[Reader-list] Kashmir Comes to Jantar Mantar

[rashneek kher]

Jadoo Hai ya tilism timhare zuban main
tum jhooth kyeh rahe the mujhe aaetbaar tha


On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 3:02 PM, shuddha at sarai.net <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:

> Kashmir Comes to Jantar Mantar
>
> Last evening I went to Jantar Mantar after many years. It is a road I pass
> often, looking at the sad and melancholic little protests that line the
> kerb,
> whispering to an indifferent Capital the million mutinies of our banana
> plantation republic.
>
> Last evening was different. There were perhaps four to five hundred people,
> many, but not all Kashmiri, men and women, who had gathered to protest
> against
> the wanton destruction of life in the Kashmir valley by the security
> apparatus
> of the Indian state in the last few weeks and months. 45 civilian deaths in
> 8
> weeks signals a state losing its head. Especially when the deaths occur
> when
> the police and paramilitaries fire live bullets on unarmed or stone pelting
> mobs. When stones, or unarmed bodies are met with ammunition, you know that
> the
> state has no respect whatsoever for bare life. That this should happen in a
> state that calls itself a democracy should make all of us who are its
> citizens
> reflect on how hollow 'democracy' feels to the mother or friend of a young
> boy
> or girl who is felled by a 'democratic' bullet.
>
> Protests in Delhi often have a routine, scripted quality. But this one was
> different. Professor S.A.R Geelani was level headed and dignified, as he
> spoke
> to the assembled, visibly upset young men and women, introduced each
> speaker in
> turn and appealed to people to stay calm, and not get provoked.
>
> I don't think that there has been a public gathering of young people from
> Kashmir in such numbers in Delhi, and the occasion had a cathartic, almost
> therapeutic character, as if the acknowledgment of each others presence
> could
> also make it possible for many amongst those gathered to say what needed to
> be
> said, loud and clear, in public, what they had only kept as a secret in
> their
> hearts.
>
> As a citizen of the Indian republic, I can only hang my head in shame at
> the
> venality of the state, and at how it openly sanctions the murder of
> Kashmiri
> men, women and children on the streets of the valley. Even a leading member
> of
> the Israeli military establishment (not known for their kindness towards
> occupied Palestinians) has recently admonished India's hard-line militarist
> mandarins in Kashmir on the appalling conditions that they administer in
> Kashmir.
>
> I stood in silence at the meeting. Listened to the slogans, the chanting,
> the
> statements, some made by friends like Sanjay Kak, others by people I do not
> know personally, but whose work and politics I have an interest in, even if
> I
> do not agree with, such as the poet and ex-political prisoner Varavara Rao.
> I
> met some old friends, talked quietly to strangers, and felt a momentary
> twinge
> of pride in Delhi, at least about the fact that so many of us were
> reclaiming a
> space on Jantar Mantar, for once to break the enormously deafening silence
> about
> Kashmir in a public and peaceful manner.
>
> There were different kinds of slogans that were heard. Some stressed the
> unity
> of all Kashmiris - be they Pandit, Muslim or Sikh. Occasionally, the air
> did
> reverberate with slogans that some might interpret as having a more
> secterian
> tinge - the 'Nara e Taqbeer - Allah o Akbar'.
>
> Many speakers, including Professor Geelani, and men and women people from
> the
> crowd, repeatedly made appeals not to 'communalize' the issue, and the same
> people who said, 'Allah o Akbar' also immediately switched to slogans
> emphasizing Kashmir's secular fabric, and called for Pandit-Muslim-Sikh
> unity
> in Kashmir.
>
>  I did not feel perturbed by the airing of the 'Allah o Akbar' slogan, as I
> am
> not when I hear people say 'Vande Mataram' or indeed, 'Jai Shree Ram'. I am
> not
> a believer, and the fervent expression of belief on the part of those who
> do
> believe, neither enthuses, nor disturbs me. In each case, I am more
> interested
> in what lies behind the passion. And I believed that what lay behind the
> passion last evening, despite the anxiety on some of the faces in the
> crowd,
> was an appeal to the divine as the final arbiter of justice and peace  in a
> deeply violent and unjust world. I can understand what motivates people to
> make
> that claim, even if I cannot make it myself, especially in a situation,
> where
> all appeals to mundane, worldly power, seem to have exhausted themselves. A
> situation where stones are met with bullets and grenades can make even the
> most
> sceptical of us lose faith in the grace of the mortals who rule,
> ultimately,
> only with the force of arms.
>
> Perhaps, not airing such slogans would have been tactically more
> intelligent.
> But I did not get the sense that those who had gathered in Jantar Mantar
> last
> evening had come to score intelligent and sophisticated political points.
> They
> had come to express their anger and their sadness, they had come to cease,
> for
> a brief moment, to be the anonymous, anxious Kashmiri in Delhi who is
> always
> worried about being labelled a 'terrorist' by a prejudiced neighbour, a
> callous
> policeman or a random stranger. They had come to be themselves, to mourn,
> and to
> tell the world of their mourning. I can only feel grateful that they could
> gather the courage to do this. There is an urgency, as Sanjay Kak reminded
> the
> gathering for forging an intelligent politics in response to what is going
> on
> in Kashmir, and that politics must not only rest on the engine of pain and
> anger. I totally agree with this, at the same time, I also know, that
> without
> an occasion like what we witnessed yesterday, when Kashmiris can openly
> express
> their anguish in the heart of India, it will not happen. I remain hopeful
> that
> it will.
>
> Some speakers, including Varavara Rao, Mohan Jha  (from Delhi University, I
> hope I got his name right), Sanjay Kak, and a sikh gentleman from Amritsar
> whose name escapes me, spoke of the fact that there was a great deal of
> solidarity in India for the just demands of the Kashmiri people. The
> occasion
> did not, at any instance, degenerate into a vulgar clash of competing
> nationalisms.
>
> Outside the perimter of this protest, stood another - a small group of
> people
> associated with organizations that claim to represent the  Kashmiri Pandit
> Diaspora, who were 'protesting' against the protest. I recognized a face in
> this crowd, I follow his self-righteous online outpourings quite regularly.
> Some of the speakers, including Mr. Geelani, alluded to them, saying that
> they
> shared in their pain, and even invited them to come and address the
> gathering.
> They however, remained aloof. Holding their placards, with their claim to
> monopoly of the pain and anguish of Kashmir. Ther stirred to life, when
> Sanjay
> Kak, spoke, heckling him, in a now familiar and churlish manner. I felt sad
> to
> see them, because they could make claim to suffering only as a means to
> divide
> people, not bring people together in solidarity.
>
> Just before I left, a young woman who had recently come to Delhi to study,
> spoke eloquently about what it means to have lost a childhood in Kashmir,
> to
> have seen brothers and friends shot. I do not know who she is, and I could
> not
> catch her name, perhaps it was 'Arshi', but I wished I could apologize to
> her
> personally, because I know that her childhood has been robbed by people
> speaking in the name of the state that claims my fealty.
>
> The occupation of Kashmir by India and Pakistan is an immoral and evil fact
> of
> our times. The sooner it ends, the better will it be for all of us in South
> Asia. True 'Azaadi' in Kashmir, for all its inhabitants, and for all those
> who
> have been displaced by more than twenty years of violence, can only help us
> all, in Srinagar, in Delhi, and elsewhere, to breathe more freely.
>
>
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-- 
Rashneek Kher
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com