[Reader-list] About Accusations on this List

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear Rashneek, Dear Gargi, Dear All,

Thank you, Rashneek, for your generous complements about what you  
call my 'understanding and knowledge' in your recent post. I am not  
sure that I deserve them.

I have never claimed that my knowledge of Kashmir is anything but  
incomplete and wanting. On this I am in total agreement with  
Rashneek, and I have never claimed otherwise. Who can even dare to  
state that their knowledge of the labyrinth that is Kashmir even  
approximates completeness? I find any claim made by anyone that they  
have a 'complete' knowledge about anything, let alone Kashmir,  
amusing at best. I hope you do too. And that is why we have a  
discussion list, so that the accumulation of all our 'incomplete'  
perspectives can help each of us construct a larger, more complex and  
more detailed picture of the world we live in.

And I do not make any statements on the basis of authority because,  
unfortunately, I have an innate suspicion of any attempt to provide  
intellectual enquiry and debate with the ballast of authority. This  
is the old Indian habit of accepting something as wisdom merely  
because our 'elders' and 'gurus' have said so with 'authority', or  
because it is said with sufficient and authoritative 'devotion' to  
some sacred idea. I have never found this attitude actually conducive  
to the practical pursuit of any enquiry.

That said, there remains the matter of to what extent my response to  
Rashneek's critique of my postings on Iconoclasm in Kashmir was  
'wanting'. Since the matter has been brought up and since we have a  
fair amount of recent subscribers, I hope you will all excuse me if I  
point out, for the sake of the record. what exactly was said.

My original set of postings -
"Annotations to the History of Iconoclasm in Kashmir- Parts I-IV" is  
archived on the Reader List at -
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-November/011030.html  
(and the next three postings)

Rashneek's excellent four part response to me -
"Iconoclasm in Kashmir -Motives and Magnitude-Parts I-IV"
  is archived on the Reader List at -
https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-December/ 
011541.html (and the next three postings)

And here (below) is my response to his criticism. Since this is a  
concise posting I reproduce it in its entirety. I do hope this will  
help whosoever so desires to assess, or re-assess the merits and  
value of this correspondence, from which I personally benefited a  
great deal.

regards

Shuddha
-------------------------------------
[Reader-list] Iconoclasm and a quest for hired limousines
Thu Jan 24 10:12:35 IST 2008
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2008-January/011873.html

Dear Rashneek, Dear All on the List

Happy new year. (so what if it is a few weeks old !)

I have watched with dismay our list degenerating from the heights it  
ascended to with Rashneek Kher's riposte to my annotations on the  
history of iconoclasm in Kashmir. The current volley of invective is  
sad, and I hope we can climb out of it, as we did momentarily when  
Arnab, Sadan, Prem Chandravarkar and others were discussing archives,  
personhood and other things that make this list more worthwhile. I  
hope I can attend to some of those fascinating questions in coming days.

But this post takes us back to the issues raised by Rashneek Kher on  
iconoclasm on Christmas day last month.

I read with interest your (Rashneek's) long posts in reply to my  
annotations on iconoclasm in Kashmir, posted almost exactly a month  
ago . And I appreciate the hard work that Rashneek has put in. Thank  
your for all the notes and references. They are useful.

I do however have some issues with the contents of Rashneek's  
argument. i do not wish this to be a very detailed post, so I will  
keep my arguments as brief as possible.

FIrstly, it is disingenuous on your part to say that you had not said  
that Hindu kings had not undertaken acts of Iconoclasm. The question  
of iconoclasm was raised by you in a response that you wrote to my  
reply to Pawan Durani about genocide by Communist rulers. In my  
reply, I had said that I am willing to atone for the genocidial  
violence that stains the record of regimes that have used the name  
Communist to describe themselves, and asked, whether Pawan Durani  
would be similarly prepared to grieve and atone for those killed in  
order to defend the Indian nation in Kashmir. In your reply to my  
willingness to atone, you invoked what you implied was another  
history of violence in Kashmir, where you focused, or chose to focus  
on instances of Muslim iconoclasm. You made it appear in your post as  
if iconoclasm and temple destruction and Islam had some special  
relationship, and you did not mention non Muslim iconoclasm and  
temple destruction in Kashmir. Had you wanted to be objective, you  
could have mentioned that non Muslim rulers also destroyed temples.  
You chose not to.

Secondly, the implications of your argument about the relative merits  
of different acts of iconoclasm and temple destruction based on a  
reading of the motives behind them are interesting. In your  
conceptual and moral universe, greed, lust for wealth and power  
(which for you are the motives of the acts of iconoclasm of the non- 
muslim rulers of Kashmir) seem to be somehow preferable to the  
iconoclasm that derives its energy from faith and proselytization  
alone (which you attribute solely to the three Muslim kings you  
mention).

The iconoclasm of non-muslim Kings, though reprehensible, is in your  
view, less damaging in the last instance, because it is not  
accompanied by a faith based fanaticism.

I am not interested (and never have been) in furnishing a  
differential framework of justification for any act of destruction. I  
condemn, unequivocally, acts of violence by ruling powers, no matter  
which ruling power perpetuates them, and for what reason. Not because  
I view them through the lens committed to the hierarchical and  
differential ordering of their motives but because I view them in  
terms of their consequences. The consequences, unvaryingly, are  
tragic, no matter what the declared, or retrospectively unveiled  
'motives' may be.

It matters little to me as to whether those who witness and recount  
such acts condemn these motives as base (as Kalhana does) or glorify  
them as exalted (as some of the Muslim chroniclers you mention do,  
though others, like Kalhan, are prepared to call them base). What  
matters to me is that these instances were acts of wanton  
destruction, and need to be recognized as such.

But let us leave the absured question of whether it is 'better' to  
destroy for greed or the so called greater glory of god aside for the  
moment.

As far as the attribution of motives to acts of state terror are  
concerned, (and the killing of people, and the destruction of their  
property by forces partisan to the state are acts of state terror, no  
matter who orders them, or when they occur) I am less than willing to  
accept the motives ascribed to them (which you accept without  
hesitation) by court chroniclers.

Let us take a contemporary example to try and understand what I mean.  
If we follow the debate on Nandigram, which has occurred on this list  
and elsewhere, we will see that several people (myself included) have  
no hesitation in seeing the violence that has been unleashed in West  
Bengal by the ruling CPI(M) as being symptomatic of the avarice,  
greed, lust for wealth, influence and power that has completely  
turned the heads of the leadership of the CPI(M) led government in  
that state. While on the other hand, the people I would consider to  
be the 'court chroniclers' and apologists of the CPI(M) have insisted  
that in fact the CPI(M)'s actions are actually evidence of its  
commitment to the pro-people development policies that it claims to  
uphold. Substitute a commitment to  what our so called Communist  
Parties call 'people's democracy' with what the 'court chroniclers'  
of the Kashmiri Salatin's called 'Islam' and you will see exactly  
what I mean. Or, better still, if you read the writing on Army, BSF  
and CRPF bunkers in Kashmir and Srinagar, which often declare that  
the Indian Armed Forces are protecting the 'Freedom' or 'Azaadi' of  
the Kashmiri population then too you will see what I mean.

Every ruling power attempts to dignify its base violence with the  
sanctity of an exalted purpose. In Marxism we call this exalted  
purpose 'Ideology'. So, when the court chroniclers of the Salatins  
say that the purpose of loot and the destruction of property is the  
advancement of Islam, I am quite willing to bet that what we see is  
as much 'ideology' in operation as when someone like Prabhat Patnaik  
exhorts the CPI(M) faithful that whatever is happening in West Bengal  
is happening for the benefit of the people there. In both cases, the  
greed and lust for power are given a suitably exalted 'cover' by  
intellectuals who also happen to be courtiers.

Strangely, if I were to accept your logic that the actions of Muslim  
rulers in Kashmir can be glossed only in terms of their commitment to  
their faith, then we have to arrive at another paradoxical conclusion  
- which is as follows - that the pre-eminence of Kashmiri Pandits  
throughout the history of medieval Kashmir, the fact that their  
religion and rituals remained intact, that new temples were also  
built and that Sanskrit scholarship continued to exist in Kashmir, is  
also indicative of the strength of the piety of those Muslim rulers  
who ensured that all this could happen. Because, the Qur'an  
explicitly states ' To you your faith, and to me mine', or 'that  
there can be no compulsion in matters of religion'. In other words,  
just as (following your logic) those Muslim rulers who persecuted  
Pandits and destroyed temples were acting as per the injunctions of  
their faiths, those other Muslim rulers who did not persecute Pandits  
and did not destroy temples were also acting out of their 'Islamic'  
religious motivations. In other words the 'bad' Muslims were bad  
because they were Muslims, and the 'good' Muslims were good because  
they were Muslims. I do not see how this line of reasoning can help  
us to understand anything, because it is internally contradictory.

I have heard and read many Muslim and Islamist ideologues argue that  
the historical record of Islamic rule in the pre-modern world is  
indicative of its higher tolerance of diversity, (which is  
empiricially true if we take into account the broad contours of the  
cultural and religious histories of the Ottoman, Abbasid, Fatimid,  
and Mughal empires), and that this is because, Islam itself is the  
'most tolerant' and peace loving of all faiths.

Now, let me make it abundantly clear that I think that this line of  
reasoning is absolute rubbish. It is Islamist propaganda that I do  
not buy at all. Islam per se is neither more nor less tolerant than  
other faiths. And Muslim rulers are not tolerant or intolerant  
because they are 'Muslims'.

Muslim rulers were tolerant, or not, because it was expedient for  
them to be so, because tolerance, or highly selective but non  
discriminatory forms of intolerance were effective and pragmatic  
instruments of rule. Similarly, I do not think that Narendra Modi  
organizes pogroms, and arranges for the massacre of Muslims in  
Gujarat because he is a good Hindu. I think he does so because this  
is a means by which he can rule through terror and fear. To give his  
actions a 'Hindu' gloss, despite the spin and representational excess  
with which it is surrounded, (including by him and his courtiers)  
would be succumbing to the error of mistaking reality for ideology,  
the concreteness of the deed for the slipperiness of the word.

Similarly, to say, like the court chroniclers you mention that  
'temple destruction' was motivated by the cause of furthering the  
agenda of Islam is about as meaningless, in my opinion, as saying  
that the tolerance and liberality of Muslim rule existed in order to  
further the agenda of Islam. What you are saying, and what Islamist  
apologists of the principle of the so called 'just caliphate' say  
actually amount to the same things, though you come to them from  
different ends and from different purposes - namely that the acts of  
Muslim rulers must only be seen in terms of their provenance in the  
sacred tenets  of Islam, while the acts of non Muslim rulers can be  
explained by mundane motivations. This amounts, actually to a theory  
of 'Muslim exceptionalism' that can be used to justify and/or  
describe anything and everything when it is attached to any entity  
that is nominally Muslim, from the Islamo-Fascism of bin Laden and  
Ahmedinijad to the liberality and openness of Jalaluddin Rumi, even  
to the playful heresies of Ma'arri and Rushdie.

I prefer a more simple and simutaneously more complex explaination -  
which sees actions and motives rooted in everyday contexts,  and  
especially views Kingship, statecraft and the exercise of political  
power of any kind as a complex intersection of different kinds of  
motives, mainly base and mundane, mainly to do with the accumulation  
of wealth and the maintenance of patterns of domination by different  
ruling classes in different epochs.

Finally, lets turn our attention a little to the manner in which you  
have read your sources. I notice, that the actual substantive 'temple  
destroyers' that you mention are none other than the familiar  
Sikandar But-Shikan, whose name you drag out like a cheap magic  
trick, again and again.

You list 49 references from Jia Lal Kilam's book, forgetting to  
mention that temple destruction are mentioned very few times in these  
references. The bulk of these citations have to do with the  
persecution of pandits (and others) for reasons that have to do with  
expediency, court politics, greed for wealth and a host of other  
mundane factors. The few instances were Muslim fanaticism is at play  
are also those that are also corrected and resisted by other Muslim  
claimants to power. But we hardly find any  specific mentions of  
temple destruction. This makes it difficult to believe that the  
quantum of temple destruction in Muslim rule was substantially  
different from what might have occured earlier.

Generally, the behaviour of oppressive Muslim kings is just as base,  
just as banal, just as reprehensible as their non-Muslim  
predecessors. Just to give an example, (because I do not want to bore  
our readers with an excess of detail, an achoholic king like Haider  
Shah ('given to drunken orgies' in Kilam's words) makes for as good  
and devout a Muslim as the pork eating Shiva worshipping crypto  
Muslim pioneer called Harsha - whom you are happy to claim is Muslim  
because Kalhana uses the word 'Turushka' for him. S

You conveniently cite Abdul Qayoom Rafiqi (Sufism in Kashmir)  
mentioing Syed Ali Hamadani's list of injunctions agains 'Zimmis'  
without mentioing that the term 'Zimmis' (the protected) refer to  
Jews and Christians, not to Hindus. The word used for Hindus is  
Kafir, and Rafiqui whom you cite, actually refers to Hamadani's  
verses stressing the equality in God's eyes of the Momin (Muslim) and  
the Kafir. This actually really damages your argument, as does the  
fact that Rafiqui explicitly mentions the fact that the fanatical  
excesses of his successor, Mir Mohammad Hamadani were also resisted,  
and defeated by another Sufi

Thank you once again for the energy with which you have attempted to  
marshall evidence for your arguments, I am afraid, that after a  
dispassionate reading of your arguments, I am forced to conclude that  
they make up in shrillness what they lack in coherence and cogency.

Keep trying,

regards

Shuddha

PS. As long as non Kashmiri Indian soldiers continue to occupy and  
harass Kashmiris in Kashmir, I am afraid you will have to deal with  
the likes of me, commenting on the situation in Kashmir. I do this,  
not because I have a particular interest in what you call the 'pain'  
of Kashmir. I am not Kashmiri, and have no interest in giving further  
purchase to Kashmir self pity, regardless of the denomination that it  
speaks in the name of. Rather, I am interested in understanding and  
resisting what a prolonged period of military occupation does to the  
occupying power. Let the last non Kashmiri Indian soldier leave the  
valley, and I too, will 'cease-fire'. Until that is done, I am  
afraid, the skirmish will continue.

Finally, at the end of your multi part missive, you exhort Pawan  
Durani with the words, "Be not despaired of these,limousine liberals  
oh my friend Pawan Durani,poor in means,we maybe,but aren't poor in  
passion and zest."

While it is interesting to think of people who brandish their  
'blackberry fuelled' enthusiasm as being 'poor in means', I must  
point out that all my life I have wanted at least a brief ride in a  
limousine on Delhi's streets. A liberal, I am not, but I really would  
not mind an occasional spin in a hired limousine . Alas, I have never  
really enjoyed the delights of one. I did notice, that on 'Homeland  
Day' which was celebrated with a major bash by the Panun Kashmir  
organization I noticed a long line of expensive automobiles outside  
the Chinmaya Mission Auditorium on Lodi Road in Delhi where Panun  
Kashmir was pledging itself anew to its homeland. I noticed in  
particular the several shiny grey and black Toyota Innovas, which  
though not limousines, are handsome vehicles. Perhaps our Kashmiri  
Pandit Patriot friends were there in person too. Would any of them  
care to lend me, or any other anti-national automobile fanatics, a  
nice big car for a day?



On 11-Nov-08, at 8:12 PM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote:

>
> On 11-Nov-08, at 3:46 PM, rashneek kher wrote:
>
>> Dear Gargi,
>>
>> I have really been out of this all and have stayed quite.Please  
>> dont drag me
>> into this.In case you have read Shudda's pieces please do care to  
>> read mine
>> too before you make statements here.I can say with authority that in
>> most aspects of Kashmir including those four pieces Shudda's  
>> knowledge is
>> incomplete and wanting.
>> Yet I have admired him for his understanding and knowledge in so many
>> fields.
>> Well in case you wanted to do some mudslinging at me,you may just  
>> end up
>> proving your inherent biases,thats all.
>>
>> Live on
>>
>> Rashneek
>>