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

[SJabbar]

Sorry for cross-posting but I sent this message out in the morning as a
response to Shuddha¹s 2nd post but received an automated email saying my
post had to be reviewed by the moderator.  Since I haven¹t received a
response (Monica??!) I assume it was not approved or got lost in the vast
belly of the Sarai computer!
-------------------------------------


Shuddha, let us take your arguments and apply them to the other side.  Modi
belongs to a political party that was in power and he was at the helm when
the 2002 Gujarat carnage took place.  He may not have explicitly directed it
but he certainly presided over the violence.  What Modi is like as a person,
whether he is gentle, cultured, cries at the funeral of his friends or his
rivals are of no concern to me  (It is well known that Goebbels was a
cultured man and had a refined taste in music and the arts and of course
Jinnah ate ham sandwiches). What matters to me is that the man presided over
the worst kind of violence and has refused to, till date, condemn it
unambiguously.  Instead he and his party continue to cite the economic
progress of Muslims in Gujarat to counter it.  The subtext of this‹ and this
is a South Asian disease‹ is let us forget the past, galtiyan dono taraf se
huin hain (³action-reaction²), and let us move on.  Whether it is the
various political parties in India who have incited, controlled and presided
over the worst communal or sectarian violence from the 1930¹s to the present
day, or the Pakistani army role in the mass rapes of Bangladesh or the Sri
Lankan army¹s role against Tamil civilians, every political party in these
countries seem to be inflicted by the same disease.
Having said that, I believe it is the role of civil society to be vigilant,
to be rigorous, to not succumb to the same logic.

I know that you have been critical of fundamentalist politics in this forum
and others, whether it is Hindutva or Islamist and that is why it surprised
me to read your post on the LTG event.  You say ³You may be right when you
say that SAS Geelani may be saying one thing in Delhi and another in
Srinagar.  I am not here to judge the sincerity, or lack of,  or ambiguity,
of these statements.²  Why are you not here to judge the sincerity or lack
thereof of these statements?  Surely, one is always judging political
parties when they claim one or another thing?  How does one align oneself
politically if one goes simply by manifestos and not by actions?  Judging
and evaluating is a constant process.  Mamta Bannerjee may have been one
thing as a member of the opposition but how will she be when she comes to
power?  One reads her statements, one watches carefully her actions
following her statements.  If they don¹t gel, we believe her to be
insincere.  

You write: ³I am amazed that this recognition is not getting the space I
think it deserves, simply as a NEWS story. ³ Do you remember Atal Behari
Vajpayee shed tears after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and Advani
described it as ³the saddest day of his life.² Should these isolated moments
and statements be highlighted and privileged as representing the 2 men¹s
position on the Babri Masjid or should one judge them over a longer period
of time, weighing their statements and their actions?

As for Mr. Geelani and evaluating his actions, do you believe a responsible
leader ought to lead from the front or give calls to his followers to engage
in actions that will cause injury or even death from the safety of his home?
Mr. Geelani is fully aware that in any part of this planet if you pelt
stones at a man with a gun, there is a fair chance that the man with the gun
is going to retaliate.  When he was released from jail he made a fine
statement calling for the end of the hartaal calendar, saying that this was
not the way forward, that these protests could not be sustained, that life
could not come to a standstill (btw, the Sopore fruit mandi, his
constituency, continued to function through this entire period hartaal
calendar or not).  These were wise words from a man who has been in politics
for years.  Wise words or the thinking of the ISI, I¹m not sure because the
words were echoed by Syed Salahuddin.  What follows is interesting:
Salahuddin¹s effigy is burnt and a rumour is floated that Mr. Geelani is
selling out to Omar Abdullah.  Does Mr. Geelani stand by his words?  Does he
do what Gandhi does after Chauri Chaura?  No, of course not.  He does a
total U-turn and starts competing with Masrat Alam on the calendars,
subjecting the people of the valley to more misery.  What do ordinary
Kashmiris feel about the continuation of this absurd form of protest where
they and not the Government of India suffer?  You may find the answer in the
fact that there was not a single protest when Masrat Alam was arrested.

Again Mr. Geelani saying he Œpersonally¹ favours the accession to Pakistan
but will Œabide by¹ what the people of J&K want is neither here nor there.
What you see as a maturing position may be read as an opportunistic one
until such time as it is tested.  As I have already shown in my last post
Mr. Geelani, his political party and his ideology have since the mid-90¹s
shown no such respectful accommodation of the political views of others.  In
fact any divergence from this view has been silenced by the bullet.  If this
is someone¹s history‹ and as much as I should wish it otherwise-- it is
very, very difficult for me to suspend my cynicism and turn enthusiastic
cartwheels on the basis of one speech to a select audience in New Delhi.

With reference to your point about borders:  The GoI acknowledges that
Kashmir is an ³issue² between India and Pakistan.  As I have mentioned in my
first post, it objects to the word ³dispute² as it internationalizes
Kashmir, ignores the Simla Agreement and takes it out of the domain of
bilateral talks back to the UN.  If you want my personal opinion on this
(and I have argued on this list in the past), I agree with this stand.  I
see the UN as a forum where, sadly, world powers have always manipulated
nations and it certainly does not have the moral standing after Iraq and
Afghanistan to really mediate anywhere in the world.  India and Pakistan
need to, and can settle the issue taking into account the wishes of all the
people of J&K as it stood in 1947.  As I have argued in the past and as
Gen.Musharraf recently said on an NDTV interview that India and Pakistan
were very close to drafting an agreement based on his 4-point formula.
Interestingly, various interpretations of this 4-point formula were thrown
up by all shades of political parties but there was a broad consensus on
this whether from the mainstream groups or the separatists.  The only leader
that rejected this was Mr. Geelani who insisted that the Kashmir ³dispute²
be solved on the UN Resolutions of 1948!

As for borders themselves: what is Europe today but a borderless continent?
You critique the idea of the nation-state and yet you want to re-invent the
wheel by supporting yet another nation-state in independent Kashmir.  Why,
when a 21st c. solution in the 4-point formula, similar to the form and
content of the EU, could be in the making?

Best wishes,
Sonia



On 22/10/10 8:10 PM, "Shuddhabrata Sengupta" <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:

> Dear Sonia, (don't worry Pawan, its a lot less than '3000 lines')
> 
> I said - " 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."
> 
> What part of this sentence seems to suggest that I am 'aligning' with SAS
> Geelani. The 'I do not agree with much' does not seem to indicate alignment,
> or endorsement to me. The rest of the statement is a statement of fact. Were
> SAS Geelani to have said words that were inflammatory yesterday, I would not
> have hesitated to said that he had. Allow me to elaborate by way of an example
> - I have never been in agreement with the political philosophy of M.K.Gandhi,
> but I never make the mistake of saying that my disagreement with Gandhi (my
> refusal to endorse Gandhian ideology and what it means politically) amounts to
> my failure to recognize Gandhi's gentleness, his consideration, his
> moderation, his liberality and its open heartedness.
> 
>  I have been strongly critical Islamist politics, including on this forum,
> whenever I have considered it necessary to do so. That is one thing, and it is
> where I would differ from SAS Geelani, explicitly, categorically, unless he
> makes a statement, like the Mirwaiz did recently, abjuring an 'Islamist future
> for Kashmir'. But to say that SAS Geelani has never expressed regret for the
> violence that rocked even the pro-Azadi camp from within is specious. Kashmiri
> polticians of all hues routinely issue condemnations of incidents of
> terrorism, and targetted assasinations. Geelani, to my knowledge, has not been
> any exception. Eyewitnesses speak of seeing him weeping at Abdul Ghani Lone's
> funeral. I do not know, nor do I care, whether these tears were genuine. All I
> am saying is that if the man has not said that he celebrates the assasins of
> the elder Mirwaiz, or Abdul Ghani Lone, or the attacks on Dr. Shameema that
> you mention, then, it is unfair to accuse him of 'Not Saying' the 'not
> saying'. He condemns assasinations. He does not celebrate the assasin. This
> means that he cannot be accused of being the source of the assasination,
> unless other concrete evidence is brought to bear upon the case.
> 
>  You may be right when you say that SAS Geelani may be saying one thing in
> Delhi and another in Srinagar.  I am not here to judge the sincerity, or lack
> of,  or ambiguity, of these statements. I think politically, the significant
> thing is that whatever he may have said in the past, SAS Geelani, HAS to speak
> a language today that is not secterian. He may have done so in the past. Let
> us remember that he was an elected member of the J&K assembly for more than
> one term in the past, and that means he had to swear fealty of some sort to
> the Indian constitution. Judging by this, we should be able to evaluate his
> 'Islamist' commitments in the light of his sometime loyalty to an apparently
> secular constitution. If the sake of argument, we say that we should take
> seriously what came 'after' as representing the 'maturing' of his position,
> then, if his avowedly 'secterian' / Islamist / Pro-Pakistan phase came after
> his phase as an MLA of the J&K assembly, then, so too has this 'current' phase
> come 'after' his secterian posturing. I am not the one who needs to split
> these hairs, but clearly, if some emphasis is bieng given to chronology as a
> way of attributing the man's politics to the man's biography, then let's stay
> consistent, and say, that if the current SAS Geelani is saying things that
> don't seem to require the automatic assumption of an Isamic state (which is
> what we would expect from the 'old' Geelani, then, we have every reason to
> take it as seriously as when he made his decision to abandon 'mainstream'
> electoral politics in Jammu and Kashmir for the hardline fringe.
> 
> Indeed, I would go so far as to say that as far as we are concerned, we should
> assume, and hold him, and his followers, responsible to the Œevolution¹ of
> their statements, as they occur. If he goes back on the broad, liberal nature
> of a vision for Azad kashmir (which, incidentally, among other things,
> included the somewhat whimsical detail of a provision of compensation for
> damages were a believing Muslim to damage a bottle of alchohl of a
> non-believer), then, we should hold him responsible for that regression. He
> made a speech that was refreshingly free of Islamist rhetoric yesterday, that
> spoke in the broad terms of 'Insaaniyat' - Humanity. If Atal Behari Vajpayee
> can be appreciated, as indeed he should have been, for speaking in terms of
> 'Insaaniyat' when it came to thinking about the solution to the question of
> Jammu and Kashmir, why could the mainstream media not pick up the fact that at
> least in stated terms, SAS Geelani was making as major a move, by invoking
> 'Insaaniyat' over secterian considerations, exactly as Vajpayee had done.
> Recognizing this does not require us to align with, or endorse, either SAS
> Geelani, or Atal Behari Vajpayee, it simply requires us to register a fact
> that a major move is in process. That politics is being transformed, even as
> we speak. I am amazed that this recognition is being painted as 'alignment, or
> endorsement'. I am amazed that this recognition is not getting the space I
> think it deserves, simply as a NEWS story. SAS Geelani says he wishes India to
> be a strong country, a regional power, that he supports (in principle) a
> future permanent place for India on the United Natons Security Council, once
> Kashmir is liberated   - in other words, he is saying, let us go, and we will
> stand with you, dont you think this is BIG news. That is what I was trying to
> talk about. Trying to talk about does not make me a camp follower of SAS
> Geelani or any other politician, in India, Kashmir, or elsewhere.
> 
> My sense is, the movement for Azadi in Kashmir has gone beyond the persona of
> SAS Geelani, and while he is universally respected for his integrity and
> incorruptability, his word is by no means, Œlaw¹. He, and other leaders like
> him, are being Œled¹ as much as they are Œleading¹ the people they claim to
> represent. Part of this process means giving up the secterian rhetoric that
> people in Kashmir genuinely feel alienated by. We should welcome this
> development. 
> 
> Now, I come to the views that he holds regarding independence and merger with
> Pakistan. He has said, including in his recent interview with Seema Mustafa
> that he PERSONALLY prefers accession to Pakistan, but that he is willing to
> abide by whatever the people of Jammu and Kashmir decide. I do not think that
> the people of Jammu and Kashmir have a future with Pakistan.So, I disagree
> with SAS Geelani's personal view. I strongly argue for a demilitarized,
> independent, secular Jammu and Kashmir. That makes me someone who does not
> endorse SAS Geelani's position. Let's look at thigns this way, had this been
> 1935, I would probably have not been in agreement with M.K. Gandhi's vision of
> what he thought the future of South Asia and India ought to be. But that does
> not mean that I would dismiss Gandhi as irrelevant, or someone to be mocked
> and reviled. I would engage with him politicially, as many currents in India
> at that time did. They were not uncritical of Gandhi (from the left and the
> right) but they knew that Gandhi's voice had a certain resonance. I think that
> the attitude that people have towards SAS Geelani is not dissimilar. They may
> not agree with him on many counts, and most Kashmiris that I know personally
> would fit that description. But none would want to dismiss or demonize him.
> Primarily because of his unwillingness to be an occasional pawn in the hands
> of the occupation.
> 
>  I have yet to come across an Indian politician who is willing to say, on the
> record, that he PERSONALLY prefers that Jammu and Kashmir stay with India, but
> will respect whatever the people of Jammu and Kashmir decide in a free and
> fair plebiscite. If that were to be the case, then we would get much further
> than where we are today in Kashmir. I have no quarrel with those who want
> Kashmir to stay in India. Theirs is a point of view. It needs to be freely
> heard, freely debated, and if is convincing to the people of Jammu and
> Kashmir, best of luck to those who carry the day. What I am against is
> maintaining Jammu and Kashmir as parts of the Indian Union by force. By
> violence. By occupation.
> 
> Finally, I come to the five points, and whether or not, sticking to the point
> about Kashmir being disputed is an obstacle. Lets face facts. Kashmir is a
> dispute. Every single map of the world that is not printed in India shows it,
> visually, as a disputed territory. That is why the Government of India has to
> put its silly ink stamp on atlases. That is why there is a United Nations
> Observer group in Delhi, Islamabad and Srinagar. United Nations observers are
> present, in the same way, in say Cyprus (another dispute) Israel / Palestine,
> another dispute. What is the big deal in saying, yes, it is a dispute. Will
> India disappear if the public secret is admitted to? As far as I am concerned
> borders, and sovereignty, are less important than the lives of people. If
> discussing a border, and what it means, can be a method to save lives, then
> refusing to do so, is a crime. The Government of India can offer to 'discuss'
> - sovereignty over those areas of the India-Tibet border that were taken by
> force majeure by British Imperial power, but it will sacrifice the lives of
> hundreds of thousands of people in order to keep the fetish of the Indian
> Union's  soveriegnty and integrity alive in the case of Jammu and Kashmir.
> This policy seems to me to be totally criminal and misguided.
> 
> Borders are made by human beings, and can be changed by human beings. The
> geographical expression of the Union of India is not divinely ordained.
> Sensible people all over the world, understand that maps can change, and that
> they do change. We hope that the map of China can someday be drawn in Chinese
> school text books without engulfing Tibet. If that can be a reasonable desire,
> and not be seen as an 'obstruction', why should a similar desire be seen as an
> obstruction in the case of India and Jammu and Kashmir. Arnab Goswami
> repeatedly used the word 'splittist' yestyerday to refer to all those who were
> speaking at the meeting at the LTG yesterday. A word that is used by the
> Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party whenever it refers to the
> Dalai Lama and the movement for a free Tibet. Are we (our government, sections
> of our media) aping the Chinese government and the behemoth of the Chinese
> Communist Party in aligning and endorsing ourselves with the fetish of a man
> made fiction of sovereignty. I should hope that we can do better than that.
> 
> best regards, 
> 
> Shuddha
> 
> 
> 
> 
>