[Reader-list] The Azadi We Need

[inder salim]

Thanks my dear
Histroy is such a bitchy subject, that we  end up talking only about a
Gandhi or a Jinnah. But there are hundreds of other doors to enter. It
is a quagumire, but at least we free ourselves from a short cut to
history which is to see Jinnah from India and Gandhi from Paskitan.
Both can yeild wrong results. That is why i mentioned Sheikh, who can
be restored to a true status when we are talking about towering
personalities of 1947. incorporating so many others like Shiekh in the
understaing of struggle for free India and creation of India and
Pakistan, acutually might help us to understand a Jinnah and a Nehru i
better than what we are doing now.  I agree that Jinnah could not
visualized the demon that partition unleashed. But that is preceisely
how, these politicians who feel so confident while negotiating the
destiney of millions fails when thing go out of control. People are
still suffering from that methodology.#

Dastangoi was indeed  the most wonderful door to understand History.
We need more such doors

love  and best of wishes to Danish as well
is

On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 9:13 PM, mahmood farooqui
<mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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