[Reader-list] Baggage of JKLF is too heavy to carry-by Dr.Shabir

[Junaid]

I am sorry for the jumbled up earlier message. My rediff account is giving
me trouble. But here is the text of my reply to Sonia.
***********************

Dear Sonia,

All I am pointing toward is that I am circumspect when people tell me to
take an "objective", "neutral", "dispassionate" look at Kashmir. I would
rather doubt the state version of stories, than call what common people,
with no immediate interests, tell me as just another "conjecture". I would
question the power more than its victims.

It is easy for the government to erase evidence, forge wrong cases,
dissemble, fudge DNA's, and foist the charge of terrorism on a people's
national liberation struggle. So many other states have done it. It was done
to Indians too. It suits a government well to first communalise a movement
to tell the world that Kashmir's struggle is all about Muslim
terrorists ethnic-cleansing Hindus, and then say its all international
Islamic terrorism, which is crushing the innocent Kashmiris themselves. (I
hope you still remember how Indian government reported Al-Qaeda in Kashmir
to Colin Powell, only a few days after 9/11).

It is basically like this: What common people say is a "conjecture" till
found otherwise, and what government says is a "fact" until proved
otherwise. Now it is doubly difficult for people to convince the government
of its own complicity. As late Faiz once said:

Bane hain ahle hawas mudayi bhi munsif bhi
Kise wakeel karen kis se munsafi chahen

"our oppressor is the prosecutor and the judge himself
who will plead our case, who will we go to for justice."

Kashmiri seperatists have been hauled over fire in these forums a lot: their
private wealths (if they have), Indian state protection (and, yet it seems,
it is not enough when their "political masters" want to bump them of), their
medical bills (it must run into zillions since it is mentioned here, but I
have no idea how much it really is), it is like Godess Sita's agnipariksha.
But I agree with you these seperatists must be questioned, since they are
claiming to fight a struggle which is morally-based, and democratic. And
probably they each need to spend dozen more years in jail. Geelani should go
for twelve years again, Yasin must go for ten more years. Shabir Shah should
spend another 21 years in jail. Azam Inquilabi should spend a few dozen more
in prison. While the rest of them should continue to live their
lives underground like they have been. And those who have been killed, they
must be taken out of their graves, or nameless graves, and shot dead one
more time. Then possibly their chastity will be proved. Meanwhile, those who
are really making blood money by killing innocents, and labelling them
terrorists, may not worry. The courts, CBI, Congress top leadeship, and
special laws are in their favour. In fact, even those who are making a
living out of Kashmir, 'experts' and 'interlocutors' and 'peace builders'
and 'government pointmen' and 'NGOs' and 'media' shall have a field day,
because according to what we are told they are 'resolving the conflict',
'healing wounds', 'working toward peace'.

I would not question your assertion that Hizbul in its initial years of
ascendancy sought to delegitimize and discredit JKLF. It was a common aim of
Indian and Pakistani intel to restrict pro-independence movement. And yes
Hizb did kill a number of KLF fighters. It is a fact which Kashmiris dont
deny. However, it can never be used as a counter-argument to give a
clean-chit to what Indian forces did. Indian govenrment turned all heat on
JKLF because they wanted to kill the independentist thought. They watched as
Hizb grew in power. Typically, it was like in Palestinian intifada of 1988
when the rising Hamas was watched over by Israel, as PLO was decimated.

Hizb was not some alien group. They were Kashmiris too. Many JKLF men joined
Hizb in those years. JKLF in its beginning was not really clear in its
programme (although its leaders might have been, but they did not control
individual cadres). At the same time, JKLF had not much control over the
movement itself; it was under no one's control, and if at all, it was under
people's control. JKLF had different kinds of people, with different kinds
of ideas in it. Some were independentist, some pro-Pakistan, some real
fighters, some simple robbers, some helped people, some harmed them. A
number of Hizb arguments to crush JKLF was that JKLF was not serious, and
was fast aleinating the people. A number of such arguments, though, were not
based on fact. But one Hizb analysis was right: JKLF, with
its leadership fighting among themselves, and without Pakistan support, was
not capable of sustaining a long term armed movement. These were
calculations made by Pakistan and Hizb leadership, and as always I have no
intention to defend them. Your question, however, about who killed more JKLF
fighters is factually still wrong because Indian forces killed way many more
than Hizbul. Its intended assertion, that it was Hizb attrocities toward
JKLF that Ikhwanis became renegades, is again wrong.

Ikhwanis. Even before them it was Muslim Mujahideen (MM) which broke ranks
with Hizbul. Both Ikhwanis and Muslim Mujahideen were staunchly
pro-Pakistan. Muslim Mujahideen broke ranks with HM due to rival claims on
leadership. MM could not break away a large part of HM with it though. HM
blamed MM leaders for hobnobbing with Indian agencies, a charge that was
soon proved right. HM had no desire to see rivals emerge, even among
pro-Pakistan groups. It wanted to be the biggest, and if possible the only
group opertaing in Kashmir.

Ikhwanis came from Students Liberation Front, and later rechristened
themselves as Ikhwanul Muslimeen. For them it was a turf war with HM. The
reasons may be plenty, but one cannot help but ask what Indian agencies
were doing at that time. Did they engineer the split? Did they lure, arm and
fund some militants to turn them against their own. It was not that they did
not have a template ready. They had succesfully armed and used
counter-insurgency militias in Punjab. MM and Ikhwan was a good bet for
them, because by mid 1990s JKLF was out of the scene, and now it was time to
deal with HM. Indian forces had not been able to achieve much success
against the HM. Ikhwan and especially MM were groomed and unleashed on the
Hizb upper ground. Soon, Jammat-i-Islami were targetted brutally. Families
of HM cardres were either killed or harrassed, and their houses were
destroyed.

It proved effective for sometime, till HM hit back. Now, MM and Ikhwan
leaders were getting kiled one after the other. Government which had in the
initial years declined to own up the renegades, had to claim them as the
latter were coming under fire. For a number of years of raising the
counter-insurgent militias government would just say it was simple
infighting.

All these leaders you have mentioned, have had, in general, a pro-Pakistan
or a pro-independence attitude through most of their careers. I am not
saying who killed them, for I really don't know, nor has anyone claimed
responsibility. Who will? You say their "political masters" had reason to
kill them, I say their "politcal opponents" also had reasons to kill them.

That is not, however, the point here. These cases cannot be used to strike a
neutrality in the debate about Kashmir. There cannot be equal responsibility
or culpability here. The conflict in Kashmir is an insurgency against a huge
Indian state machinery, its vast armies, and umpteen intelligence
organisations. How does one maintain neutrality in a "war" between Goliath
and David? You are asking Kashmiris who are crushed under the weight of
India to offer a Truth and Reconciliation? How can truth come out from
under the weight of fibs, cover-ups, evidence-erasures, floors mopped of
traces of blood, propaganda, dissimulations? What should Kashmiris
'reconcile' to? Ask the Zulus about the Truth and Reconciliation.

Regards,
Junaid





, 10 May 2008 09:20:52 +0530
From: "S. Jabbar"
Subject: To: junaid ,
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Dear Junaid,


You ask why anyone else (besides the Indian intelligence agencies) would
want to kill anti-India political figures? This is precisely the line of
reasoning that a researcher in the US or UK ignorant of the ground in
Kashmir would take. I'd expect a little more nuance from a researcher of
conflict and that can only happen if one takes the trouble to do a little
more work in the field.

If you are a Kashmiri old enough to follow the careers of people like Moulvi
Farooq, Qazi Nissar, Abdul Ghani Lone, Dr. Guru, Prof Wani, Ghulam Qadir
Wani and many others you will realize that each was killed at the point when
he tried to assert an independent line of thinking or advocated talks with
India or did not quite bend to the will of his political masters in
Pakistan.

As I have said earlier in this forum no one in their right mind can defend
what the Indian troops and intelligence agencies have done in Kashmir, but I
think if one is to try and make some sense of what you have rightly
described as a dirty war, one needs to first take a dispassionate view of
what went down in the last two decades. This includes apportioning
responsibility-- as far as it is possible-- for the political assassinations
and the massacres.

And why do you call the Ikhwanis 'my poor' favourite whipping boys? I had
clearly said I held no brief for them. Did you not read my post carefully or
do you still choose to read me selectively? The reason I pointed out their
role of the fall guy was that they are the mere foot soldiers and not the
generals that dictate the course of this war. If blame is to be pinned it
finally must be the general who takes the rap.

Of course some Ikhwani leaders have made a lot of money and it is all
despicable blood money. But this is well known. Why is it that you are not
as vocal about the blood money and the palatial homes of the separatists?
What is their source of income, how have they grown so rich in the last
twenty years, how do they fund their political activities, and how is it
that the Indian state allows it? Not only that, the Indian state pays the
medical bills for many separatist leaders who have been periodically
hospitalized and provides security cover for them with J&K Police guarding
their homes and offices.

Why is that? Is this usual or unusual? Does the endless dragging on, the
seeming intractableness of the situation have anything at all to do with
this? Can you imagine the Sri Lankan state doing the same for Prabhakaran?
For me these are far more interesting questions and if one tries to answer
them honestly a far more complex picture develops than the simple one of the
bad Ikhwani-- who, incidentally was good when he fought for Pakistan and
became bad the moment he switched sides in 1994.

And why did the Ikhwanis switch sides? Were they all congenital 'gaddars'
and 'mukhbirs' or were there other compulsions? Of the many JKLF fighters
who were wiped out in the early '90s how many fell to the bullets of the
Indian army and how many to the Hizbul Mujahideen?

I ask all these questions because it is vital that Kashmiris themselves, at
least privately, begin to ask them. For all the talk of the Kashmiri's
alienation from India, nobody speaks of the alienation within Kashmir.
Kashmiri society is deeply divided between those who are labeled Indian
agents and Pakistani agents, between those that everyone knows benefited
from the war and the ordinary citizen, between the Jamaatis and the rest.
This has been the most tragic fallout of the war-- this and the terrible
silence that surrounds the killings and rapes by the militants. It may seem
unthinkable but one day there will be peace in Kashmir. How will this
society heal when there are these terrible divisions, fear, suspicion?

Once South Africa won its independence it constituted the Truth &
Reconciliation Commission. This was because the ANC leadership was mature
enough to realize that though history belongs to the victors it would be
disastrous for future generations if South Africa were to whitewash its past
where terrible atrocities were committed on both sides. But truth was to
come before reconciliations, and this was often a bitter and painful
experience where family members had to confront the killers of their loved
ones. I'm not sure whether the South African experience had a fairytale
ending but it seems to me the right direction to take for societies to heal
post-conflicts.

Will this ever happen in Kashmir or indeed in South Asia? I have my doubts.
We have a terrible knack of sweeping things under the carpet and pretending
it never happened. All cataclysms have been dealt with, with tiresome
familiarity, whether mass rapes by the Pakistan Army in Bangladesh (for
which incidentally only women's organisations in Pakistan apologized) or the
Indian state's involvement in 1984 anti-Sikh Pogrom or Gujarat or the NE or
Kashmir.

And where does one start the truth & reconciliation part between Kashmir and
the rest of India when the government has blatantly shielded officers in the
Indian Army despite being chargesheeted by institutions like the CBI? Where
does truth & reconciliation begin between Muslims and Pandits when it is
still widely believed that Jagmohan engineered the exodus? Or between
families of the Ikhwan and the rest or families of the Jamaatis and the
rest? It requires a certain honesty and moral courage to answer these
questions squarely. I hope some day at least some of us will be able to
rise to the occasion.



And finally, please stop referring to me as Ms. Jabbar. My name is Sonia and
I'd prefer it if you just used that.

Best wishes,
Sonia

On 5/9/08 10:21 PM, "junaid" wrote:

> Ms Jabbar,In a dirty war like Kashmir, where it is difficult to determine
who
> the real killers of these pro-independence Kashmiri leaders are, people
would
> naturally point the finger at the government. These leaders,
> throughtout their lives, espoused the cause of
> Kashmir's separation from India; and it should have been reason
> enough for government agencies to get rid of them. Why would anyone else
> have reason to kill all these anti-India figures? And these were not the
only
> ones, there are thousands more. And if people say government killed them,
> then as always it falls upon the people's shoulders to prove the
> government's complicity! And it is not easy. Kashmiris don't have the
> kind of resources to resolve all these cases to convince you. (There
> is no CIA, or Western support, or people coming to blow out Olympic
torches on
> Western streets). Cases like Pathribal killings, and G M
> Padder's case, or even the sex abuse scandal, are only a few that
> ever come out to blow the tightly-held lid off Indian government's
> actions in Kashmir. Well even those cases don't seem to produce any
> doubt in Indian people about what their goverment tells them to
> believe. The role of government-sponsored renegade militias in
> Kashmir, though not as bad as the actions of actual Indian troops, is
> terrible. The untold miseries they inflicted upon their own people, under
> the cover of Indian agencies, is not really well documented. I dont
> expect any probe from the Indian government ever into it. But I am sure
> if you actually listen to common people, instead of just
> "visiting" as "experts", they will tell you. Public memory in Kashmir is
> quite strong, and impervious to "healing touches" and "hearts and
> minds". Well, though you have no reason to believe the Human Rights
> Watch, I am still sending you a link which indicts your poor
> "favourite whipping boys", who are now living in palatial houses next to
army
> camps.http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kashmir/1996/Junaid  ******
>     Partha,Akhila Raman is based in the US and this 2002
> article is one that has beenput together from secondary sources. Her
> allegations about Chittisinghporaand attributing the assassinations of
> politicians like Dr. Guru, MirwaizFarooq and Abdul Ghani Lone to the
renegades
> is mere conjecture. Though Ihold no brief for them they are everybody's
> favourite whipping boys. But thepicture is far more complex than the one
> presented by this article.BestsoniaOn 5/9/08 2:58 PM, "Partha Dasgupta"
> wrote:> Hi,Interesting article on 'renegade militants' being used by the
> governments> onboth sides of the>
> border.http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/11241Rgds,>