[Reader-list] Seditious articles on Kashmir criticised

[Aarti Sethi]

Dear Nazneen,


I have no quarrel with love for land at all. And read my post again. I used
a specific phrase, I said, 'territorial lust for land'. Can you love land
without possessing it? That is the question.

How exactly do you build a relationship with land with which you have no
personal history of settlement or usage? Now obviously this is both an
abstract and a concrete question. I have never been to Kashmir, does this
mean I cannot have any relationship to it? Of course not! The question is
what kind of relationship? When I was one year old my father went on a
voyage to Antarctica. One of my most favourite memories of childhood is
seeing the slides he brought back of the incredible snowscapes and ice
sheets, and a rock which lay in a corner of our house for many years.
Apparently it was part of a meteor which smashed into the earth some million
years ago.  Antarctica is part of no country. Its land is part of the common
heritage of humanity, for all to build relationships with. As far as I am
concerned this is the only productive, ethical and creative way to think of
land.

The trouble is being an Indian citizen gives me fictional 'ownership' over
the entire territory of India. As if I have some special entitlement to the
square miles that are part of the map. But which land, whose land and whose
love? Currently there are struggles going on in this country - in singur, in
nandigram, in niyamgiri, to name only three sites - where people are asking
this question. Communities it seems have no right to their own land in the
name of "development". And this is fine by your logic is it not? Because the
development of India means that everyone has an entitlement. All land is the
property of the state. When did this come to pass? Can we ask these
questions? Or immediately "pills" must be taken to stamp out these viruses?
Maybe your love for India entitles you to such a claim, I do not feel this
entitlement. And in my opinion this sort of entitlement is where violence is
born. Can you see the quagmire we are in when we begin to collapse love
for/of land and territorial entitlement? They are not the same thing.

What does cheering for the Indian cricket team have to do with the area per
square miles of India? Believe me, I am not being facetious at all. The only
reason this sounds idiotic is because we take for granted the logic of the
modern nation state which consists of a sovereign entity for a territorial
unit, with a standing army to defend this territory. This is the first
lesson in every graduate political science lecture.  And you are right, the
nation state is a fragile concept. So maybe we need to ask ourselves whether
this is not causing more trouble than it is worth...

Regarding archives and fiction, this is a longer discussion and tangential
to the point I was making. Of course we may discuss it if you wish. But just
to clarify what I was saying, I can claim the heritage of the whole world as
my own. There is an old humanist saying "the world is my home" and i think
there is something of tremendous value here. But there are several ways in
which history and heritage can be claimed. One way seems to be logic of
subsuming everything, all forms of life and love and affection into the
rubric of the nation and to stamp out violently any persons or forms of life
which fall out of this. I am afraid this is too violent and boring for me.

regards
Aarti

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 3:47 PM, Nazneen Anand Shamsi <
nazoshmasi at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Dear Aarti,
>
> Please explain how many years constitute a civilization? For that matter,
> please elucidate the relationship between temporal continuity and a concept,
> if any? Why should 'pride in being Indian' exclude love for land? As far as
> history books are concerned, I would ask, who is to decide which fiction of
> the archives is valid? Nation state  is a fragile concept, and whats wrong
> in subduing those who make it more vulnerable? To not to do so is I think
> not allow one to take a pill if one is afflicted by a minor virus and hope
> that the body will cope on its own...it is ridiculous isn't it?
>
> Regards
>
> Nazo
>
> On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 9:39 AM, Aarti Sethi <aarti.sethi at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> >
>> >
>> > 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.
>>
>> best
>> A
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>
>