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

[Aditya Raj Baul]

I like it how Sonia Jabbar wants to hold Kashmir hostage to history -
to the histories of India and Pakistan, to the history of what Geelani
has or has not done, has or has not said. She does not think history
is irrelevant to today's people who want azadi today in today's
context - sorry, she says, India has signed the Simla agreement, and
Geelani is a fanatic. Thank you. Fair enough, I suppose. But will she
apply the same rigours of historical understanding to the Indian state
and its actions in Kashmir? Please?

On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 9:53 AM, SJabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Shuddha,
>
> I think our differences have narrowed considerably as you continue to
> clarify your position.  Reading between your lines, you seem to think that I
> have a problem with your engaging with Mr. Geelani or that the problem was
> your sharing a stage with him. I do not not.  In politics there are no
> pariahs.  If someone represents a constituency-- no matter how marginal--
> that is part of the social fabric you cannot ignore it.  It may surprise you
> and  many on this list to know that Mr. Geelani and I have known each other
> since 1997 and have extremely frank and cordial relations. My problem was
> with the language of your report of the meeting where your enthusiasm
> (“tallest separatist leader,” he is “NOT against dialogue,” “all that they
> are asking for is the Right to self-determination”) masked a political
> reality that was far more complex and brutal.  However, you have since
> clarified that you do not endorse Mr. Geelani’s  politics and you concede
> that he may well have been playing to audiences in Delhi,  bringing us more
> or less on the same page except that past experience has made me less likely
> to share your belief that someone like Mr. Geelani can be “USED” or that you
> can  “compel them to come to a degree of moderation in action, and a
> greater, more imaginative radicalism in terms of conceptions.”
>
> I am glad you agree that people and groups, state and non-state actors who
> have committed crimes must stand trial and justice must be done, whether it
> is SAS Geelani, Yasin Malik, Syed Salahuddin or various army generals who
> have presided over rights abuses while they served in J&K. I have in this
> forum written of a Truth & Reconciliation Commission modeled on the South
> African experience that should follow the final settlement on J&K.
>
> I am also glad that you agree with my point of the futility of creating a
> new nation-state in the form of an independent Kashmir ( “I am not for the
> moment saying and have never said that an independent Kashmir will be in any
> way a qualitative improvement (in terms of a state form) than an occupied
> Kashmir,”).  But you seem to believe that it is necessary because “ It may
> at least lead to the withdrawal of the reality of a brutal occupation.” By
> this I assume your vision of regime change means replacing one democratic
> republic with another democratic republic and not an Islamic republic or a
> military state.  In which case “the reality of a brutal occupation” must
> mean the withdrawal of hundreds of thousands of uniformed men in J&K.  But
> do you really need to create a new nation-state in order to demilitarize
> Kashmir?
>
> From 1947 to 1989 India’s military presence was restricted to the borders
> and to the few garrisons of Srinagar, Baramulla, Leh, Udhampur and Poonch.
> Between 1989- 1992 India was being seriously challenged on the military
> front by thousands of Kashmiri militants and Islamist mujahideen.  The troop
> surge only happened only around 1992-93 and the Indian military was only
> able to control the situation around 1995. In 1996 the situation was such
> that it was the first time in 6 years it was possible to hold elections and
> yet then as in 2002 there were hundreds of assassinations of political
> candidates and ordinary workers of political parties (the right to
> self-determination is never extended to this group).
>
> Anyway, my point is that 500,000 or 700,000 troops were not there as a
> permanent fixture since 1947 and the ‘most militarized place in the world’
> was not always so.  It is both desirable and possible to withdraw troops and
> it should be done in a phased manner.  Though I have been vocal in
> advocating this since 2001, sadly, I believe it will be linked to the final
> settlement and will not happen before because of the many sleeper cells of
> militants that get activated the moment there is peace or at least as they
> say ‘normalcy’— as we have seen in last week’s encounter between troops and
> the JeM in Srinagar.  BTW Srinagar district was one of the districts being
> examined for the revocation of the Disturbed Areas Act.  This encounter will
> make it extremely difficult for the state government to do so.
>
>
>  I am glad you agree with me that the 4-point formula can be a solution to
> the vexed Kashmir issue, however your reading of what went wrong and putting
> the onus of the failure of implementation squarely on New Delhi’s shoulder
> is wrong.  Yes, there were delays on New Delhi’s side, but those were not
> remarkable considering a political consensus had to be built within the
> country (I think it was in 2008 during the Amarnath Yatra that I explained
> the entire process at length in this forum).  Very simply what happened was
> that the Lawyer’s Movement in Pakistan overtook the Kashmir process and once
> Mushrraf was ousted and Benazir was assassinated the country plunged into
> political turmoil and the Zaradari government was too weak to break from
> Pakistan’s traditional stand of the UN Resolutions.  Both Gen Kayani and the
> ISI were not comfortable with Musharraf’s radical departure from tradition.
> Both believe Pakistan’s best interests are served by keeping the Kashmir pot
> boiling, maintaining India as ‘enemy no 1’, encouraging extremism in
> Afghanistan to maintain ‘strategic depth,’ and to scuttle any influence
> India may wield in Afghanistan.  So, as much as I and many others would like
> to see the 4-point formula being at least discussed, under the present
> Pakistani dispensation it is highly unlikely.
>
> When you advocate a plebiscite and you believe that the azadi movement must
> be peaceful then you must also accommodate the possibility of a partitioned
> J&K, where large sections of Jammu and all of Ladakh would not vote for
> Pakistan (and under what UN Resolution would the option of independence be
> granted since NO UN Resolution holds that option and no Kashmiri to date has
> appealed to the UN to pass a resolution to include the option?) And how
> would you persuade Pakistan to allow a plebiscite in areas under their
> control?  And what is your opinion of the vast region of Gilgit-Baltistan
> that by Pakistani law has been severed from the state of Jammu & Kashmir and
> where its citizens have NO fundamental rights as its constitutional status
> has not as yet been determined?
>
> I am asking these questions not to score points but for us to locate what is
> moral or desirable within what is real and possible not just for Kashmiris
> who are but a small part of the state, but of all the people of Jammu &
> Kashmir.
>
> Best,
> Sonia
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> My question is, what do we do next. I think that this means that the people
>> 'learn' to USE them, to compel them to come to a degree of moderation in
>> action, and a greater, more imaginative radicalism in terms of conceptions.
>> That is why, the current situation in Kashmir, where the 'Leaders' are being
>> 'Led' by people is interesting to me. I find it POSITIVE that they have to do
>> flip-flops so often, from Hartal-to-No Hartal- to Hartal again. This shows
>> that they are NOT running the street. Things are unpredictable. The change in
>> the 'temperature' of SAS Geelani's statements may be as much due to the fact
>> that he is no longer in a position to call all the shots. Therefore, he has
>> less to lose by 'changing' his tenor.
>>
>> There is a way in which the language of politics has changed, and it has
>> changed because of the way in which people are communicating on all sorts of
>> fora. Though they may, out of affection, still say that only Geelani will do
>> the Tarjumani, the truth is, everyone is doing their own Tarjumani now. and
>> that is the hardest nut for the Government of India to crack. As an anarchist,
>> I find this situation, of the actual, concrete, refusal of 'representational
>> forms of politics' . however ephemeral it might be at present, quite
>> delightful. SO much so, that a 'theatre' of leadership continues, but
>> actuality presumes a totally different language of politics.
>>
>> I find this a fertile situation, one latent with possibilities, for everyone.
>>
>> As for your other point, about how close we all were to the beginnings of the
>> long road towards a solution with Musharraf's four point formula - I agree
>> with you. But, then, it was the Government of India that scuttled that
>> possibility. If the government of India had acted then, on what was on offer,
>> perhaps things would not have come to the situation where they are at present.
>> Too much has gone wrong since then. I am not a nationalist of any sort, and to
>> me, ALL nation states, and all nation states in waiting,  are ultimately the
>> actors of the tragedies of their own making and choosing,
>> So, basically, I am not for the moment saying and have never said that an
>> independent Kashmir will be in any way a qualitative improvement (in terms of
>> a state form) than an occupied Kashmir, but, It may at least lead to the
>> withdrawal of the reality of a brutal occupation.
>>
>> For me, whatever makes that possible, I am prepared to accept. There were, and
>> remain many possibilities that span the spectrum from where the situation is
>> at present to Indpendence or accession to Pakistan. But thinking about those
>> possibilities require all Indians to stop thinking only out of the Indian
>> nationalist box. You know very well, that many different kinds of arrangement
>> could have been explored. including maximum autonomy under the aegis of a
>> joint India-Pakistan guarantee, which is what I understand the Musharraf
>> formula to have been, But the bottom line is, whatever is worked out has to be
>> acceptable to the popular will, hence a plebiscite with many options on offer,
>> and the freedom to campaign for the many options in an atomsphere free of
>> coercion.
>>
>> Realistically speaking, I do not think that the Government of India has the
>> imagination any longer to try and think out of the box. If it can, that would
>> be great. But, going by the ostrich like attitude of the Government in the
>> face of the obvious alienation of the Kashmiri people, I very much doubt it.
>> If they had that intelligence, they could have stopped the killings by the
>> security forces a long time ago.
>>
>> Therefore, the only remaining possibility for ending the occupation seems to
>> me to be independence for Kashmir, in the short term, under the custodianship
>> of the United Nations, like happened in Kosovo.Of course, I strongly assert
>> that the political road to this must be through non-violent means, through
>> mass political participation, of as many different sections of the population
>> as possible. It will be painful, for many Indians to accept, but in the long
>> term, and in the absence of any other imaginative solutions thought through by
>> the Indian political elites (that chance has come, and sadly, gone) it will be
>> in the best interests of the people of India. Of course, the challenge for the
>> people of Kashmir would be to think through a vision of independence that does
>> not have them switch slavery to Indian occupation to slavery to the Pakistani
>> militarist elite. The challenge would be to come up with proposals for a
>> demilitarized, non-aggressive Kashmir that can preserve its cultural and
>> social openness and liberality, that can take back displaced minorities, and
>> can offer them genuine, not token safety and security. That is the hard work
>> that imaginative politics will have to undertake in Kashmir. And we should
>> never stop expecting and demanding that from all our Kashmiri friends. I
>> never, ever cease doing so.
>>
>>  In the long term, this fact, an Independent Kashmir, could actually be the
>> cornerstone of a broad South Asian Union (modelled on the EU) which could
>> bring the different nationalities (there may be many by then) of South Asia
>> under an arrangement of a free trade zone, a visa free zone, a customs and
>> tarrifs union, a charter on shared ecological concerns, and comprehensive
>> demilitarization. An independent Kashmir may be the first step in that
>> direction. Of course this need not happen. Things could get worse if Kashmir
>> separates. I am well aware and cognizant of that possibility. But, at least,
>> once the dust and din settles, in our lifetime, there is a likelihood that
>> once everyone has climbed off their nationalist high horses, things might be
>> worked out, amicably and reasonably between all the stake holders of a future
>> free association of South Asian States and Territories. That, I think is the
>> only guarantee for peace in our region. I know for certain that an India and
>> Pakistan that continue to hold on to their respective fragments of Jammu and
>> Kashmir, and an India that enforces that occupation by military force cannot
>> contribute to peace in the region.
>>
>> That is why, I think that freedom for Kashmir, and also, incidentally for
>> Tibet, is key to long term peace and stability in Asia, because both these
>> developments would reduce the necessity of the big poweres of tomorrow - China
>> and India and to a lesser extent - Pakistan from being aggressive nuclear
>> powered rivals, and would perhaps, perhaps, open out the true possibility of
>> what a worthwhile Asian Century really ought to be like. Otherwise, I am
>> afraid that we will replay the disasters of the European history of the
>> Twentieth Century, from the First World War onwards, on the soil of Twenty
>> First Century Asia.
>>
>>
>> I hope i have made myself clear
>>
>> best,
>>
>>
>> Shuddha
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 23-Oct-10, at 7:45 PM, SJabbar wrote:
>>
>>> 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
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _________________________________________
>>> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>>> Critiques & Collaborations
>>> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe
>>> in the subject header.
>>> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
>>> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>>> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
>>> Raqs Media Collective
>>> shuddha at sarai.net
>>> www.sarai.net
>>> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>