[Reader-list] The Azadi We Need

[mahmood farooqui]

Thanks Inder. But my brother has lately been asking me--is it possible for
us to condone Jinnah for the demons that he could not have but known he was
unleashing when he, tacitly, conceded that a fight for Muslims could be
played as a fight for Islam.

2008/9/14 inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com>

> Yes, Mahmood Bhai
>
> When you mention , Jinnah, I think of Dastangoi, What a wonderful and
> thought provoking performance that was. I wish I had recorded that
> for friends in Kashmir.  But there  are Jinnah lovers in Kashmir,
> still. So physically, your performance might not be such a welcome
> move in Kashmir, right now at least.
>
>  Sheikh Mohd  Abdullah was called as Qaid-a-Sani which mean second to
> the first. The First was indeed  Qaid-a-Azam, Jinnah himself. But, I
> guess Sheik was truly the first.
>
> He was truly a hero, in real sense, a towering personality, full of
> courage. He succeeded where Gandhi and Jinnah failed. If there was no
> blood on the streets in 1947, it was Kashmir. Rest of it, as we know
> was just a horror.
>
> Sheikh Mohd Abdullah was truly interested in a new Kashmir. He was a
> great friend of India. Remember, in  1947, it was quite impossible for
> any one to think beyond India and Pakistan. It was just about a Hindu
> or a Muslim. But Sheikh had a foresight. And 1971 proved that he was
> right. But what failed him is the coterie around him, and friends who
> betrayed.
>
> Sheikh  Mohd Abudulah is not a respected leader in Kashmir  any more,
> which is sad.  If Nehru had the courage to declare a free Kashmir (
> with or without  Jammu ) and provided protection to  it from Jinnah's
> Pakistan,  history might have been different. Alas !
>
> Love
> is
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 1:59 PM, mahmood farooqui
> <mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Sanjay, I share your concern about Umair's casal disengagement with the
> > oppression in kashmir and with the liberationist impulse implicit in the
> > kasmiri uprising.
> >
> > Yes, Azadi may take a form that we cannot anticipate. But as Mukul
> Kesavan
> > pointed out to Shuddha we have to extrapolate on the outcomes from the
> gamut
> > of the existing pointers. And it is the Azadi seekers who need to
> deliberate
> > more on what they are going to do. Not just that we will do it better.
> >
> > We have heard his before from Jinnah--we will protect our minorities
> > (better).
> >
> > 2008/9/13 Sanjay Kak <kaksanjay at gmail.com>
> >
> >> Thanks, Jeebesh, for posting Umair Ahmed Muhajir's piece "The Azadi We
> >> Need"
> >> http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080904&fname=umair&sid=1
> >>
> >> The Sarai list has robustly reflected the recent revival of interest in
> the
> >> idea of Kashmir's Azadi, and I think many of us would be in synch with
> the
> >> despair reflected in Muhajir's understanding of the monstrous contours
> of
> >> the modern nation state, especially as it has unfolded in our part of
> the
> >> world–India, Pakistan, Bangladesh...
> >>
> >> What I do not share is the certainity with which he–like many writers in
> >> recent weeks both here and in other public forums in India–have
> visualised
> >> a
> >> possible Azad Kashmir. Perhaps because few in Kashmir have been able to
> >> spell out their vision, our assumptions have flooded in and filled the
> >> space. One of these is that Azadi necessarily means an Islamic Nation.
> >> Certainly there are pointers from some of the political leaders of the
> >> movement that this may be the idea. Syed Ali Shah Geelani has spoken of
> the
> >> centrality of Islam in his vision, and no doubt there are other elements
> in
> >> the Hurriyat that would concur. (Although even here it is an open
> question
> >> what their Islamic role model is: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia,
> Syria,
> >> Qatar? Or another: Kashmir,) But surely it cannot be the case that what
> >> Geelani says, or what elements of the Hurriyat hint at can be taken as
> >> conclusive in our understanding of the aspirations for Azadi?
> (Especially
> >> when most people who draw these conclusions are also the first to
> question
> >> the representative character of Geelani or the Hurriyat!)
> >>
> >> Our discussions of where Kashmir is headed is already moving so giddily
> >> ahead of the state of play, that sometimes I get the sensation that
> these
> >> are not really conversations about Kashmir, and the abominable situation
> >> there, but really about our anxieties about ourselves. (Here I use "our"
> >> for
> >> those of whose of us who do not see ourselves as Kashmiris–so Indians,
> >> Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, whoever.)
> >>
> >> Let us for a moment ignore the hardliners in the public discourse, the G
> >> Parthasarathy, K Subrahmanyam, Harish Khare (and for comic relief,
> >> Jaitirath
> >> Rao) line on Kashmir. (In a nutshell: fry them).
> >> Let's turn to the liberal discourse, where however sophisticated the
> >> language, and however much sympathy for the "ordinary Kashmiri" is
> evoked,
> >> the main preoccupation seems to be around what a possible Azad
> Kashmir–one
> >> which wears it Muslim majority and its Islamic character on its
> sleeve–will
> >> do to the idea of Indian secularism, to Indian democracy, and to India's
> >> Muslims. In India, for example, the failure to fulfill the aspirations
> of a
> >> Secular, Socialist, Democratic Republic that We The People were
> promised,
> >> seem to hinge entirely on whether or not Kashmir continues to be part of
> >> India... How fragile is this notion of the Secular Socialist Democracy
> that
> >> it hinges entirely on a part of the map that has never enthusiastically
> >> embraced the geographical entity that bounds that ideal!
> >>
> >> So too in Muhajir's otherwise excellent discussion of the Nation State,
> >> Kashmir is only the peg upon which the larger anxiety hangs. I tended to
> >> read his piece as a lament about the failure of our nations to meet the
> >> aspirations of our decolonising imaginations. About what he calls the
> Azadi
> >> We Need.
> >>
> >> To say, as Muhajir does, that "the idea of an independent Kashmir for
> >> Kashmiris must be resisted precisely because, as the experience of the
> >> once-colonised has amply illustrated, nation-states are appallingly
> >> inhuman"
> >> is a suggestion of some casual brutality. And when he says that "nothing
> in
> >> the Kashmiri independence movement suggests that it will throw up
> anything
> >> different; indeed given that the movement aims at a traditional
> >> nation-state
> >> just like all the others, I submit that it cannot yield a different
> >> result",
> >> I can only wonder at his certainity of what the movement aims at. He is
> >> asking us not just to doubt, or raise a red-flag of warning, but to
> >> "resist"
> >> because he believes that an Independent Kashmir may turn into the
> monster
> >> with the big floppy ears and the sharp tusks? Remember the Six Blind Men
> of
> >> Hindustan, and the Elephant?
> >>
> >> Because in the absence of democracy, in the absence of free and fearless
> >> politics, and in the presence of a quite monstrous apparatus of
> occupation,
> >> none of us can as yet lay claim to saying that we know what the movement
> >> aims at.
> >>
> >> The discomfort with the Nation State is a valid one. If indeed there are
> >> those within the movement who casually think of such an entity, then
> they
> >> would do well to make themselves familiar with the arguments Mohajir
> >> assembles against it. But for the vast majority of people in the valley,
> >> the
> >> idea of Azadi does not as yet have such elaborate contours. It still
> means
> >> removing the Army, bringing back some elementary dignity into everyday
> >> life.
> >> We can lay the charge at the door of the Separatist leadership that they
> >> have failed to start that conversation about what Kashmir could be like.
> >> But
> >> before we "resist" the idea of Azadi we–and here I speak of Indians–must
> >> also take on board our complicity in a system that has not allowed any
> form
> >> of genuine democratic process to emerge in Kashmir, not just since 1989
> >> when
> >> the armed conflict broke out, but for at least three decades before
> that.
> >>
> >> And what if, in the absence of another workable alternative that they
> can
> >> come up with, or indeed we can offer them, they still choose the
> tattered
> >> and torn robes of the Nation State? Will we say to them that their
> struggle
> >> is meaningless, their suffering inconsequential, the repression they
> have
> >> dealt with somehow appropriate? Because they don't understand the perils
> of
> >> the Nation State they must cease to resist?
> >>
> >> In recent weeks, one can see the furry edges of the Establishment
> fluffing
> >> up in defence of old atrophied positions. Forget the Intelligence Bureau
> >> plants and the Home Ministry hand-outs. Academics Sumit Ganguly and
> Kanti
> >> Bajpai, separately and together, placed a series of articles all over
> the
> >> national and international media that set up a sort of Qualifying
> Standard
> >> to Permit Secession. Minimally you are required to say Yes to the
> >> following:
> >> Genocide? Ethnic flooding? Major human rights violations? Since India
> has
> >> fallen short on all counts, they aver, with only 70,000 dead, and No
> Major
> >> human rights violations, the Standard is not met . Sorry then. No case
> for
> >> Azadi.
> >> Who set up this Gold Standard, and who calibrates it?
> >>
> >> While it is not my intention to place Muhajir's arguments on the same
> shelf
> >> as the Hawks and the Hawks-in-Dove-feathers, I bring them together
> because
> >> collectively they serve the same end-result: "This may not end up the
> way
> >> WE
> >> want it, so lets just wait and watch".
> >>
> >> That was the position that British Liberals could well have taken in the
> >> years before Independence: hand over India to the Hindu Mahasabha? The
> >> Muslim League? To Gandhi?.
> >> Better a part of Empire than to allow India to destroy itself under the
> >> weight of its own contradictions.
> >>
> >> That has been the position of liberal Indians for at least twenty–if not
> >> sixty–years. Frozen in a rigor mortis of wilful ignorance, political
> >> correctness, and theoretical purity.
> >>
> >> This may not be The Azadi They Need.
> >>
> >> Sanjay Kak
> >> _________________________________________
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>
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>
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