[Reader-list] Some Points from discussions

[S. Jabbar]

Dear Kshemendra, Jeebesh, Vivek, Sanjay and everyone else interested in
Kashmir,

I have been away this past month, but have looked at the Sarai List from
time to time.  I find it interesting that the discussion on Kashmir has
turned to 'post-national' solutions and that Jeebesh volunteered the Dixon
Plan as one way of arriving at a solution. But if you study the plan
carefully along with the maps you will realise that there are/were very
valid reasons for why it was rejected in the 1950's itself.

Since then there have been various attempts to rephrase and re-package the
Dixon Plan into something more palatable, but because the basis in all the
subsequent proposals was a division of the state on religious lines it was
rejected by India. 

What I find interesting about the discussion so far is that most people seem
content to dismiss the nation-state as inherently obdurate, bent on making
the lives of Kashmiris, among others, miserable. Some thought and some work
has been done on Kashmir in the last sixty years, and I think not only would
it be grossly unfair to the people who have attempted to think about and do
something on Kashmir if one did not acknowledge it, but it would also be
reinventing a very flat wheel if one didn't examine past mistakes.

About a month ago in a discussion with Shuddha I had put forward a proposal
for a South Asian Union that has been under discussion for several years
with friends from the region.  This would include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, India, Nepal, Bangladesh with the possibility of Tibet and Burma as
observer states.  

No takers on the list? Well, FYI by 2015 the governments of these countries
will have in place the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).  This push
is obviously coming from the trade fraternity, but where does this leave
civil society? Why are we not responding creatively to something which could
potentially either become a trade agreement which would benefit only big
business, or something that could mean real freedom for the nearly 2 billion
people in this region?


> From: Vivek Narayanan <vivek at sarai.net>
> Organization: Sarai
> Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:55:02 +0530
> To: <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>, sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Some Points from discussions
> 
> I did not say you wrote that Kshmendra, I said that I was given to 
understand
> it that way from what you were saying.  Hence, the question 
mark in my note
> below. Perhaps you are being a little too intelligently 
vague. In any case,
> if you do think there are possibilities here beyond 
the nation state,
> including beyond occupation by and assertion and 
domination of the Indian
> nation state, I'd be very glad to hear of them.

Kshmendra Kaul wrote:
>
>
> Dear Vivek
>
>  
>
> Either I did not know what I was writing or you chose not
> understand. 
> Either way that is unfortunate. You would not want that
> happening with 
> you. Would you?
>
>  
>
> Where in this particular thread
> have I mentioned or suggested that :
>
>  
>
> """"  any possible
> "post-national" solution to the question of Kashmir 
> is hogwash,
> dreamy,
> silly, unthinkable"""""
>
>  
>
> Once you answer that, I could (perhaps
> tomorrow) address rest of what 
> you have written.
>
>  
>
>
> Kshmendra
>
>

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