean chit to the personnel involved. This report
deeply angered Kashmiris and cost Habibullah his credibility among them – so
much so that a militant group tried to assassinate him.

 

This security-related concern has fed
a distrust of Kashmiris in general and pervades the highest levels; the prime
minister Indira Gandhi ‘not only rejected the proposal [to upgrade Srinagar
airport as an International one] outright but called in her joint secretary,
who had recommended acceptance, to admonish him that an ulterior motive must
always be suspected in any such proposal received from that state’. [p55].
This
deep distrust of Kashmiris was shared by the Indian prime minister Morarji
Desai who stated during a meeting in Srinagar that “one doesn’t know whom
to
trust in Kashmir”. On another occasion, when Indira Gandhi was touring the
valley
during an election campaign in 1983, she said to Habibullah that her public
gatherings ‘looked entirely fake’. The author’s own observation about the
Indian Independence Day celebrations is that the Kashmiris never felt
enthusiastic and ‘not even the parade or loudly played national anthem could
attract an audience’. [p.29]

 

He makes some insightful observations
about the characteristics of the Kashmiri people and calls their dexterity in
weaving conspiracy theories legendary. However, his explanation of the
Hazratbal siege in 1993 is a no less skilful conspiracy theory when he claims
that the police made false assumptions based on the word of a head constable
who was a Jama’at-i-Islami sympathiser, thus effectively placing the blame on
the Jama’at. He forgets, in the process, that according to the initial
intelligence reports quoted by the official media at the time, one of the
reasons for the siege was the presence inside the shrine of Syed Salahudin,
chief of the Hizbul Mujahideen, and foreign militants, which was eventually
proved wrong. If the police constable was a Jama’at sympathiser who raised a
false alarm, his information should have been implausible given the official
assessments about the presence of Syed Salahudin, himself a former Jama’at
activist.
However, apart from this seemingly strange explanation for the genesis of the
Hazratbal seige, Habibullah’s role in mitigating the crisis was phenomenal as
he conducted negotiations with the holed-up militants at great risk to his own
safety. His well known opposition to any hard-line military action angered the
Indian army high command who allegedly tried to kill him when his car was hit
by an army vehicle, severely injuring him. 

 

The incident did not deter Habibullah
who continued his efforts to seek dialogue with the pro-independence Kashmiri
separatists – both militants and the political leadership. He has held
various
meetings and discussions with these leaders over the past two decades, opening
and sustaining various channels of communications. However, he is too modest
and does not give himself enough credit, despite the fact that it is his
efforts that have been central to keeping alive the dialogue process between
the Indian government and Kashmiri separatists. His assessment of Kashmiri
separatists
is that they lack leadership and vision and finds them devoid of clarity of
thought or goal. He narrates an interesting anecdote about 1977 state elections
as to how the Mirwaiz Moulvi Mohammad Farooq (father of current Mirwaiz Umar
Farooq) tried to blackmail him by threatening to ‘set Srinagar on fire’ if
Habibullah stopped him from taking a procession in support of the Janata Party
headed by then Indian Prime Minister Morari Desai to which Mirwaiz was aligned
at that time. He characterizes Sheikh Abdullah’s government a ‘sheikhdom’
and
observes that ‘in his last years in power, Abdullah was more concerned with
securing an orderly succession than with running the government’. He also
claims that a Western based JKLF leader came to meet him in 2004 in Washington
and offered to work for the peace process. 

 

The author contends that ‘Islam has
been pivotal to the evolving politics of Kashmir, but more as a symbol of
people fighting for identity rather than its religious ramifications’ and
discounts any relationship between the Kashmiri militant groups and Al Qaeda as
‘insinuations ostensibly made to curry US favor’. He questions comparisons
between Kashmir and Northern Ireland adding that while there was a demographic
change in Northern Ireland , there was no such thing in Kashmir – an argument
hotly contested by Kashmiris. The systematic reduction of the Muslim population
in Jammu and Kashmir since 1947, as evident from successive official census
reports, is seen as a clear proof of demographic engineering, a fact that was
raised by the Kashmiri leader Saifudin Soz, now the Indian Minister of Water
Resources and head of the Congress party in Jammu and Kashmir. Also, fears of
demographic change were the main reason for recent mass protests in Srinagar
triggered
by the illegal land transfer by the local state government to a semi-government
Hindu body, the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB). 

 

Habibullah stresses the symbolic
importance of Kashmir to both India and Pakistan and calls for any settlement
to keep in mind the question of national pride in both countries so that no
‘substantial compromise on territory can or should be expected – or even
hoped
for’. He accepts that freedom is the ‘dream of every Kashmiri’ but tends
to
differentiate between freedom and independence, a term Kashmiris usually use
interchangeably. He contends that the Indian constitution guarantees that
freedom which ‘can be achieved while retaining the territorial integrity of
both India and Pakistan with the present boundaries becoming soft borders’,
and
advocates against an independent Kashmir saying that ‘true freedom cannot be
won by independence, which would bring even more suffering and would be
unacceptable to both India and Pakistan’. His argument is that ‘an
independent
state of 5.44 million people occupying 85,00 mostly mountainous square miles,
located in one of the world’s most volatile regions amid rival nuclear powers
and a number of smaller states in conflict, with potential oil wealth, is
hardly likely to be left free’.  

 

Wajahat Habibullah lives up to his
reputation of being sympathetic to Kashmiris as he repeatedly refers to the
pain and agony they have suffered ‘as a result of confrontations between
India
and Pakistan during the intervening half century’. He laments strongly the
oppressive treatment of Kashmiris by the Indian state at various levels, a
treatment that could be easily classified as structural violence. He observes
that personal relations between political leaders of India and Kashmir
‘played
a marked role in the trajectory of Jammu and Kashmir’s history’ effectively
suggesting that they were overwhelmingly elite arrangements that lacked popular
consent or appeal. He places the need for the restoration of Kashmiri dignity
and self respect at the heart of his argument. Expressing sympathy with the
Kashmiri perception of a long history of continuous humiliation since accession
to India in 1947, he calls upon India to concede those rights and liberties
that are the entitlement of ‘every Indian citizen’ and prophesies that
otherwise ‘simmering resentments in Kashmir will render any abiding peace
elusive’. He is greatly perturbed about Kashmiris being held in contempt by
both India and Pakistan as a people that can be ‘bought and sold’, and
argues
that such an attitude has added to the complexities in the relationship between
India and Kashmir.

 

He describes the autonomy report
prepared by the Farooq Abdullah government in 2000 as flawed, but calls its
rejection by the central Indian government as an opportunity squandered. 
Habibullah constantly points out the confusions and contradictions in New
Delhi’s Kashmir policy as a result of competing and confusing views across
various government departments. In his view, the dialogue between the Hurriyat
leaders and New Delhi’s interlocutor NN Vohra (currently the governor of
Jammu
and Kashmir ) failed due to this sort of confusion, which eroded the
credibility of the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee among the Hurriyat
leaders. He assesses the deep-rooted suspicion of Kashmiris as the main
bottleneck for future negotiations and argues that the credibility of Indian
institutions in Kashmir remains fragile. He calls for a ‘balance between
immediate security concerns and long-term good will and cooperation’, tacitly
admitting that the current peace process remains inconclusive due to the slow
or absence of responses from the Indian side. He observes that the US
government also shares the view that Pakistan has been more forthcoming with
compromises than India in the present peace process and quotes Pakistan’s
High
Commissioner in India, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, who told him in early 2002 that
‘officially Pakistan was willing to compromise on the issue of Jammu and
Kashmir ...however, a settlement along the LoC (Line of Control) would be seen
by the Pakistani people as surrender unless the settlement was accompanied by
some accommodation on India’s part”.

 

Despite its valuable insights and
richness in anecdotal detail, Habibullah’s claim that principal reasons for
militant groups to find new recruits for insurgency are more linked to economic
incentives of greed rather than the grievance, grossly underestimates the
effects of massive human rights violations, humiliation felt by Kashmiris on
multiple accounts including increasing marginalisation.  The recently held
massive public protests in the streets of Srinagar that was spearheaded and
sustained by the common people should be an eye opener about the frustrations
and anger of the Kashmiri population. There are also some glaring omissions in
the author’s references to certain historical events. While discussing the
problem of communalism [p23] he briefly mentions that Muslims in Jammu
‘migrated to Pakistan to avoid bloodbath’, conveniently forgetting about
the
massacre precipitated by the Maharaja that killed thousands of Muslims and
forced hundreds of thousands to migrate to Pakistan. Similarly in the beginning
of the chapter two, he briefly mentions the attacks on Jamaa’t-i-islami
supporters following the death of Zulfiqar Bhutto in 1979, but omits the
details about widespread loot, plunder and arson that was engineered with the
tacit support of the National Conference led government headed by Sheikh
Abdullah. Several people were killed while hundreds were rendered homeless, but
this does not find mention in the book.  Habibullah also tends to read the
history of Partition one-sidedly and places the onus on Sir Syed Ahmad Khan for
the ultimate division, but fails to recognise the role of Hindu
fundamentalists, or Gandhi’s responsibility in his choice of leadership of
the
Congress, his distrust of Muslims as well as his invocation of Hindu symbols
and mythology to cultivate mass political support.  And, lastly, the time
line provided at the end of the book needs expanding to include events like 11
February 1984 – the hanging of Maqbool Bhat and other such important events
that
have shaped the recent history of the beleaguered region.  

 

The merit of the book lies in the
clarity of its arguments and the modest approach of the author. My
Kashmir: Conflict and the Prospects of Enduring Peace is a wonderful
contribution to understanding Kashmir and the efforts at peace-building there.
It is hoped that the USIP will further broaden its commendable efforts to
promote the peace in the region by expanding its work and resources, engaging
more scholars from the area, in order to help the ongoing peace process and
offer specific insights into the problem that Wajahat Habibullah strongly
believes is ‘tractable’. 

 


Interview- Wajahat Habibullah

Chief Information Commissioner, India
Murtaza
Shibli

 

There is a strong lament in your book
about the destruction of Kashmir. Yet you sound so hopeful of a solution. Why?

Because
there is a very strong yearning and will for peace and people want to live with
dignity and peace. I think most of the people are sick of violence and they
want to seek a solution through the constitutional and legal mechanism. 

It
is now the duty of India, Pakistan and primarily the Kashmiri leadership to
afford a sense of dignity and participation to the people of Jammu and Kashmir
to ensure a long term solution. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s idea of Round
Table Conference was part of extending that hope and translating it into
action. 

 

Whenever there is some hope of a
solution it is punctured by some untoward incidents. The recent controversy of
land transfer to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) is exactly the kind of
setback that reverses such hopes. 

A.
The controversies like SASB  is a cause
for great pain and apprehension. It is a major setback which has killed a part
of me. We can’t shut our eyes to issues like this. Unfortunately, Governor SK
Sinha failed to gauge the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. He equated the
problems with what he had seen in the rest of the country, but Kashmir is
different. Thankfully, the new governor NN Vohra has a great understanding of
Kashmir unlike his predecessors and hopefully this will prove beneficial to the
people of Kashmir and rest of the country. 

 

You mention about the Indian policy
being always guided by its perception of security and national interest. And
now it seems to me that this ‘national interest’ is being extended to
religion
as well. Giving land to SASB is seen as a legitimate function and role of the
Indian government for ensuring Indian presence in Kashmir. Is religion now
being securitised?

It
has been by some, but not by the government. As you know, the land was never
actually transferred, and when government became aware of the public
resentment, the order was revoked.

 

Despite progress in the India-Pakistan
peace process, the Kashmiris are very sceptical of a solution emerging. What do
you think is the reason? 

There
is frustration because the Kashmiris are feeling left out of the peace building
process between India and Pakistan. Their skepticism can be mitigated by their
being made part of the process. This can be achieved through different means,
but basically it should flow from an effort to build trust. 

 

There is a general belief that India’s
slow or non-response to President Musharraf’s proposals killed the initial
optimism about the peace process and now the new political challenges in both
countries have nearly stalled the process.

The
General’s proposals were responded to in positive manner by no less than the
Prime Minister of India. It is true however that there are those within our
establishment that were averse to them. At any rate, it is my firm belief that
democratic governments will be able to come to a more enduring settlement
acceptable to their people and therefore such solutions will be stronger.

 

You make an observation in your book
about the Kashmiris’ penchant for cooking up conspiracy theories. But your
explanation about the Hazratbal Siege, blaming a Jama’at-i-Islami sympathiser
police constable sounds like a conspiracy as well?

Well,
that is my suspicion, based on having been hands on in the negotiation. And the
constable was the one who had delivered the highly exaggerated misinformation
that provoked the siege of the shrine.

 

You seem to discount the massive human
rights violations and its impact on fuelling insurgency and winning new
recruits to it. Is there any particular reason you see the main motivation for
insurgency as money rather than human rights violations and the anger that it
generates?

I
do not discount the cost in human rights, and have spoken of my direct
experience of such incidents. But I cannot claim to have covered those
incidents of which I had no direct experience. And I don’t see money as the
reason at all. The outbreak was
precipitated by a genuine anger. That became a reason for its persistence into
the mid ‘90s. After that however, money has begun to play an ever larger
role.
I have known several young men who have or whose parents have admitted to me as
much. And this very susceptibility to take to violence for money does indeed
stem from anger

 

You mention that freedom is the choice
of every Kashmiri but then claim that this freedom is guaranteed by the Indian
Constitution. How do you reconcile the two ideas? Surely the majority of
Kashmiri separatists don’t want to operate within the ambit of the Indian
Constitution?

Freedom
in my view is freedom-and freedom is guaranteed by India’s Constitution. My
argument is that the Kashmiris be allowed to enjoy that freedom.

 

What is your position on Article 370
and how do you see certain Indian political groups like BJP who lobby for its
abrogation?

 Article 370 allows Jammu and Kashmir to be the
only state in India to have a constitution of its own, something that is the
right of every State in a federal structure like the US. Its abrogation would
be regressive. But it should not be used to perpetuate the dominance of a
ruling elite within J&K, as it has in the past. It must allow the people of
the state as much, if not more freedom than guaranteed to the people of India
by India’s constitution.

 

There is this greater talk about south
Asia as a reference point where borders can become irrelevant. Can’t
President Musharraf’s
‘Joint management’ plan for Kashmir be the beginning of a post-Westphalian
South Asia?

A
counter-question. Why should the people of Jammu and Kashmir submit to
management by another or worse still by joint management of more than one? Are
any of India’s
other States “managed” by the Centre?

 

You discount any link between Kashmiri
militants and Al Qaeda, yet in many official Indian accounts a large stress is
placed on the claims of International jihadism including links between the Al
Qaeda and Kashmiri insurgency. 

I
have seen no links, and I have seen the insurgency from close quarters.

 

How would you compare freedom of
information regime in south Asia? And could this be useful in ways to promote
peace and cooperation in the region?

India
in its Right to Information Act 2005 has among the world’s most enlightened
legislations of this nature. Certainly I have been working with the Jammu and
Kashmir (J&K) State government to adopt this legislation for the State, if
not taking advantage of Article 379 to have an even stronger law of this
nature. The J&K law passed originally in 2004 is totally without substance,
and as a result has hardly been used at all. Bangladesh has in May 2008 adopted
a Right to Information Ordnance based in great measure on India’s
legislation;
Nepal had done so earlier. Pakistan’s Freedom of Information Ordnance 2002
has
some weaknesses which will need strengthening.

 

How do you see the current situation
in Pakistan and the struggle for democracy?

I
have never been to Pakistan, but I have always been an ardent supporter of
democracy. Unfortunately, Pakistan like many Third World countries has been
experimenting with short bouts of democracy alongside dictatorship.
Dictatorships succeed in the short term, but they bring ruin in the long term
without much in the form of infrastructure that could effectively govern a
modern state. 

The
current situation is Pakistan is interesting and I see it as first faltering
steps to bring a democracy and I wish them well. But the onus is on the newly
elected government to build credible institutions and infrastructure to which
people can identify with and feel a part of. It is a difficult road ahead, but
I strongly hope the democracy in Pakistan flourishes. 




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