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

[Inder Salim]

Thanks for this very original reflection of situation in Kashmir.

those who are not too sentimental about Kashmir may carry forward the
discussion on the article:

Why Safrey-Azadi of Yasin Malik  ( secular and free Kashmir ) is not popular ?

Is popular SAS Geelani good for Indian establishment because his
position on Kashmir is well known ( merger of Kashmir with pakistan,
therefore loudly Islamic in texure ) ?

Has the time comes for Kashmiris to give shape to a fresh Intellectual
forum which may give spaces for voices from all over the world ? ( say
eg World Intellecutals for Free Kashmir )?

more on that

love
is


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On 8/26/10, Sanjay Kak <kaksanjay at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
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