[Reader-list] A Just Peace in Kashmir? Reflections on

[Junaid]

Dear Shuddha, Kshmendra, Rahul, Inder, and Sanjay,

Richard Shapiro's essay is important to me more for how it invokes various
challenges and questions that the Kashmiri resistance needs to address, than
his analysis of the way Indian state has evolved and its relationship with
Kashmir. (I might, however, hasten to add that I agree completely with
Shapiro's analysis of the evolution of the Indian state, turning of its
identity--as Bhabha or Fanon could have called it--into a 'mimic' state, and
the Hindu subjectivity that forms the "unconcious" of its preponderant
nationalism. But I will let Kshmendra--whenever time allows him--refute
Shapiro's arguments on this, or give reasons for his characterization of the
essay as "replete with prejudice, bias, ill-concieved presumptions and
mis-constructed deductions.")

Some of these questions that touch upon, in a deep sense, the fundamental
and substantive issues of democracy and liberty, or even the questions of
the meaning and the dignity of life, of new ways of being with the nature
and the world, have to be posed and answered by the resistance movements
around the world. I do believe with Shuddha, and I have discussed with him
before, that Kashmiri resistance needs to be reconceptualised, and instead
of simply demanding a state that "mimics the mimic," it needs to create a
new idiom, a new paradigm. It should seek to create a new society--and, of
course, an independent state--which may not have already achieved the Ideal,
but must have a template for such a pursuit.

Shuddha has brilliantly encapsulated these challenges in his response, while
Inder too hinted at some of them. These questions, that the Third World
nationalisms have miserably failed to answer themselves, and the
disenchanted from the yesteryears' colonized are now asking, with a lot of
hope, of the new resistance movements, have not yet taken enough root in
Kashmir. It can sound funny when people ask "Would gay people have their
rights in an independent Kashmir?" or "Would minorities be not only
protected but have equal rights as the majorities?," when the people these
questions are asked of don't even know if *they* have a right to life (with
dignity) in Kashmir, when the rigorously grinding everyday life under the
military occupation doesn't even allow its people a chance to ponder
upon their situation. Yet, at some stage or the other, if solidarities are
to be built, if new alliances are to be created, if the Azadi in the real
sense has to be achieved, these questions have to find some answers in
Kashmir's resistance struggle.

It's a big burden on Kashmir's bruised shoulders but resistance needs to
make it its natural component. I do believe that Kashmir will be a vastly
different society than what India or Pakistan have turned out to be. (And, I
am not saying everyone in India or Pakistan thinks, or is, the same, or that
there are no pockets of active resistance, and hopes of a better society in
either of them---I am speaking of the "mainstream" norms, behaviours, and
aspirations of the Indian and Pakistani states and nationalists).

I strongly believe that Kashmiris are a forward-looking nation--a hope for a
better future feeds its will--than one which seeks legitimacy from a past,
especially a constructed one. Although, we have many histories and memories,
and narratives of the past, but these don't inform our resistance. Kashmiris
did not dig up a Lazaar or make a "Discovery" of Kashmir; if they spoke or
had stories of the past, they were not ones about Lalityaditya or
Avantivarman, or Zainul Abidin or Yusuf Shah Chak, but of Habba Khatun, Nund
Reshi and Lal Ded. Kashmiris have been in active resistance since 1931, and
different parties have had their flags and icons, but Kashmiri nationalism
has had no flag or an iconograpy. Its nationalism is not dependent on them,
and yet I think an overwhelming majority of Kashmiris see themselves and,
act as, a nation. This nationalism is based on idea of solidarity to achieve
legitimate goals. That entire Kashmir protests when two women are raped and
murdered is a show of solidarity (instead of a show of "fundamentalism" that
many in India characterise their fight for justice as). I agree with Shapiro
when he speaks of the tactical moves that Kashmiris make in their everyday
struggle as quite rational.

Azadi, then, is not a struggle for some "glorious" past, but a hope for a
better future. Azadi is unambiguously a struggle for national independence
but also for liberation. Azadi is always in the future, always-to-come, in a
Derridian sense. Which makes a constant struggle for a better, newer life,
not only a possibility, but also a need. A future Kashmiri state, I hope,
will not be a state that sees the Westphalian state system as a model, or
mimics its erstwhile occupiers or colonizers, but probably in true Marxian
sense will wither away under pressure from a constant struggle of its
citizens.

I believe, however, that there is a need for a startegic and a tactical
support that the Kashmiri resistance needs. The disenchanted and the hopeful
in India and Pakistan need to build bridges with the Kashmiri resistance.
The critique of the resistance and the occupation cannot be the same. We do
need to keep in constant check and under vigil demagogues in the resistance
movement, and deflate and curtail their reactionary rhetoric and behaviour,
but we must neither lose sight of, nor do it at the cost of, the deeply
ethical dimension and the noble goals of a common Kashmiri's struggle for
independence and liberation.

@Rahul: I do believe that if people living in Pakistan-controlled-Kashmir
want to be united with the Indian-controlled-Kashmir and live as a united
independent Kashmir, they have every right to do so. There are many
people there who have, despite, Pakistani suppression, expressed this desire
and need, and I extend my full solidarity to them. They have an equal
right of self-determination as the Kashmiris in the
Indian-controlled-Kashmir. Recent Pakistani noises of "Independent Kashmir"
are a welcome sign, but I am not sure if Pakistan Govt has really undergone
a change of heart over Kashmir. But I do believe that most Pakistanis would
welcome an independent Kashmir if India allowed that to happen.

And I do think that a peaceful transition of Kashmir to independence will
release immense intellectual and social forces in the subcontinent which
will ultimately dissolve superficial and ill-conceived structures of thought
and action, characterized by militarisation, nuclearization, war-rhetoric,
externally, and hatred, otherisation, and communalism, internally, in both
India and Pakistan. I do think an independent Kashmir will usher in an era
of peace, stability, and prosperity in the entire Southasia, unlike the
catastrophic scenarios some of the Indian intelligentsia have created.

At this point, let me tell my Pandit friends this: Your narratives of your
pain and suffering, and our narratives of our pain and suffering
are unfortunately growing away and apart. We started at a point where we
empathised with each other, we understood each other's language of pain, but
we have reached a point where we don't even acknowledge each other's
existence, forget about pain and suffering. Muslims of Kashmir now rarely
talk about Pandits, as if they don't exist anymore. The daily existential
struggle that living under occupation is, leaves no time for reminiscing.
Pandits have become so habituated to life out of their home, that memories
of home have remained frozen in a single moment--the 1990. Whatever happened
to the home, and the home's other children has has gone unregistered. Some
of us have started speaking a language of religious extremism, some of
you now speak a language of right-wing Hindu nationalism. If asked, most
Kashmiri Muslims want Pandits to come home. There is no way to express or
articulate it though. But some of you say that that expression has to be the
acceptance of Indian sovereignty over their lives. Muslims think the
annihilation of their struggle and, effectively of their national life, is a
condition which is utterly unacceptable. I do think that not everything
has been lost. If only truth was allowed to come out.

Perhaps the best way to rebuild bridges is to unconditionally accept and
acknowledge each other's pain and sufferring. That Pandits accept and
acknowledge the Kashmir's need to be independent, and Muslims accept the
right of Pandit's to live with dignity, security and as full members of our
nation (even if they don't support or participate in Kashmir's freedom
struggle).

Along with other minorities Kashmiri Pandits have the first right to ask of
Kashmiri resistance to become sensitive to and acknowledge their needs of
security and dignity. If the future independent Kashmir has to move
in pursuit of the goals that we have laid out then the time to intervene is
now!

Junaid




On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 4:11 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>wrote:

>   Dear Junaid
>
> Sure I will elaborate on my comments made on Richard Shapiro's essay when
> time allows me.
>
> You seem to have read the essay and it would seem you disagree with my
> characterisation of the essay. Is that so?
>
> So that I can better address your request, would you please clarify the
> following:
>
> - Is it your position that Richard Shapiro has NOT made any 'sweeping
> generalisations' and 'misrepresentations'?
>
> - Is it your position that Richard Shapiro's essay does NOT make evident
> any (Anti-India) 'prejudice and bias'?
>
> Kshmendra
>
>
> --- On *Thu, 8/6/09, Junaid <justjunaid at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Junaid <justjunaid at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] A Just Peace in Kashmir? Reflections on
> To: 425063.70526.qm at web57205.mail.re3.yahoo.com, reader-list at sarai.net
> Date: Thursday, August 6, 2009, 9:38 PM
>
>   Hi Kshmendra,
>
> You have described Prof. Shapiro's essay as "replete with prejudice, bias,
> ill-concieved presumptions and mis-constructed deductions". Could you
> actually elaborate and give reasons for your characterization of the essay.
>
> Junaid
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net<http://us.mc572.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=reader-list-request@sarai.net>with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
>
>