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

[inder salim]

Dear All

I am expecting more hot exchanges on Junaid versus Sonia posts....
and why not... the stakes are large. ( every body is sailing his
her/his own boat ) and sometimes it is a question of life and death...

( by the way, i am listening Kashmiri music, so you can imagine what
state of mind i am in, and dear hot debator(s) you  are free to
dismiss this reflection, if u find it less political, but i cant help
it, i think this too is political...)

1. Fortunately only words are used, so far.....
    No one denies that some 'Words' can kill, but they can deceive us
too. Indeed, the killer words often give birth to a politics, but the
words which grow on that political tree are sometimes fruit like to
some and foliage like to some, with a strange unpridictablity of
killer words hitting us at will. But how things change, so quickly, i
am amazed.

2,  Most of freedom struggles look like Modern Art, because they never
think it necessary to admit that we are modern because there is a
readymade ( past ) which we are using so carelessly.  Just see the
guns, tanks, landmines and hand grandes ... all the things are coming
to us from modern technology. Modern Art, i must remind, here to
myself even, that even Picasso was finally consumed by corporates and
capitalsim. So, i am wondering if the modern ways of fighting ( for
any cause ) is unwittingly absorbed by the STATE. Oh, i am saying it
as if they dont know it. It is an open secret, that arms and amunition
is given to peoplpe for their just causes by those who are at the helm
ofthe capitalist world. It is all sad.

2(a) Opportunity for Kashmiri Pandits to celebrate becasue Justice
Sanjay Kishen Kaul rescued a genunine intellectual worry, here in
India by quashing some cases against MF Hussain.  There are some
friends around in India, Pakistan and abroad who think Hussain sahib a
genius, far from that, i think at the best he is a good designer, for
making a boring wall look more interesting, so an interior decorator.
But dont forget his price tag, and who are investing in him: the
capitalist. and dont be surprised if you discover that Bajrang Dal was
financed by them to strat the trouble. That you know can push the
prices endlessly. Do you think something similar can happen in Modern
ways of freedom struggle in Kashmir or else where? As i said things
changes so fast.

3. We JohnLenon(s) are gone, but Maccartney of JKLF is still around,
and we wish him good many years of happy and spiritied life. I dont
remember when Yasin sabib said that he switched sides.... his line of
action is still the same, but he simply has moved from Modern art to
Post modern art, and there are supporters and critics to that, so
what. ( just remember Beetles song IMAGINE there is no country.. )  In
that case , i beleive i am a member of Safray Azadi.  (The   burining
issues of environment and other socially relevant ones  are likely to
be added ) .

4. 'We know who killed whom and why'. I quote Qalab Hussain sahib, It
inspires me to write a poem , but who will sing it. It was possible if
we believe that the pain of a kashmiri can be talked about without
identies.. universally. But if we believe that amasing wealth and
infighting is a personal matter of kashmiris then how to face the
truth of, ethics and basic human rights.  The problem is that even
when we see somebody slaying somebody, we can say this whom and why.
Kafka sahib taught us our incapacity to know. That is profound, but
please dont exlude that....

5. Kashmir has its own Nizamuddeens. We all know that Nizamuddeen
sahib never bothered to visit any sultan duing this stay in Delhi.
Sultans had to go his humble place for a deedar or darshan. No doubt
that he is a loved by millions around the world. He inspries us to
live simple loving life. He was daring because he was ahead of
modernity. He was earth and politcs without a split. He was our own
socretes as well. And because of him we have so many other saints, and
heros like Sarmad Sahib and finally Ghalb and then Dr. Iqbal as well.
So in Kashmir where from we need to being and what direction....

6. Imagine, if there is a demand for a Free Maharashtra....Raj Thakery
will be a new Bidrawale, or who knows a new Yasir Arafat after 100
yers.  A new history of State opression will being which will give
brith of range of killer words and numberless victims. The State, we
know  plays its games as it does in Kashmir or North east. People are
paid to be with State, either here or there. That is bread and butter
to millions... So what to do ? any alternative to gun culture? I can
think even that freedom fighter throws a bomb in public space, killing
women and children. There are other ways to acheving the same effect.
In my last posts i talked about CREATIVITY. Trurn to North and see
Tibetians first and then something else...

7. The master at worldy level is a snatcher rather than giver. The
skilled master askes for a thumb, if you learn the war games secretly.
You have no chance to go against the elites of this game.... and i
beleive most of us from humble back grounds. I dont have master, and
if i had to have one, I really cant stand one who has royal or rich
back ground, unless he deconstruts himself like Buddha or
Prophet.....And i So how to pay this worldy  master if one achieves
the goals with his help. The great master allah, ishwar is content
with a inward simle even, but with this master across the boarder,
here or there, or in America is not content with that, He demand a
pound of flesh. I know Kashmiris are usually thin, and cant afford to
pay to vorocious punjabis ( without malice)  even a gram of their
sacred flesh. So guard it, but how. Indians have already brutalized
that humble and sacred flesh, There is no harm in prostituion, if one
is conscious, but people can make a differnece between theatre and
real. So stad up.

My art practice are meant to blurr the line between theatre and real.
I am struggling myself with that. No big claims

with love

is

On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 12:56 PM, Junaid <justjunaid at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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,>
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