[Reader-list] 'The Islamism bogey in Kashmir'

[Sanjay Kak]

The Islamism bogey in Kashmir
http://www.peerpower.com/et/2108/The-Islamism-bogey-in-Kashmir

Posted on August 26, 2010 | Author: Najeeb Mubarki |

While there is an Islamic viewpoint on things in Kashmir, it is far
from being the dominant one. And attempts to portray it as such are
part of a campaign of delegitimisation, says Najeeb Mubarki

It was Bertolt Brecht who once suggested, in his sharp, almost genial
way, while talking of a different uprising, in 1953 in East Germany,
that the state could, as a solution, dissolve the people and elect
another. That, perhaps, would for many be a consummation devoutly to
be wished for when it comes to Kashmir. For, faced with the kind of
uprising, the narrative as exists in Kashmir these days, it seems the
counter narrative can only attempt to subvert or subsume the facts.
And if one were to employ a bit of hyperbole, beyond the propaganda
seems to lie a desire to somehow do away with the present lot of
Kashmiris, and elect, or invent, another. Paradoxically, this consists
of either seeking to invent a people more to one’s liking or,
inversely, creating an image of a people so prone to extremism that
empathy is simply impossible.

There are broadly two main strands to the discourse on Kashmir which
attempts that act of dissolving the reality. One would be the staid,
stale assertion that the protests in the Valley, if not instigated
from across the border, are managed by a mischief-prone minority, and
are not really representative of the people’s feelings. In the third
month of protests, and after 63 killings (thus far) by the state
police and the CRPF, that ‘assertion’ seems to have died a natural
death. Thus, the supposed silent majority, the potentially ‘likeable’
lot, the people who would have been hijacked by the minute number of
protesters can’t really be brought to life.

It is the second strand, that of invoking charges of Islamic
extremism, which the counter campaign in the Indian media now seems to
have settled on. On the surface, this campaign is conducted purely at
the level of deploying images. By playing up the pictures and
statements of an Islamist or two (preferably a female for better
effect) and attempting to conjure a link to wider Kashmiri society. It
is a classic case of abiased media seeking, and using, the few
scattered instances which can reinforce that pre-existing bias. Quite
like highlighting ‘letters’, pasted on a few walls, addressed to a
minority community, to whip up visions of some imminent pogrom.

At a wider, much more deeper and serious level, it is insinuated that
some larger Islamist game plan is at work in Kashmir.

It doesn’t take a politically incisive mind to realise that, at a
global level, these days it is far easier to label a movement, a group
or just a section of people Islamists than it is do deal with the
political aspects of what those movements or sections might be trying
to articulate. That they may well be aspiring to something that is far
from, or actually negates, religious extremism. In India, that fact is
aided by a wider failure to understand Kashmiris, or just a plain lack
of awareness about their history and culture. Of course, the majority
of people are Muslims in Kashmir. And of course, elements among those
who raise the Islamist bogey in Kashmir are, inversely, people who
simply dislike that fact of Kashmiris-as-Muslims. We could call it a
border-world application of a certain brand of mainland communalism.
And that attempt at displacing one’s own communalism onto Kashmiris
neatly dovetails with the wider phenomenon of how Muslims are, post
9/11, subjects of suspicion in the West.

But then, is there any truth to the charge, actually? You don’t need
to be a sociologist or ethnographer to learn that forms of faith, of
religiosity, inflect many aspects of life within a community.
Particularly in a community in crisis, under siege, facing a situation
where it feels its very existence and identity to be under threat.
Thus, for example, while the larger meaning of the slogan of “Azadi “
might be some form of secular Kashmiri nationalism, the slogan of
“Allah o Akbar” (God is Great) also attends it. It is, in essence,
while a slogan of defiance, also a culturally determined one. Of
course there are other slogans too. Or have been. Which would suggest
a decidedly Islamist vision of what Kashmiri society should look like.
But beyond even the empirically evident gap between slogans and
immediately achievable political reality, quite often such slogans
were echoed without any real political subscription.

BUT beyond the level of sloganeering in the streets, there is the fact
of centuries of Kashmiri cultural history. One that is unique in the
subcontinent. A history and lived life that tempers and inflects even
those who would ordinarily be labelled hardliners. With crisis and
violence, however, there is a certain hardening, perhaps even some
acceptance of the logic of religious difference, identity and
politics. (And the issue of the Kashmiri Pandits, while linked to
this, is a topic that needs separate, detailed attention).

Take for instance, the rise of Hamas in Palestine. It hasn’t meant
that Palestinian nationalism, avowedly secular, has turned Islamic.
But that responding to the failure — internal, and also enforced by
the total unacceptance of any real demands by the opposing side — of
that secular leadership, the people voted a hardline faction into
power, without necessarily sharing its religiously-driven objectives.
Similarly, the fact of a Geelani becoming the de facto acknowledged
leader of the ‘movement’ (as it is called) in Kashmir, is also due to
the perception that he remained steadfast and incorruptible. His
viewpoint may not be shared by all in some aspects, but he represents
leadership for many.

The dominant form of Islam in Kashmir is Sufism. In its peculiar
Kashmiri variety. The religiosity of the Muslims reflected in equal,
if not more,measure in the countless Sufi shrines as in mosques. Real,
hardcore, Taliban style-extremism, simply, is alien to, and
untransplantable on, the Kashmiri DNA, as it were. A section amongst
Muslims does exist which disapproves of some rituals in Sufi shrines.
But that, in Kashmir, doesn’t translate into a rejection of the Sufis
themselves. Indeed, even the disapprovers hold the Sufis themselves in
respect. In effect, then, the thought of the vast majority of
Kashmiris ‘changing over’ to extremism is akin to asking someone to
actually convert. An Islamic view of things exists in Kashmir, but it
is just one of the viewpoints.

The drive to seek, invoke, an Islamisation of Kashmir is insidiously
linked to regurgitating, within Indian public opinion, the
subcontinental history of partition and the creation of Pakistan. It
is also an act of dissolving the Kashmiris and electing the ‘Muslim
anti-national’. That done, Kashmir can be presented as reflecting the
danger of that partition, again. Which then becomes a major roadblock
in even attempting to articulate to the wider Indian public what
Kashmir is really about, leave alone seeking a solution to the
problem.