[Reader-list] Book Reviews on The Story of Kashmir and A Mission in Kashmir.

[gowhar fazli]

For your critical comments:

In Search of a Future: The Story of Kashmir.By David Devadas. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2007. Pp. 400.

A Mission in Kashmir. By Andrew Whitehead.New York: Penguin, 2008. Pp. 304.

 

Book Review

by  Gowhar Fazili (1)

 

 

Both Devadas and Whitehead engage in social and oral history, drawing from first-hand accounts, personal letters, myths and stories as told over generations; both authors are journalists. The former tries to examine Kashmir’s contemporary history in light of the events and experiences of the past century as related to the author by various individuals directly involved in their making, or commenting on the basis of what they have witnessed or heard.  The latter focuses on research and the retelling of a single event in 1947, an attack on a Jesuit Mission in Baramulla, and with reference to this event, attempts to reconstruct the history of Kashmir.

 

Devadas builds his arguments around the essential nature of Kashmiris which according to him has, due to a series of collective experiences over the centuries, turned negative, hostile, suspicious, shortsighted, individualistic and essentially selfish.  This assessment is not original since a train of colonial writers like Lawrence and Biscoe essentialized the Kashmiri character in a similar vein.  It appears through Devadas’s writing that Kashmir continues to be the way it is largely because of the Kashmiris’ “innate” nature.  According to him, it is not extraordinary political circumstances that have primarily shaped Kashmiri mentality, but the converse, that the Kashmiri mentality has shaped their circumstances.  In short, he blames Kashmiris for the tragic state of affairs they find themselves trapped in.

 

Devadas ascribes to Kashmiris “corruption”, “venality”, “opportunism” (p 212) as if these were their essential characteristics.  He refers to the Bakshi period and the corruption and loot that were promoted in his era, as if had more of that followed, Kashmiris (being essentially corrupt) would have readily accepted any political dispensation that was offered (p 240). It is well known that corruption in Kashmir was deliberately promoted as a tactic by the Indian establishment in the Bakshi era in order to buy over people, while Sheikh Abdullah was put in prison.  Surely, all societies have corruptible people amongst them, and Kashmir is in no way unique in this regard.

 

Further, according to Devadas, the urgency for resolving the “Kashmir problem” does not stem from the need to end the suffering of the Kashmiri population itself, but in the interest of the rest of the world, especially the subcontinent; and all this can and has to be achieved through the initiatives of the Kashmiri community. Though right from the preface he presents Kashmiris as weak of character, yet the burden of “healing” the subcontinent is upon them!  India and Pakistan cannot help because “the dispute goes to the heart of their respective notions of nationhood.” (p xvi)  And in his own words, “I hope Kashmir will turn the corner before the subcontinent descends into violent strife—so that it might lead the rest of South Asia back to a moral anchor.” (p xvi)

 

Devadas fictionalizes his characters and imagines what they must have felt.  One wonders whether people like “Ali Sheikh” are real or a fictional device.  The basis for much of this appears to be pure imagination and conjecture.  While the book at times appears to be a historical account, it takes flight into fiction without demarcation.  There is an indiscernible mix of hearsay and factual information.  Devadas’s commentary comes across more as a moral judgment or a sermon on history, rather than an attempt to understand people, their actions and their relationship with power. His chief source seems to be drawing-room conversations and popular stereotypes. He fails to reflect on why negative self-imaging is a phenomenon common to all colonized people, including Kashmiris.

 

Devadas tries to construct the ‘Kashmiri mind’ out of his understanding of the experiences of a few young men who became militants in Kashmir around 1987. In this process he infantilizes Kashmir, not unlike the state-owned media and its sermonizing propaganda. He makes light of the mass sentiment and aspiration for freedom and the desire for a life with dignity, and conflates all this with the character of much-maligned militants. In this he seems to have bought heavily into the views of intelligence agents and surrendered militants and their confessions. Devadas also accepts oriental myths and colonial stereotypes about the Kashmiri character uncritically and perpetuates them along with the added evidence stumbled upon in the process of research.

 

One notices a shoddy use of local language and expressions.  One wonders if it is simple carelessness or an attitude he thinks he can afford.  To quote a few examples, on p 110 an expression ‘Pakistan nu ghazi aayo’ means nothing in Kashmiri (or perhaps any language!).  Word ‘Bhangi’ (p 153) is not in use in Kashmir;   he might have jotted down a literal translation of word ‘Watul’ and not cared to cross check.  ‘Bakr Id’ (p 174) it would make no sense in Kashmiri.   ‘Goat’ for Bakré is too literal; the idea of Sher- Bakré division has a cultural resonance that cannot be simply translated into goat!  ‘Najad’ (p 309) which means absolutely nothing, may be Najaat, which is deliverance.  Melhanson probably means Mallinson (p 123).

 

There are stray references to the persistence of caste hierarchy in Kashmir. Since this is not a phenomenon unique to Kashmir, one wonders why he presents it as something peculiar to this place.  He makes too much of the pride Kashmiri people have for themselves, like all communities tend to do.  For Kashmiris, simply holding on to what remnants of pride remain, may be important and also justifiable, given the humiliation they are subject to on a daily basis. There is a passing reference to economic reasons for the rise of militancy, for example, Sopore, “…that pocket where land reforms had been rolled back so that apples could turn it into Little London became the bedrock of pro-Pakistan militancy and of Puritanism.”  (p 240) This is a sweeping claim that remains unsubstantiated.  “Abdullah’s own determination to lead an independent nation was probably as much an individual aspiration as a collective one on behalf of his people.” (p 75) This
 is probably true of all leaders of freedom struggles, so why single him out?

 

There is a legitimate need for Kashmiris to engage in self-reflexive writing on themselves and their history, and this book might provoke such an exercise.  Otherwise carelessly-written books like that of Devadas’s are dangerous because of their potential to spread misunderstanding, especially on an issue which is already quite misunderstood.

 

A Mission in Kashmir is an attempt at a new way of writing on Kashmir.  Andrew Whitehead focuses on the Jesuit Mission in Baramulla and the role of India, Pakistan and Pathan Raiders in the war they fought over Kashmir.  Towards the end, he examines issues of myth-making around the event, and how these have shaped latter-day politics in Kashmir. Whitehead’s is the better book of the two, since it critically examines sources and tries to use new discoveries to contest mainstream ideas on the accession, the raiders and the role of Pakistani regulars in the debacle.  A mission in Kashmir is more conscious of varying interests and objectives of the reporters.  Especially remarkable is the sensitivity reflected in the later part of the book, about the absence of Kashmiri Muslim voices in the representation of events in Kashmir; and about how the Mission in Baramulla has received focus while the experiences of Kashmiris who underwent similar ordeals are
 largely missing from history.  It is true of both fictional and factual reporting. The authors, as well as those considered worthy of being written about are mostly non Kashmiris’. “It is perhaps an irony that even when talking of terror in Kashmir, those Kashmiris who suffered have had to relinquish centre stage to outsiders.” (P 232) He further points out that no remarkable book on Kashmir by a Muslim Kashmiri yet exists. (The Recent book by Basharat Peer,‘Curfewed Night’, an experiential account on early 90’s by a Kashmiri Muslim, is a welcome step in this direction.)

 

Whitehead tries his best to establish the authenticity of various versions of the event.  This has meant listening to multiple voices, though the voices presented here emanate mainly from the Europeans and prominent figures from India and Pakistan.   Kashmiri suffering appears to be on the fringes of the larger battle and what is central to the book— the suffering of the missionaries.  Kashmiris only appear now and then as icons like Maqbool Sherwani or Sheikh Abdullah.  Whitehead’s tale, essentially about the Mission in the wake of the Kabaili raid, does justice to that event; its attempt to try to understand Kashmir through this event, however, is half-hearted.  He might have done better by including more narratives from ordinary local people whose lives were permanently shaped by the circumstances that spiraled out of control.

 

He examines the process of myth-making and how myths are deployed for various causes.  The myth around the attack on the Mission and how different sources relate it differently, the myth of Maqbool Sherwani and the political uses it was put to, the myths around the signing of the document of accession, provide good examples and ample material for him to analyze.  Whitehead considers three fictional works about the mission/raid, and how they used sources:  H.E. Bates’ The Scarlet Sword, Mulk Raj Anand’s Death of A Hero and Alan Moorhead’s The Rage of the Vulture. Though he examines writings of various journalists involved and their personal projects, one remark quoting the official Indian media is noteworthy: “The four foreign survivors had ‘lifted the veil on a brutal tragedy which invaders from Pakistan perpetuated upon an innocent and peace-loving people’.  The ‘peace-loving people’ themselves, the people of Kashmir, were not given a
 voice. A spectacle was made out of imprisoned Kabailis who were paraded in the streets of Srinagar to make an impression, the idea being to reinforce an image. It is not unlike the way prisoners are paraded in the visual media even today.  He quotes one of his sources, “Those people, they were really looking like brutes—very ferocious looking.  They were also very defiant.”  (P 186-187) The spectacle has created a lasting impression of raiders as brutes and by association Pakistan, the place where they came from, as equally brutal.

 

There are many anecdotes of human interest apart from the main concerns of the book, like some priests seeking to convert asylum seekers at the mission during the raid;  cordiality between a Pathan raider and one of the fathers at the mission; the missionaries’ bias against Kashmiris and how it altered during the conflict after locals helped them survive through the raid; Sikh regiments clash with Kashmiri volunteers from National Conference and its immediate repercussion;  all these make the book an interesting read. A sentence from the last paragraph sums up the book, “Social history is about people.  So too is good reporting.  And the most obvious lasting answer to the Kashmir dispute is to heed the voices of the people of Kashmir, and to allow them to decide their own destiny.”  Perhaps Whitehead’s narrative will open up possibilities for paying more heed to Kashmiri voices through the study of other institutions and events in Kashmir in
 which Kashmiris are central, and reopen questions assumed to be settled, through comparable scholarship.

 

 

1.   Published earlier in Interventions Vol. 11(1) 2009