[Reader-list] Azadi: The Only Way – Report from a Turbulent Few Hours in Delhi

[Lalit Ambardar]

This is the height of ideological perfidy----oppose elected Ahmadinejad in Iran & eulogise the megalomanic proponent of “Azadi- bara- e- Islam” (freedom through Islam) in Kashmir.
 
 Compulsive anti-state ‘agent provocateurs’ are only prolonging the agony of Kashmiri masses by patronising those who want to usher Kashmir in to the medieval past. 
Rgds all 
LA
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> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> From: shuddha at sarai.net
> Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:51:50 +0530
> Subject: [Reader-list] Azadi: The Only Way – Report from a Turbulent Few Hours in Delhi
> 
> (Apologies for Cross Posting on Kafila.org)
> 
> Dear Friends,
> 
> I was present and speaking a few hours ago at a meeting titled 
> ‘Azadi: The Only Way’ on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, 
> organized by the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners at 
> the Little Theatre Group in Delhi yesterday (21st October). I was not 
> present from the beginning of the meeting as I was traveling from 
> another city, but can vouch for what occurred from around 4:30 pm 
> till the time that the meeting wound up, well after 8:00 pm in the 
> evening.
> 
> The meeting took place in the packed to capacity auditorium of the 
> Little Theatre Group on Copernicus Marg at the heart of New Delhi. 
> Several speakers, including the poet Varavara Rao, Prof. Mihir 
> Bhattacharya, Sugata Bhadra, Gursharan Singh, G.N.Saibaba, Professor 
> Sheikh Showkat Hussain of Srinagar University, the journalist Najeeb 
> Mubaraki, a repesentative of the Naga Peoples Movement for Human 
> Rights and Justice, the writer Arundhati Roy and myself spoke at the 
> meeting. (I may be missing out some names, for which I apologize, but 
> I was not present for a part of the meeting, at the very beginning) 
> The climax of the meeting was a very substantive and significant 
> speech by Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Hurriyat Conference (G), which 
> spelt out the vision of liberation (Azaadi) and Justice that Syed Ali 
> Shah Geelani held out before the assembled public, of which I will 
> write in detail later in this text.
> 
> The artist known as ‘Inder Salim’ originally from Kashmir, currently 
> living in Delhi, made an intervention by inviting the assembled 
> people to take (with him) the stance of a masked stone pelter for a 
> brief, silent moment. Students from the Jawaharlal Nehru University 
> sang a song, ‘Tu Zinda Hai to Zindagi Ki Jeet Mein Yakeen Kar’ 
> invoking the delights of life and liberation. In conclusion, the 
> meeting adopted a resolution, which was read, on behalf of the 
> Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners, by Mihir Bhattacharya.
> 
> The atmosphere, for the several hours that I was present, was 
> absolutely electric. The vast majority of the audience was warm and 
> appreciative of all the speakers. They were patient and respectful – 
> and despite grave provocation from a section that identified 
> themselves as ‘Indian patriots’ and partisans of the ‘Kashmir as 
> indivisible part of India’ position - that repeatedly tried to 
> interrupt the meeting and heckle speakers, and on one occasion even 
> tried to throw an object at the dias – did not stoop to be provoked 
> by these pathetic attempts at disruption of a peaceful gathering.
> 
> No provocative, secterian or hateful slogans were raised by the 
> majority of the people present. The only provocative posturing that I 
> witnessed was undertaken by the self-declared Indian patriots, who 
> were not stopped from having their say, but were requested simply not 
> to disrupt the proceedings.
> 
> When their behaviour crossed the limits of public decency, they were 
> escorted out of the premises by representatives of the Delhi Police. 
> The Delhi Police, to their credit, did not act against the majority 
> of the audience, simply because the majority of the audience 
> conducted themselves in a completely civil and democratic manner.
> 
> There was no attempt made at intimidation of any kind. Professor SAR 
> Geelani, who was conducting the proceedings on behalf of the 
> organizers – Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners 
> (CRPP) , repeatedly asked the people obstructing the speakers to 
> conduct themselves in a cultured and dignified manner. His pleas were 
> disregarded by the section of the crowd that let its ‘Indian 
> patriotism’ get the better of its civilisation. When things got a 
> little too hot on occasion, the majority of the audience present 
> simply drowned the rude remarks and indignant posturing of the small 
> minority of self styled Indian patriots and champions of the ‘Kashmir 
> as indivisible part of India’ position – in wave after wave of 
> cheerful but firm hand clapping.
> 
> While there as enthusiastic cheering and sloganeering from the 
> majority of the young men and women assembled at the gathering, there 
> was no attempt while I was present to give the slogans a religious or 
> secterian colour. When Syed Ali Shah Geelani said that the people of 
> India and Kashmir are tied together by the bonds of insaaniyat 
> (humanity), when he quoted Gandhi, or spoke of the necessity of 
> conducting a non-violent struggle that was devoid of hatred, or even 
> when he said that he wished to see India rise as a great power in the 
> world, but as a power that felt no need to oppress others, he was 
> wholeheartedly and sincerely applauded, by the majority of people 
> present in the auditorium, regardless of whether or not they were 
> Kashmiri.
> 
> Yesterday’s meeting needs to be seen in the context of a momentum of 
> different events, which have included public meetings at Jantar 
> Mantar, meetings in the Jawaharlal Nehru Universtiy and Delhi 
> University, film screenings and talks, independently organized 
> exhibitions on the history of Jammu and Kashmir in educational 
> institutions, photographic exhibitions on the situation in Kashmir 
> today that have taken place recently at the India Habitat Centre, 
> while Kashmir has reeled under the brutality of the occupation that 
> has resulted in a hundred and eleven deaths of unarmed or stone 
> pelting people, including children and teenagers. The momentum of 
> this process, which recognizes the urgency of the situation in 
> Kashmir, needs to be taken to its logical conclusion, until the world 
> and the international community sits up and takes notice of the true 
> nature of the hold of the Indian state on Kashmir and its people.We 
> need many more such meetings and gatherings in Delhi, and indeed in 
> every large city in India.
> 
> It must be maintained so that even a Barack Hussein Obama, scheduled 
> to visit New Delhi in November, is compelled to recognize the fact 
> that the conduct of the Indian state in Kashmir, based as it is on 
> brutal violence and intimidation, based as it is on a disregard of 
> every norm of the conduct of civilized governance is unacceptable to 
> the world. You simply cannot claim to be the world’s largest 
> democracy and preside over the deaths of 70,000 people in twenty 
> years. You cannot claim to be judged as a democracy and have laws 
> like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. You cannot claim to be a 
> democracy and have your police and paramilitaries beat children to 
> death openly on the streets, or rape and kill young women with 
> impunity. A state that does so is an oppressive, immoral, occupying 
> power, and needs to be resisted by every right thinking person in the 
> world. The Indian state’s record in Kashmir over the past several 
> decades is not only an oppression visited on the people of Kashmir, 
> it is an insult to the United Nations, to the world community, and to 
> every principle of justice, fairness and democracy. It is an insult 
> to all the peace loving and freedom loving citizens of India that do 
> not wish to see oppression carried out in their name.
> 
> This is the message that needs to go out, and is going out, not only 
> from the streets of Sringar, Baramulla and Kupwara, but also from 
> gatherings, such as yesterdays, from the heart of Delhi, the capital 
> of India. We, who are the friends of liberty and justice in India, 
> need to stand besides our Kashmiri brothers and sisters and say to 
> the world that we do not accept the lies put out by the Indian state 
> and its apologists on Kashmir. That is the true significance and 
> import of the process in which yesterday’s meeting plays an important 
> part. This process will not stop until the world takes notice. The 
> United Nations, and the broad democratic currents as well as the 
> political leaderships of Europe, the Americas, and of every 
> significant power in the world needs to know that hundreds of people, 
> young and old, intellectuals, writers, activists, lawyers, teachers 
> and others, Indians and Kashmiris can stand united, in Delhi, at the 
> heart of the Indian Republic’s capital, in refusing to accept the 
> continued occupation of Jammu and Kashmir, by India and by Pakistan. 
> That they believe that it is only the people of Jammu and Kashmir who 
> must decide for themselves their own future destiny, peacefully, in a 
> climate free of coercion and intimidation.
> 
> As Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Sheikh Showkat Hussain said, all that 
> they are asking for is the right to self determination, promised by 
> India, before the Untied Nations, to be freely enacted through a 
> plebiscite, in conditions of peace and liberty, without the presence 
> of armed force, for the inhabitants of every part of the undivided 
> state of Jammu and Kashmir – regardless of whether the results of 
> that plebiscite are in favour of India, Pakistan or an independent, 
> united, Jammu and Kashmir that can live in peace with all its 
> neighbours in South Asia.
> 
> There was a great diversity of statements and styles present in 
> abundant splendour at yesterday’s meeting. There was no way by which 
> the meeting could be reduced or simplified a single monotonous 
> statement. Yes, all the panelists, spoke unambiguously about the 
> necessity for ending the military occupation by the Indian state in 
> Kashmir. This does not mean that their statements and sentiments were 
> a manufactured and processed uniformity. The people on the panel may 
> have significant political and philosophical differences amongst 
> themselves, they may even think differently about what ‘Azaadi’ might 
> mean, but this was a sign, not of the weakness, but of the strength 
> and vitality of yesterday’s gathering.
> 
> ‘Azaadi’ if and when it comes, will not be the parting gift of an 
> exhausted colonial power, it will be the harvest of the fruits of the 
> imaginations and intelligences of millions of people, of their 
> debates and their conversations.
> 
> What was extremely heart warming was the fact that each speaker spoke 
> of the fact that the voices of the people of Kashmir are no longer 
> alone and isolated, that there is a chorus of voices in different 
> parts of South Asia that echo and endorese their desire for 
> liberation from a brutal militarized occupation. From my notes of the 
> time that I was there, I recall that the writer Arundhati Roy, while 
> endorsing the demand of Azaadi for Kashmir, reminded the audience of 
> the need for the people of Kashmir not to be selective about justice 
> and injustice, that they must find methods to forge webs of 
> solidarity with all the suffering and oppressed peoples of India. She 
> was heckled and rudely interrupted by a small group of Indian 
> nationalists in the audience, who repeatedly raised the situation of 
> Kashmiri Pandits, Arundhati Roy, when she was able to resume 
> speaking, spoke unambiguously about the fact that she considered the 
> situation of Kashmiri Pandits to be a tragedy. She was echoed in this 
> sentiment later by Syed Ali Shah Geelani who said that he personally 
> stands guarantee for the safety and security of all minorities, 
> Hindu, Sikh, Buddhists, Christians and others in a future free 
> Kashmir. He implored the Pandits to return to Kashmir, and said, that 
> they are an integral part of Kashmiri society. He spoke of the need 
> for ensuring that a free Kashmir was a just Kashmir, and that justice 
> meant that the freedom, safety and security of all minorities, of 
> their property, their places of worship, their freedom of conscience 
> be given the utmost importance. He reminded the assembled people that 
> throughout these turbulent months, the people of Kashmir have 
> continued to be hospitable to Hindu pilgrims, have set up 
> ‘Langars’ (Kitchens) for them, and have cared for them when they have 
> fallen sick, despite being at the receiving end of the violence of 
> the Indian state.
> 
> I spoke briefly, about the fact that I was proud that so many of us 
> had gathered in my city, Delhi, putting aside the abstraction of our 
> politically determined, state given construct of citizenship, and 
> standing, here, now, on the grounds of a concrete human solidarity 
> with the people of Kashmir. I spoke of the fact that there are 
> significant voices, even in the mainstream media who have been 
> compelled to recognize the urgency of the situation in Kashmir, by 
> the sheer determination of the youth of Kashmir to get the news of 
> what is happening in Kashmir out to the world. I spoke of the role 
> played by facebook sites like ‘Aalaw’ and blogs, and the fact that 
> the people of India and the world can no longer be kept in the dark 
> by a pliant media, as happened in 1989-90. I spoke of the ways in 
> which the viral circulation of leaked videos of the humiliation of 
> Kashmiri youth on facebook pages and online fora have successfully 
> shown us what the reality of Kashmir is today. I urged media 
> professionals in the mainstream media to introspect and reflect on 
> the role that they may be compelled, against their own professional 
> ehtics, to play in the pyschological and propaganda war that the 
> Indian state is currently conducting. I spoke of my sense of shame 
> and remorse at the evasive and dissimulating role played by sections 
> of the mainstream media in India while reporting (or not reporting) 
> atrocities that make even the images from Abu Gharaib pale in 
> comparison.
> 
> I am ashamed to say, that despite my respectful plea to the media to 
> play a responsible role in their reportage of Kashmir related 
> matters, major channels like Times Now and NDTV once again let the 
> truth down in their reports on the days events. NDTV saw it fit to 
> simply report
> 
> an incident of ‘shoe throwing at SAS Geelani’. A shoe (or some other 
> indeterminate object) was indeed thrown, but not at Geelani. It 
> landed on a bottle of water in front of another speaker, while he was 
> speaking. So let’s at least set that record straight. Arnab Goswami 
> of Times Now, while conducting what he likes to call a ‘debate; on 
> the programme called ‘News Hour’ (neither News, nor just an Hour) 
> repeatedly uttered hysterical untruths, such as the presumption that 
> ‘No State permits the advocacy of secession and self determination’ 
> and that a meeting such as the one I participated in yesterday, were 
> it to take place, say, in the United States, would immediately lead 
> to all speakers present (including, presumably, myself) in being 
> imprisoned on charges of sedition. I have to inform my readers here, 
> that on both counts, Arnab Goswami is wrong. Seriously wrong. Either 
> he is a misinformed idiot. Or he knows that he is wrong, and is lying 
> to his public through his teeth. We can choose to be generous about 
> how he would interpret his motives, and assume he is simply a fool.
> 
> Goswami, consequently demanded to know why we were not immediately 
> imprisoned under section 124 of the Indian penal code. Arnab Goswami 
> needs to be reminded, that in United States law, the provisions of 
> the Sedition Act are applicable only in times when the country is in 
> a declared state of war. And therefore his analogy does not apply, as 
> I am not aware that the Indian republic is currently in a declared 
> state of war, as per international law, (unless Arnab Goswami has 
> lost his marbles to the extent that he confuses the shadow boxing 
> that he does on television with a war declared by a state under 
> international law). That, furthermore, the provisions of the US 
> Sedition Law have been declared substantially void by the US Supreme 
> Court ruling in the Brandenberg vs. Ohio (1969) judgement, and of 
> course, by the US Supreme court guaranteeing the primacy of free 
> speech, including ‘seditious’ speech, including the burning of the 
> United States flag, under the provisions of the first amendment to 
> the US constitution.
> 
> There have been repeated attempts made to pass a law that would make 
> ‘flag burning’ an offence under US Law. Fortunately, (for liberty and 
> free speech) as of now, these attempts have not come to pass, and 
> currently, under US Law it is perfectly legal to advocate self- 
> determination and secwssion, if done peacefully, even to the extent 
> of burning or destroying or descerating symbols of state authority 
> like the national flag. Furthermore several constiutions, such as the 
> constitutions of Canada, Ethipopia, Austria and France, implicitly or 
> explicitly, provide for a legal expression of right to self 
> determination, provided it is exercised in a peaceful and democratic 
> manner, as part of the freedom of expression principle.
> 
> But the point that needs to be made is larger than whether or not 
> Arnab Goswami is a fool and a charlatan. Yesterday’s meeting was a 
> historic opportunity for his channel, and indeed for all of the 
> Indian mainstream media, to report and take cognizance of the fact 
> that there is a significant section of Indian public opinion that is 
> actually in favour of ‘Azaadi’ in Kashmir. I am not suggesting that 
> this section constitutes an overwhelming majority at present (that 
> might change) but, that it does exist, and that it presents, cogent, 
> precise arguments, that cannot be dismissed, (as is being done by 
> Times Now and its ilk) by invoking the spectre of ‘terrorism’. There 
> is hardly any ‘terrorism’ in Kashmir today (if we don’t count the 
> Indian state and its terror) . The 111 people who have died in the 
> past months, have not died at the hands of non-state insurgents, they 
> have died, unarmed, facing the bullets of the Indian state. The 
> movement for Azaadi in Kashmir has left the culture of the gun and 
> the grenade behind. It fights today without weapons, armed only with 
> courage. If there is a terrorist in Kashmir today, he wears the 
> uniform of the forces of the Indian state, and carries the weapons 
> supplied by the arsenal of the Indian state. To discount the voices 
> that rise in dissent against this reality as ‘terrorist sympathizers’ 
> as Arnab Goswami has done on his channel is to insult reality.
> 
> Syed Ali Shah Geelani spoke of the bonds of insaaniyat that tie the 
> peoples of Kashmir and India yesterday. I heard him say this. I was 
> barely five feet away from him. I heard him speak of his regard and 
> respect for the minorities in Jammu and Kashmir. I do not agree with 
> much of what Geelani Saheb represents politically, or ideologically, 
> but I have no hesitation in saying that what he said yesterday, was 
> surprising for its gentleness, for its consideration, for its 
> moderation, even for its liberality and open heartedness. This should 
> have been big news. That Syed Ali Shah Geelani said that he wants to 
> see a strong and resurgent India. I heard him say this. And was this 
> reported by anyone? NO. Was it reported that he was cheered when he 
> said this ? NO. Was it reported that no one had any thing angry to 
> say against the struggling peoples of India? NO. Was it reported 
> that SAS Geelani expilicity said that he is NOT against dialogue, 
> provided that the five point formula put forward by him (none of 
> whose provisions – 1. acceptance of the disputed nature of the 
> territory of Jammu and Kashmir, 2. repeal of AFSPA and other black 
> laws, 3. release of political detenues and prisoners, 4. withdrawal 
> of the disproportionate presence of the armed forces and 5. 
> punishment to those gulty of taking life in the past few months – 
> require the government of India to think ‘outside’ the framework of 
> the Indian Constitution) are accepted as the basis of the dialogue? NO.
> 
> Don’t you think that it makes BIG news that the tallest separatist 
> leader in Jammu and Kashmir actually, in a moderate voice, spells 
> out, in Delhi, the fundamental basis of a considered dialogue with 
> the Indian state, while offering it a chance to do so on bases that 
> are absolutely reasonable and sound, and honourable to all concerned? 
> Do you not think that a responsible media organization would consider 
> this a scoop, a major news stor? But that is not what happened.
> 
> Instead, Times Now, (and I am waiting for the morning newspapers to 
> see how far this muck has spread) chose to focus on the deliberately 
> staged disruption of a handful of agent provocateurs, our familiar 
> posse of self styled patriotic champions of the continued occupation 
> of Kashmir, who posed for the camera, hyperventilated, and occupied, 
> perhaps no more than five percent of the attention of several patient 
> hours. If you saw the news reports on Times Now’s ‘NEWSHOUR’ 
> programme, you would have thought that all of what happened was their 
> presence as a ‘protest’ against the meeting. As someone who was 
> present through much of this, I am totally, utterly aghast that a lie 
> of such magnificient proportions could be dished out with such ease. 
> I am aghast that Aditya Raj Kaul who was one of the panel invited by 
> Arnab Goswami to the Times Now Newshour show could lie with a 
> straight face by saying that there was no attempt made to ‘disrupt’ 
> the meeting by those who were there to represent his point of view.
> 
> Someday, I hope that all of these people, the Arnab Goswamis of the 
> world, find reason to repent for continuing to keep the people of 
> India and Kashmir in the dark. They had better think hard, because 
> the day when they will have cause to repent, is not far. Azaadi will 
> come to Kashmir, and with it, a glimmer of Azaadi will be the share 
> of those people in India who stood by their Kashmiri friends, in 
> their darkest hour.Going by what I witnessed yesterday, there will be 
> many such people, so Arnab Goswami and his ilk had better start 
> practicing how to say sorry, several hundred times a day.
> 
> 
> 
> best,
> 
> 
> 
> Shuddha
> 
> ---------------------------------------------
> 
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> 
> 
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