[Reader-list] What ails Kashmir? The Sunni idea of ‘azadi’

[shivam at kafila.org]

Sinister designs behind Muharram ban in Kashmir: Zafar Mehdi

Guest post by ZAFAR MEHDI
http://kafila.org/2010/12/08/shia-sunni-azadi-sinister-designs-behind-muharram-ban-in-kashmir-minorities/

Muharram, the month of epic action, has announced its arrival. Black
banners symbolizing grief are fluttering around. A pall of gloom has
descended. 1500 years later, the lessons of Karbala continue to be the
beacon of inspiration for strugglers of truth and righteousness.
Muharram, contrary to perception, is not an event, episode or chapter
in history. It is a philosophy, a concept, a movement. As centuries
roll by, the great uprising of Husain(as), the beloved grandson of
Holy Prophet (saww), continues to drive believers to hurl defiance at
the forces of evil. The final call Imam gave to humanity still lingers
in the minds of millions of Muslims around the world. It teaches that
notwithstanding the inadequacy of numbers, if you run down the
gauntlet backed by the staunch faith in the Almighty, triumph will be
yours.

Muharram has been often derided by some hate-mongers as a harmful
grief-centric ritual, a political war, and a ritual that lacks a
contemporary significance. In contrast, these commemorations are held
to help the followers of justice and truth re-organize their life
around the pristine principles exemplified by Hussain(as). His supreme
sacrifice promotes the enjoining of good for there is no better
victory than defeating a tyrant.

You must have heard how a child dies every five minutes in Darfur. You
know about the cold-blooded attacks on religious congregations in
Pakistan, about the shrieks of wailing mothers in Kashmir. You must
also have come across gut-wrenching tales of prisoners lodged in the
world’s jails. These are some of the contemporary struggles against
injustice and tyranny unleashed on the weak and vulnerable the world
over. The threat of injustice will always have a contemporary
significance. This explains why Muslims annually commemorate the
principles of Hussain as it helps strengthen the ability to stand up
against injustice.

For the next few weeks, mourning processions will be carried out and
grand congregations will be held in every part of the world, to pay
tribute to the Master of Challengers and his fellow martyrs. The
situation in Pakistan remains tense, with shoot-at-sight orders being
given for Muharram owing to “serious security reasons” in and around
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. But elsewhere, preparations are afoot. Large
processions are taken out in London, New York, Toronto, Trinidad. It
goes to the credit of the powers-that-be in these places that not only
do they allow Muharram processions on busy roads, but ensure their
safety as well. But back in Kashmir, it is the same old atrocious
story since 1989. Peaceful Muharram processions are attacked by the
police; processionists are brutally cane-charged, manhandled and
whisked away in police gypsies. Our religious leaders are kept under
house arrest, the streets are manned by the Kalashnikov-yielding
monsters-in-khakhi. It will be the same this year.

The peaceful processions on 8 and 10 Muharram have been banned in
Kashmir since the outbreak of insurgency in 1989. Small mourning
rallies and processions are allowed in select areas with sizeable Shia
populations. The state authorities say that “emotional religious
rituals” could be used by separatists to stoke the anti-India
sentiments. Absolutely preposterous. It is like diallowing Guru Purab
or Baisakhi in Punjab as Khalistanis might use it to stoke anti-India
feelings. The government cannot deny the people their right to
peacefully observe religious rituals just because a few senior Shia
clerics happen to be heavyweight separatist leaders (Maulana Abbas
Ansari is former chairman of Hurriyat Conference and Aga Hasan Mosavi,
president of the J&K Anjuman Sharee Shiaan, is an executive member of
the Hurriyat Conference. It indeed needs to be highlighted that
Tehreek is not a Sunni thing only but Shias play equally catalytic
role in it n perhaps thats why State fails to distinguish between
Azadi and Azadari processions!

The argument that these processions provoke Sunnis, who may get all
riled up and attack Shias, is laughable. There have never been riots
in Kashmir between any two communities, so how can the state justify
banning Shia processions to prevent riots? I wonder why Ripley’s
Believe It Or Not missed it. It is not secret how these processions
have become inclusive over the years, with the participation of Sunnis
and even Sikhs and Pandits. The Sunnis, in a demographic majority,
have been extremely accommodating towards the Shia minority, and both
communities have co-existed in harmony and amity for centuries.  In
turn, both Shias and Sunnis go out of their way in extending their
support to rallies and processions taken out by non-Muslims. In the
context of Kashmir, communal riots are out of question.

The truth is that the state is hell-bent on creating fissures among
Kashmiri Muslims on sectarian lines. By provoking Shias against
Sunnis, and giving this Muharram ban a sectarian and separatist
colour, they want to achieve their sinister targets. They hope that
the disintegration of Muslims in Kashmir will be a fatal blow to the
Tehreek, the movement and that is what these scheming rulers gun for.

The assault on the processionsists, who bring out the processions in
defiance of the ban to exercise their religious freedom, by the police
is unprovoked and barbaric. Take this:

“Eyewitnesses alleged that as they marched ahead, a CRPF man on guard
outside the house of Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Beig took
aim at the crowd with his rifle. Other policemen, however, put him at
ease,” (Indian Express Feb 08 2006).

Need I say more?

Some Shia groups had challenged the ban in court, but as they say,
“Mera qatil hi mera munsif nikla!” (My killer turned out to be my
judge!) The Shias of Kashmir contest the draconian ban alleging
blatant double standards. If the Amarnath yatra, Dushhera or Baisakhi
processions don’t pose any “security threat”, why should Muharram
processions, carried out in an equally peaceful manner, be subject to
such brutality and barbarism?

It won’t be exaggeration to say that we have not helped our cause
either. Just recently representatives of all Shia organisations
attended a high-level meeting chaired by the District Development
Commission in Srinagar to “finalize arrangements for Muharram”. I
wonder why didn’t these “representatives” raise the issue of the ban
during the meeting. Why didn’t they boycott the meeting in the first
place?

It reminds me of how Muslims in Lucknow valiantly confronted the
government to protest the ban on Muharram processions in city in
Muharram 1997. Women had stormed District Magistrate office and
protested there. Shia youth did matam (eulogy) at the Vidhan Sabha
(Legislative Assembly). It led to the arrest of Lucknow-based
prominent Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad under National Security Act
(NSA) on June 28, 1997. He was sent to Lalitpur Jail while his family
was incarcerated with the prisoners of TADA. Word spread like wildfire
and soon protests and agitations were reported from the different
parts of the country and even from New York, Syria, Pakistan, Iran and
other countries. The situation went out of control and the then
Mayawati government was left with no other option but to release the
cleric and lift the ban on processions.

Now is the time for all of us to stand up to this injustice and demand
our rights.

On 30 August 2010 20:48, Aditya Raj Kaul <kauladityaraj at gmail.com> wrote:
> What ails Kashmir? The Sunni idea of ‘azadi’*Link* -
> http://www.livemint.com/2010/08/06210254/What-ails-Kashmir-The-Sunni-i.html
>
> The discomfort Kashmiris feel is about which laws self-rule must be under,
> and Hurriyat rejects a secular constitution
>
> We know what Hurriyat Conference wants: azadi, freedom. But freedom from
> what? Freedom from Indian rule. Doesn’t an elected Kashmiri, Omar Abdullah,
> rule from Srinagar?
>
> Yes, but Hurriyat rejects elections. Why? Because ballots have no
> *azadi *option.But
> why can’t the * azadi* demand be made by democratically elected leaders?
> Because elections are rigged through the Indian Army. Why is the Indian Army
> out in Srinagar and not in Surat? Because Kashmiris want *azadi. *
>
> Let’s try that again.
>
> What do Kashmiris want freedom from? India’s Constitution.
>
> What is offensive about India’s Constitution? It is not Islamic. This is the
> issue, let us be clear.
>
> The violence in Srinagar isn’t for democratic self-rule because Kashmiris
> have that. The discomfort Kashmiris feel is about which laws self-rule must
> be under, and Hurriyat rejects a secular constitution.
>
> Hurriyat deceives the world by using a universal word, *azadi*, to push a
> narrow, religious demand. Kashmiris have no confusion about what
> *azadi*means: It means Shariah. Friday holidays, amputating thieves’
> hands,
> abolishing interest, prohibiting alcohol (and kite-flying), stoning
> adulterers, lynching apostates and all the rest of it that comprises the
> ideal Sunni state.
>
> Not one Shia gang terrorizes India; terrorism on the subcontinent is a Sunni
> monopoly.
>
> There is a token Shia among the Hurriyat’s bearded warriors, but it is
> essentially a Sunni group pursuing Sunni Shariah. Its most important figure
> is Umar Farooq. He’s called *mirwaiz*, meaning head of preachers (*waiz*),
> but he inherited his title at 17 and actually is no Islamic scholar. He is
> English-educated, but his base is Srinagar’s sullen neighbourhood of
> Maisuma, at the front of the stone-pelting. His following is conservative
> and, since he has little scholarship, he is unable to bend his constituents
> to his view.
>
> Hurriyat’s modernists are led by Sopore’s 80-year-old Ali Geelani of
> Jamaat-e-Islami. Jamaat was founded in 1941 by a brilliant man from
> Maharashtra called Maududi, who invented the structure of the modern Islamic
> state along the lines of a Communist one. Maududi opposed Jinnah’s tribal
> raid in Kashmir, which led to the Line of Control, saying jihad could only
> be prosecuted formally by a Muslim state, and not informally by militias.
> This wisdom was discarded later, and Hizb al-Mujahideen, starring Syed
> Salahuddin of cap and beard fame, is a Jamaat unit. Maududi was ecumenical,
> meaning that he unified the four Sunni groups of thought. He always excluded
> Shias, as heretics.
>
> The Kashmiri separatist movement is actually inseparable from Sunni
> fundamentalism. Those on the Hurriyat’s fringes who say they are Gandhians,
> like Yasin Malik, are carried along by the others in the group so long as
> the immediate task of resisting India is in common. But the Hurriyat and its
> aims are ultimately poisonous, even for Muslims.
>
> The Hurriyat Conference’s idea of freedom unfolds from a religious instinct,
> not a secular sentiment. This instinct is sectarian, and all the
> pro-*azadi*groups are Shia-killers. In promoting their hatred, the
> groups plead for the
> support of other Muslims by leaning on the name of the Prophet Muhammad.
>
> Hafiz is a title and means memorizer of the Quran. Mohammed Saeed’s Lashkar
> Tayyaba means army of Tyeb (“the good”), one of the Prophet’s names. This is
> incorrectly spelled and pronounced by our journalists as “Taiba” or “Toiba”,
> but Muslims can place the name. Lashkar rejects all law from sources other
> than the recorded sayings and actions of Muhammad. This is called being
> Wahhabi, and Wahhabis detest the Shia.
>
> Jaish Muhammad (Muhammad’s army) was founded in a Karachi mosque, and it is
> linked to the Shia-killing Sipah Sahaba (Army of Muhammad’s First Followers)
> in Pakistan’s Seraiki-speaking southern Punjab. The group follows a narrow,
> anti-Shia doctrine developed in Deoband.
>
> Decades of non-interference by the Pakistani state in the business of
> Kashmiri separatism has led to a loss of internal sovereignty in Pakistan.
> The state is no longer able to convince its citizens that it should act
> against these groups. Though their own Shia are regularly butchered, a poll
> shows that a quarter of Pakistanis think Lashkar Tayyaba does good work. We
> think Indian Muslims are different from Pakistanis and less susceptible to
> fanaticism. It is interesting that within Pakistan, the only group openly
> and violently opposed to Taliban and terrorism are UP and Bihar migrants who
> form Karachi’s secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party.
>
> So what do the separatist groups want? It is wrong to see them as being only
> terrorist groups. They operate in an intellectual framework, and there is a
> higher idea that drives the violence. This is a perfect state with an
> executive who is pious, male and Sunni. Such a state, where all is done
> according to the book, will get God to shower his blessings on the citizens,
> who will all be Sunnis.
>
> There are three types of Sunnis in Kashmir. Unionists, separatists, and
> neutrals. Unionists, like Omar Abdullah, are secular and likely to be
> repelled by separatism because they have seen the damage caused by political
> Islam in Pakistan. They might not be in love with Indians, but they see the
> beauty of the Indian Constitution. Neutrals, like Mehbooba Mufti, are
> pragmatic and will accept the Indian Constitution when in power, though they
> show defiance when out of it. This is fine, because they respond to a Muslim
> constituency that is uncertain, but isn’t totally alienated. The longer
> these two groups participate in democracy in Kashmir, the weaker the
> separatists become. The current violence is a result of this. Given their
> boycott of politics, the Hurriyat must rally its base by urging them to
> violence and most of it happens in Maisuma and Sopore. The violence should
> also clarify the problem in the minds of neutrals: If Kashmiri rule does not
> solve the *azadi *problem, what will?
>
> India’s liberals are defensive when debating Kashmir because of our
> unfulfilled promise on plebiscite. But they shouldn’t be. There is really no
> option to secular democracy, whether one chooses it through a plebiscite or
> whether it is imposed. It is a universal idea and there is no second form of
> government in any culture or religion that works. The Islamic state is
> utopian and it never arrives. Since it is driven by belief, however, the
> search becomes quite desperate.
>
> India has a constitution; Pakistan has editions. These are the various
> Pakistani constitutions: 1935 (secular), 1956 (federal), 1962 (dictatorial),
> 1973 (parliamentary), 1979 (Islamic), 1999 (presidential), 2008
> (parliamentary). Why do they keep changing and searching? Muslims keep
> trying to hammer in Islamic bits into a set of laws that is actually quite
> complete. This is the Government of India Act of 1935, gifted to us by the
> British.
>
> Kashmiris have it, and perhaps at some point they will learn to appreciate
> its beauty.
>
> *Aakar Patel will take a break from his column to write a book. He will
> return early next year.*
>
>
> --
> Aditya Raj Kaul
>
> India Editor
> The Indian, Australia
>
> Web: http://activistsdiary.blogspot.com/
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shivam at kafila.org | Delhi