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

Sun Aug 9 15:11:22 IST 2009

Dear Junaid

Thank you for articulating so very sensitively your thoughts on Shapiro's essay and those provoked by Shapiro's essay. 

Kshmendra

--- On Sun, 8/9/09, Junaid <justjunaid at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Junaid <justjunaid at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] A Just Peace in Kashmir? Reflections on
To: "Kshmendra Kaul" <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>, reader-list at sarai.net
Date: Sunday, August 9, 2009, 1:21 PM

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

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