[Reader-list] Seditious articles on Kashmir criticised

[Aarti Sethi]

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> The signatories assert that "Kashmir is an inalienable element of India's
> civilisational identity and symbolises the fundamental principles on which
> the modern Indian state has been built." Terming national will as a
> critical
> component of state power, they felt that "devious adversaries" have
> resorted
> to psychological warfare in order to break the national will.


What is India's 'civilizational identity'? Does 60 years constitute a
'civilization'? The point is, that to even raise this question is
"sedition". As if those who ask this question are somehow naive deluded
juvile people. Does 'pride in being Indian', whatever that is, have to be
coupled with a territorial lust for land? I don't think so. Our imaginations
and affections surely encompass more than the nation. And in fact they do,
that is my point. Read any history book taught in school. We are so willing
so claim 2,000 years of history as 'Indian history', but that history
becomes 'Indian history' only 60 years ago. The march of history does not
cut some straight and true swath from Ashoka to Nehru, as if 2,000 years of
history is the long unfolding of the story of the 'Indian nation'. Why is
this so scary to concieve is what I don't understand.

Nations are not god-given entities. They are historically produced units of
social organisation. Which is not to say they are of no value or that they
have never played a progressive role. Or that we must have no investment in
them. But its alright to question and query the nation. There is nothing
divine about it. Its not 'immoral'. People who are asking these questions
are not 'bad people', 'enemies of India'.
People who are asking today questions about Kashmir's future and its
relationship with India are asking us to think deeply and hard about how
India defines her/its identity. This is a good question, it would help us
all to spend some time on it. It is possible to think creatively at this
moment about the very many ways in which Kashmir can relate to India. There
has been some discussion of those ways on this list itself. Various kinds of
autonomy arrangements, of porous borders, many things can be thought
through. But to deign all such conversations as "seditious" is no way to go
anywhere.

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