[Reader-list] The sickness of slavery...............Courtesy Kashmir Sentinel

[Pawan Durani]

*The Sickness Of Slavery*

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By   special  correspondant
**                       Khalil Gibran* wrote  about slavery with a  spiritual
insight. "I found the *lame slavery*, which places man's neck under the
domination of the tyrant and submits strong bodies with weak minds to the
sons of Greed for use as instruments to their power."......I found the *subtle
slavery *which entitles things with other than their names--calling slyness
an intelligence and emptiness a knowledge, and weakness a tenderness and
cowardice a strong refusal.....I found the *twisted slavery* which causes
the tongues of the weak to move with fear and speak outside their feelings,
and they feign to be meditating their plight, but they become empty sacks
which even a child can fold or hang."

Communities having long history of persecutions have slavish individuals or
groups who side with their persecutors and prolong their own agony. Kashmiri
Hindus also have a fair share of such persons. They relish in the art of
keeping their own community a hostage to the communal establishment of
Valley. These individuals or small groups operate as fifth columns of the
Muslim establishment. They run organisations or NGOs having patronage of the
government. The slavish behaviour as described above is in ample evidence in
the programmes or functions which they organise.

Recently a programme was held to commemorate the death anniversary of Late
Pyare Lal Handoo on 27th Feb, 2009 at Abhinav Theatre Jammu. The proceedings
were conducted by a retired educationist.  The verses from Quran which he
quoted forced the Muslim dignitaries, who otherwise appeared very
indifferent, to adopt a serious demeanour. A well known Kashmiri Physician
received an award for and on behalf of a voluntary medical mission. He also
spoke on the occasion. His words were directed mainly at the chief guest on
the occasion, the President of National Conference Dr Farooq Abdullah. The
physician in a show of abject sycophancy confessed that he did not have the
qualities to become the 'Shreeya Bhat', the legendary physician of
'Zain-ul-Abdin-Budshah'. But at the same time claimed that Dr Farooq
Abdullah had all the attributes to relive the spirit of 'Budshah'. He
implored that the new government lead by NC should somehow take the Kashmiri
Pandits back. The request carried the undertones of endorsing a return by
any means.

The physician, in the not distant past, never missed any opportunity to
claim to be an ideologue of Panun Kashmir. He also presents himself the
brain behind the ideas of 'Constituencies in Exile', 'Reservation in
Legislative Bodies', 'A Greek City State, Model for rehabilitation of the
displaced and last but not the least the 'Minority Status' for Kashmiri
Pandits.

In the same programme a retired bureaucrat, who recently won one more
extention of his carrier by getting a berth in the upper house, also spoke.
The bureaucrat has the distinction of earning the extension first as the
Chief Secretary and then as the advisor in the State government before
joining the National Conference. Known more for his total subservience to
Muslim establishment, the quality which he has wielded with consummate
effect, the bureaucrat had words of censure for the Pandit audience or
perhaps for Panun Kashmir which he seemed to suspect commanded the respect
of the audience he was addressing. He declared that parochial visions and
extreme positions do not have takers now. He also enunciated a thumb rule
that a Kashmiri Pandit can only become a leader if he is also acceptable to
Kashmiri Muslims.

The chief guest on occasion Dr. Farooq Abdullah started his speech by
showing discomfiture at the words of an Advocate who had spoken little more
assertively eshewing sycopahncy pervading the rank and file of the speakers.
Dr Farooq expressed his helplessness to instal a statue of Late P.L. Handoo
in Kashmir Valley which was the demand of the P.L. Handoo foundation. He was
unsure whether he would be able to do the same in Jammu. He, as is his key
tactic while talking to Pandits, lamented on the disunity among Kashmiri
Pandits and conveniently ignored the issue of their reservation in
Legislative Assembly. Farooq Abdullah however could not restrain himself to
hurl the insult at the Kashmiri Pandit audience by making an insinuation
that Kashmiri Pandits in cohorts with brokers in Valley had themselves got
their homes and hearths burnt or plundered only to claim the insurance
money.

The audience left dumb founded.

The attitude of abject slavery, self denial and self flagellation is evident
in the behaviour of a class of Kashmiri Pandit individuals who have an
uncontrollable urge to some how remain closer to power echelons or who have
enjoyed some measure of importance with the Muslim establishment while the
large community was ruthlessly being marginalised and excluded from the
socio-economic organisation of the state.

This attitude of slavery described here is not only unique to individuals
described above.

An office bearer of a Pandit organisation in Kashmir Valley was abducted by
terrorists in Srinagar. He was then strangulated with a steelwire. Thinking
that he had died, terrorists left his body near a drain in the downtown. The
Pandit had not died. He regained his consciousness and crawled into a nearby
Hindu house where from he was taken to the hospital. He then lived in Jammu
alongwith his wife. One day a Hurriat interlocutor placed in Jammu visited
his accommodation. The interlocutor, talked about the great tradition of
love and brotherhood between Muslims and Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley. The
Pandit leader, slavishly nodded in affirmation. It is said that after
listening to their conservation the elderly wife of the Pandit got enraged.
She stood up and lifted the Kurta over the back of her husband and revealed
the torture marks still left on his back to the Hurriat leader. The Hurriat
interlocutor quietly walked out.

Another individual wrote a letter to Hurriat Conference which was published
in the local dailies, requesting its leaders to invite the types of his ilk
for dialogue so that the hands of secularist within the community are
strengthened and communal forces weakened. The brother of this individual
was murdered by the terrorists not long back.

A group of writers, perhaps eager to win official patronage would listen
condescendingly the expositions of the cultural czars of the Valley making
suggestions as obnoxious as claiming Lal Ded to be a Muslim convert and
having even seen her grave.

A group of KPs managed to capture a KP education society. They
surreptitiously got a clause in its constitution changed which guaranted the
society the status of a minority institution only to pave way for its take
over by the government. The bargain which they sought to strike was to
ensure the regularisation of its set up  in Jammu in return of handing over
the prestigious college run by the society in Kashmir Valley to a Muslim
management. The take over was aborted by a third party intervention through
Court after the general body of the society had reintroduced the expunged
clause into its constitution.

What makes members of a persecuted community to act in a way which
jeopardises its very struggle for survival? Incentives in the form of money
and patronage play a role in this attitude. The bureaucrat must have used
abject subservience to rise up the ladder and secure extentions even after
reaching the top.

The teachers of the education society supported the take over of the college
in which they were employed by the government hoping to secure their
salaries and pensionary benefits.

Late Pyare Lal Handoo would defend anything and everything with regard to
National Conference even brazen communalism directed against the community
to which he belonged to fortify his position within the party and the
government.

But the attitude of self denial, negation and flagellation has more to it
than mere self-interest. Late Pyare Lal Handoo said in early 90s that
Kashmiri Pandits should have stayed put in the Valley even if thousands of
them would have been killed. He knew very well the character and strength of
the genocidal forces which brought about religious cleansing of Hindus. The
statement he made was not just overlooking the tragedy which had befallen
his own community. It was a blatant self condemnation.

When the bureaucrat said that parochial vision and extreme positions have no
takers it was not an innocuous egalitarian vision which he was articulating.
It went even beyond self blame. It sought to create a self guilt within the
community for having stood and spoken against forces of intolerance,
exclusion and genocide.

When somebody whose kith and kin has been killed by the terrorists chooses
to appeal to the same terrorist leadership for recognition it is not merely
a political ploy to gain importance or leadership credibility. It is a
statement of total impotence powerlessness and surrender.

We are actually witnessing a diseased mental state-a psychopathology. Khalil
Gibran calls this state as lame slavery, or subtle slavery or twisted
slavery. Psychoanalysts call it masochism-a diseased state of mind where the
individual or a group takes pleasure in suffering or submitting. In such a
state of mind one tends to glorify and praise his tormentor. One sees enemy
only within one's ownself and security in submission in front of the victor.
One behaves in such a state out of a sense of total impotence.

What was manifest during the deliberations of the commemoration of death
anniversary at Abhinav Theatre was not mere selfishness or self
aggradisement. The Pandits were told that they were disunited and
rudderless. They were told that they themselves got their houses burnt in
the Valley to claim the insurance money. Such expositions carried sadist
streaks-an urge to show absolute and unrestricted power over the victims.
The Pandits listened helplessly to such grave insinuations. Such a
submissiveness shall only qualify as masochism. The great psychoanalysts
Eric Fromm qualifies that, "Both the sadist and masochist need another being
to complete them as it were. The sadist makes another being an extention of
himself; the masochist makes himself the extention of another being. Both
seek a symbiotic relationship because neither has his centre in himself.
While it appears that the sadist is free of his victim, he needs the victims
in a perverse way." end

COURTESY:____________ Kashmir Sentinel