[Reader-list] Iran Discussions on the Reader-List (I)

[Lalit Ambardar]

Dear Mr.Shuddha,
 
It is not to contest your self admitted aversion to the Indian nation, but you seem to be going a bit too far in your criticism of India. Espousing solidarity with the people of Iran or Palestine does not necessitate demonising India. There appears to be no relevance in shoving in references to Kashmir in your analysis of the successive regimes in Iran. 
Your obsession with the ‘occupation’ of Kashmir throws up of issues. 
 
‘Occupied Kashmir’ certainly does not include Ladakh & Jammu regions together with a territorial area & population exceeding that of Kashmir valley. At least the inhabitants of these provinces which include Hindus; Shia & Sunni Muslims; Budhists; Sikhs; Gujjars & Bakarwals do not think so. Abrogation of article 370 & further integration with the Indian Union is a long pending demand in Jammu & Ladakh. And with regards the valley, the Kashmiri Hindu Pandits were targeted & subjected to ethnic cleansing mainly because they symbolised Indian presence in Kashmir. And all those Muslim followers of Sheikh Abdullah’s NC or PDP & Congress who braving the terrorists’ guns have time & again come out & voted in elections conducted under the constitution of India. As on today Abdullahs, Muftis, Soz, Azad etc. etc. also do not regard Kashmir as an occupied territory-they swear by the Indian constitution. Most of the protagonists of the present bloody turmoil in Kashmir are the disgruntled ‘main stream’ politicians of yesterday who discovered better avenues in changing sides some two decades ago. They have fought elections, they have been members of the assembly, and they have even been ministers. 
 
Situation could have been possibly different had the mass conversion campaign not followed the advent of Islam in Kashmir a few hundred years ago-accession of Kashmir would have been in no way different from say that of other princely states in to the union of India. 
 Minus the ‘gun’ & pan Islamic fervour Kashmir ceases to be any issue.
Regards all
LA
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:33:23 +0530
> From: shuddha at sarai.net
> To: justjunaid at gmail.com
> CC: reader-list at sarai.net
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Iran Discussions on the Reader-List (I)
> 
> Dear Junaid, 
> 
> Many thanks for your excellent rejoinders to my posting. I agree with much
> of what you have said. But a few clarifications are in order. I hope I can
> make sense while I write this, hurriedly. This is written in the spirit of
> a general response to your remarks rather than as a detailed rejoinder.
> 
> I do not believe that Iran under the Shah was paradise. I think that the
> Shah's regime represented the worst form of tyranny possible. Autocratic,
> brutal, cynical, and totally alienated from the experiences of the majority
> of the people. I have no regrets at all about the fact that the Shah of
> Iran had to flee his domain. I wish he had fled much earlier.
> 
> I refuse however to believe that the hijacking of the Iranian revolution by
> Ayatollah Khomeini and his camp followers represents a great step forward.
> I think it was a great and tragic step backwards. The Iranian revolution
> of 1979 was not begun by the Mullahs of Qom, it was ended by them. If
> anything, despite the rhetorical flourishes of the Khomeini dispensation, I
> have absolutely no doubt about the fact that the Islamic Republic
> represented an active counter-revolution. The deep structures of the
> Iranian state as built up by the Shah, especially the dreaded SAVAK,
> remained untouched, it just became the VEVAK. An elderly Iranian dissident
> friend now living in Exile once spoke to me of the way in which the SAVAK
> officers who had tailed them through the Shah years turned up again like
> bad pennies, except that some of them now sported neatly trimmed beards.
> 
> The Iranian revolutionary upsurge of 1979 was in some ways short circuited
> by the subsequent structures of the Islamic Republic, just as the
> revolutionary upsurge of 1917 in Russia was to a large extent subverted by
> the structures put in place by the Stalinist faction of the Bolshevik party
> from the early to mid 1920s in Russia.
> 
> You speak of the referendum that called for the Islamic Republic, yet
> neglect to mention that the entire 'Velayat-e-Faqih' system of governance,
> which effectively imposed a clerical dictatorship under the masquerade of
> republican democracy was introduced into the constitutional structures, not
> through debate and discussion, but through a kind of sleight of hand,
> subverting forever, thereby, any possibility that the Islamic Republic ever
> had of acquiring the semblence of what even some believed naively to be the
> beginnings of an 'Islamic Democracy'.
> 
> And no, the 'Guardians Council' and the 'Supreme Leader' put in place by
> the 'Velayat e Faqih' are not toothless 'advisors'. They control the
> military, the 'revolutionary guards', the all powerful intelligence
> ministry, and the commanding heights of the economy - through the bonyads
> or foundations. Which is why, the disastrous transformation of the
> defensive measures into the 'offensive' war, that Khomeini decreed,
> mirroring Saddam Hussain, which plunged Iran and Iraq further into the most
> meaningless war of the middle east, overruling saner counsel even from
> within his own regime.
> 
> One does not have to be beholden to Tsarism to be critical of Stalin, just
> as one does not have to be a partisan of the Pahlevi dynasty to be critical
> of the regime of the Islamic Republic. To suggest that this is the case is
> to be disingenuous. And I know that you have no desire to be disingenuous.
> 
> However, the fact remains, that the land reform measures introduced during
> the Shah's regime (and I have no doubt that they were introduced cynically)
> did empower large sections of the rural population, to the extent that they
> could stand up to his oppression. I have also no doubt about the fact that
> some of these measures were sought to be reversed as 'un-Islamic' in the
> Islamic Republic. An analogy closer to home might be useful here. The
> CPI(M) led government of West Bengal did implement substantial land reform
> in the period following 1977 (exactly as the Sheikh Abdullah dispensation
> had done in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1950s). The same CPI(M) led government
> sought to subvert the achivements of land reform with its disastrous
> imaginations in Singur and Nandigram. It was the population that benefited
> from land reforms that was able to stand up to, and resist  theoppression
> of the CPI(M), in West Bengal. This does not mean that I think that the
> CPI(M) in West Bengal (or for that matter, the National Conference in
> Kashmir, which had once pursued a similar course) is a progressive force.
> The fact is, both acted as transmitters and channels of popular sentiment
> for a period, and took advantage of the same. The Shah of Iran, Indira
> Gandhi, Mao Zedong, Stalin and Hitler did the same. This does not make me
> endorse their politics. 
> 
> So, my criticism of the Khomeini-Khameini-Ahmadinejad formation cannot be
> legitimately read as an endorsement of the Shah and the Pahlevi dynasty. 
> 
> I agree with you when you say that Iran is a normal country, it is not a
> spectacular exception. Iran is like India, like the United States, like
> France, like Israel, like Cuba. And precisely because we use a set of
> standards to develop a critique of politics in these states, we have no
> reason to abandon those criteria when it comes to Iran. Iran is a rich
> country, much richer than India, and our awareness of what poverty means in
> Iran has to be seen in the context of what poverty means in other
> relatively well off countries. I think the sight of malnutrition and inner
> city degradation in the United States is actually far more shocking than
> the absolute indices of poverty in India, and for similar reasons, I am
> convinced that the data relevant to Iran shows great reasons for concern.
> 
> But let me be clearer on what I mean as the refusal to toe the line of an
> 'Iranian' exceptionalism. For example, i think the nuclear agendas of the
> (successive) governments of Iran, Israel and India are equally worthy of
> criticism, as are their abysmal human rights records.
> 
> The Israeli state's nuclear weapons programme is a far greater threat to
> peace and stability in the middle east than Iran's, simply because it is at
> a far more advanced state. Israel is an effectively weaponized nuclear
> power, Iran is not yet one. So, I have no doubt at all that those (in the
> US, India and elsewhere) who scream about the possibility of a
> 'nuclearized' Iran and ignore Israel, are guilty of the most profound
> hypocrisy. Nor am I unaware of the fact that one of the longest standing
> prisoners of conscience in the middle east is the Israeli engineer,
> Mordechai Vanunu, who acted as a whistle-blower on the Israeli state's
> nuclear agenda.
> 
> What I refuse to do is to make an exception of Iran, because it is Iran.
> Exactly as I refuse to make an exception of India, or for that matter of
> Israel (as many people, both on the right, and some on the left do, on the
> grounds that to criticize the policies of the State of Israel is to fall
> lapse into anti-semitism - I have no such illusions). If Golda Meir said
> 'There are no Palestinians' or if Sardar Patel expressed downright racist
> sentiments about the people of the North East in India, or if Ahmadinejad
> doubts the nature and reality of the Shoah, then each of these are equally
> worthy of condemnation on the grounds of their inherent and implicit racial
> prejudice. 
> 
> As for Ahmadinejad's 'anti-semitism', i am not one of those who deduce it
> from his repetition of the grandiose sentiments of Ayatollah Khomeini
> (about 'effacing the regime that occupies Jerusalem from the pages of
> time') which has been mistranslated, as you correctly point out, as 'wiping
> Israel off the map'. Rather, my understanding of Ahmadinejad's
> anti-semitism has to do with his systematic 'holocaust denial' to bolster
> which, he has no hesitation in organizing international conferences with
> revisionist neo-nazi 'historians' and Klu Klux Klan eminences.
> 
> I totally agree with you that to speak of the death of Neda Agha Soltan,
> and to remain silent, about the death of Sheik Aziz in Kashmir, is
> hypocrisy. But, unfortunately, (or fortunately) that is not a charge that
> can be levelled at my door. I remember writing about the killing of Sheik
> Abdul Aziz on this list (and much else besides) and elsewhere. So, I am not
> exactly the kind of person who focuses on Iran in order to avoid looking
> closely at what goes on closer to home.
> 
> I have no doubt at all that much of those who are willing to shed tears for
> Iran are happily content to look away when it comes to what happens in
> Palestine or in Kashmir. But precisely because of this, we, who are acutely
> aware of what happens in Palestine or in Kashmir, and speak of it openly,
> must not be silent when it comes to Iran. To do would be to mirror the
> hypocrisy of the generations of Indian communists who would use every
> occasion to remind you of the oppression of workers in the west, and choose
> to remain silent about the repression of workers in (then) Poland, or for
> that matter, the USSR.
> 
> I will write in greater detail later, especially on the role of religion in
> the Iranian revolution. But meanwhile, I wanted to quicly begin to address
> some of the other questions you have raised. I am not, as you know, an
> Indian nationalist by any means, I do however, recognize the difference
> between the utter two facedness of the elites of states like Pakistan,
> Nigeria and Iran, and large sections of what gets loosely described as the
> Indian middle classes. I have observed, over many years, the utter and
> insulated indifference that many (not all) of my Pakistani peers have had
> towards their own milieu and society. The tears that they shed over what
> happens as a result of the Indian occupation of Kashmir are meaningless,
> because they are happy to benefit, when necessary, from their feudal
> contempt of the large masses of the Pakistani population, with whom, they
> have nothing in common. They do not care for the way Balochistan is
> pillaged, or the wretchedness that prevails in the interiors of Sindh
> 
> And, while I have remained the harshest critic of the Indian nation state's
> actions, I also know that there is a difference between a class that has
> fattened itself and its ambitions over successive long periods of a
> ruthlessly sustained military dictatorship (as has happened in Pakistan)
> and the way things have developed, over the decades, in India. The
> lethargy, the utter disconnectedness, the feudal non-chalance of the thin
> wedge of the Pakistani upper middle classes, with which I have more than a
> passing familiarity,
> 
> I know, for a fact, that no greater tragedy can befall the people of
> Kashmir, than having their servitude transferred from Indian to Pakistani
> chains.
> 
> This is not to exonerate or endorse or praise the Indian middle class,( i
> would not even dream of doing so) just to acknowledge, that the structures
> that govern India today have less need for a day to day level of hypocrisy
> and two facedness on the part of the vague category called the Middle Class
> Indian. In India, we do not hide our whisky much, not anymore, in Iran, the
> alchoholic Mullahs who pretend to be teetotallers, do. They sip their
> chosen brew from stainless steel decanters, or behind locked doors, or run
> enormous bootlegging operations from the security of their enormous villas.
> 
> This does not mean that people in India are better or worse, it just means
> that they have less reason to be opaque on several counts. The inordinate
> propensity to consume large amounts of bad whisky being only one of them. 
> 
> Finally , let me end on a personal note. I actually have a deep and abiding
> engagement with Iran. The problem is not that I 'hate' Iran, but that
> maybe, that I am much too concerned about it for my own good. Because I
> feel close to the historical experiences and the cultural circumstances of
> the Iranian people. That is why I 'hate' Ahmadinejad, and have always felt
> the deepest rage when I think of Khomeini, of the Shah of Iran (and yes, i
> think Natanyahu should also be tried as a war criminal) This sentiment, for
> whatever it is worth, is not different from my utter contempt, hatred and
> anger with regard to the legacies of Stalin or Mao. 
> 
> As a person who identifies with the left, I have a much greater intensity
> of hatred for Stalin and Mao than someone who has notionally nothing to do
> with the left. I feel that Stalinism violates me, because I identify with
> the left. For very similar reasons, because of my affinity with Iran, the
> regime of the Islamic Republic is anathema to me. I wish to see the Islamic
> Republic destroyed, just as I wish to see Zionism made irrelevant and
> meaningless, because I want to believe in a future worth fighting for, for
> my friends who are Iranian, Israeli and Palestinian, and for their
> children. And for the same reasons, for the sake of your future and mine, I
> want both Indian and Kashmiri nationalisms to be recognized as being the
> mediocre, moth-eaten expressions of our common (yet divergent) servitude.
> If you get rid of the chains of the Indian occupation, we know that it will
> (in some ways) liberate us as well. 
> 
> I believe that those of us who are critical of empire and domination, must
> be even more vigilant of the charlatans who sometimes mimic our own
>  anxieties. We cannot afford to let them down.That is why, for me, being
> critical of George Bush entails a rigorous rejection of the rhetoric of
> Ahmadinejad and Chavez. That is why, being militantly opposed to the Indian
> occupation of Kashmir, also, for me, entails a total and absolute rejection
> of the reactionary politics of Kashmiri nationalism as it is represented by
> Syed Ali Shah Geelani. I have no hesitation on being categorical on these
> issues. One position, in my opinion, demands the other. 
> 
> warm regards, and, as ever, in solidarity
> 
> Shuddha
> 
> 
> 
> On 1:37 am 07/17/09 Junaid <justjunaid at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear Shuddha,
> >
> > Thank you for the informative post on Iran. In that short post you
> > have managed well to marshal together many facts and figures to
> > support your well-argued conclusions. You have also summarized nicely
> > the main issues that have emerged from the debates here so far. But as
> > we said earlier, our differences on Iran shall remain, mostly on
> > issues of how to interpret “facts,” the perspectives through which one
> > sees Iran, and not least of all on how Iran is a perfect example of “a
> > discourse” which to an incredible level has lost its bearing in
> > reality.
> >
> 
> _________________________________________
> 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 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/>

_________________________________________________________________
cricket and news. Logon to MSN Video for the latest clips
http://www.exploremyway.com