[Reader-list] Kashmir, September 2010. The Reichstag Fire (dispersed) Redux ?
TaraPrakash
taraprakash at gmail.com
Wed Sep 15 06:59:49 IST 2010
Well, somehow the people who are being tortured, being crushed, their women
raped and killed, their men maimed and insulted, had time to take care of
God's affairs.
Today a guy called Manzur was talking on a BBC Hindi talk show. He justified
the burning of the school. He corrected when the presenter said one school
was burnt, by saying actually we burnt 2 schools. The schools, he said, were
close to his house and it was the right reaction "because they burned our
holy book."
Well this is the news we have at this time, sooner or later on this list we
will know about more conspiracies. IN some theories, Indian intelligence
will be involed, in others America will be involved. And in yet others,
Israel will be included.
Yet God hasn't said a word. Or as Ham, a Samuel Beckett's character informs
"... (expletive omitted by me). He doesn't exist."
Saamne hai jo use,
Log bura kahte hain
Jisko dekha hi naheen
Usko khuda kahte hain. (Sudarshan Fakir)
The one close by
Let him devil be
Let that be worshipped
That happens not to be. (Tara Prakash)
Only if someone produced the same kind of cartoon that Danish cartoonist, or
could tear some pages from holy books, or could burn them on weekly basis,
such madness wouldn't happen. Danish cartoonists, Taslima Nasreens and this
guy who was mad enough to undertake this useless task happen so rarely, they
end up injuring or killing folks in India.
In an unrelated context, it was a news to me that Iran has supported India's
occupation of Kashmir. I don't remember Iran supporting India on this issue
on any forum.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shuddhabrata Sengupta" <shuddha at sarai.net>
To: "Sarai Reader List" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 4:52 PM
Subject: [Reader-list] Kashmir,September 2010. The Reichstag Fire
(dispersed) Redux ?
> Dear all,
>
> The burning of a school can never be justified, not even in protest
> against the burning of a holy book. The situation in Kashmir once again
> seems to be spinning out of control of the initiatives that had come out
> of the spontaneous, peaceful protests. There is something deeply
> disturbing in the recent incidents of arson, leading to massive
> retaliation by the police and paramilitaries. Please see below my attempt
> to make sense of what is going on. Hoping for some sane and reasoned
> responses. Apologies for cross posting on Kafila.org
>
> best,
>
> Shuddha
> ------------------
> Kashmir, September 2010. The Reichstag Fire (dispersed) Redux ?
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>
> September 14/15, 2010
>
> As if by magic, those who had hidden themselves for the past few months
> in Kashmir are leading mobs and setting schools and public buildings on
> fire. And many more people have died tragic and unnecessary deaths. This
> time, unlike in the past, the blame must be squarely shared between
> those who fired the bullets, and some of those who led the incendiary
> crowds. Perhaps Kashmir has just entered a new and darker phase,
> brandishing a burning torch. This situation, in order not to be
> irreversible, needs the urgent and sane attention of Kashmiris
> themselves, and of all those who wish Kashmir and its people well.
>
> We could do well by way of beginning by turning our attention to a
> surprising detail hidden within the reports of the recent events of
> arson. National Conference apparatchiks, who did not even dare appear in
> public till recently for fear of being attacked for their role in
> sustaining the occupation of Kashmir by India's armed might, are now
> allegedly seen openly goading mobs of zealots to burn down a school in
> the name of the defence of religion. If this is true, the what we are
> witnessing is the realization by them of a wonderful opportunity to wear
> new costumes and speak new lines in the unfolding theatre of the moment.
>
> -------
>
> See - The Indian Express Report - 'Valley Fires Rage, Omar feels the
> Delhi Chill' that lays bare the incidents of the day, including the
> burning of a school at Tangmarg.
>
> http://www.indianexpress.com/news/valley-fires-rage-omar-feels-the-
> delhi-chill/681260/0
>
> -----------
>
> Almost automatically, the tentative signs of even a partial climb- down by
> the Indian state or even a cosmetic dilution of measures like the hated
> Armed Forces Special Powers Act are being backpedalled at a furious pace.
> Almost magically, the shame and utter disgust associated with the
> discovery of videos of hideous instances of the naked humiliation of
> young men in Kashmir by the forces of the Indian state is drowned in a
> chorus of pious indignation at the sight of flames leaping in the skyline
> of Kashmir's towns and summer capital.
>
> What a profound victory for the intelligence-military-spin doctoring
> establishment in Delhi and what a bitter prospect of another impending
> setback, yet another foolish 'self-goal', for the beleagured people of
> Kashmir.
>
> The higher echelons of the Indian political military and security
> establishment have reason to be thankful to the lunatic who sparked all
> this off by posing smugly for television cameras with a few burning pages
> of the Quran in hand in far away New York. They have reason to thank
> Press TV, and even more reason to thank some of the people eager to be
> seen as zealots of Islam in Kashmir, and the likes of the NC leader Ali
> Sofi of Tangmarg for his sudden discovery of himself - as both - wounded
> Muslim and calculating arsonist.
>
> It is also important to remember, that the Eid day incident of arson of a
> few government buildings in Srinagar, which is a precursor to the current
> wave of attacks on public property, took place in highly suspicious
> circumstances. Each of the targeted buildings is under heavy security
> cover at all times, some even have round the clock CCTV surveillance. It
> is extremely surprising as to how an as yet unidentified group of
> arsonists could set fire to installations that were/are by no means
> neglected from the point of view of security. There appear to be no
> witnesses to the event either. The event, which drew the immediate
> condemnation of the Mirwaiz, was nevertheless attributed by government
> agencies to sections of the crowd provoked by his speech, and an FIR was
> duly lodged against him.
>
> Other sources, claim on different fora, that people recently recruited
> into the dreaded Ikhwani counter insurgency irregulars, were seen in the
> vicinity of the targeted buildings. The truth, could be somewhere between
> the two. It could be that ikhwani elements were motivated by secret
> agencies to act as 'agent provocateurs', it could also be true that they
> had been mingling in the the otherwise peaceful protesting crowd that
> marched to Lal Chowk on Eid afternoon. Both are possible. Anything is
> possible in the shadows of Kashmir.
>
> Close on the heels of the Eid incidents came yesterday's highly
> regrettable action of a mob torching a branch of the well regarded and
> respected Tyndale Biscoe School under the expert guidance of a National
> Conference leader, Ali Mohammed Sofi in Tangmarg, ostensibly to protest
> against the isolated incident of a lone person burning a few pages of the
> holy Quran in New York (as reported by a satellite TV channel close to
> the Ahmadinijad Regime in Iran - Press TV). The unrest, reported to have
> begun in Shia neighbourhoods of Budgam in the aftermath of the Press TV
> broadcast, was swiftly contained by Shia clerics themselves, before
> spreading to other areas, apparently at the unlikely behest of
> Hurriyat(G) activists, acting in a strange concert with their
> arch-enemies - NC loyalists. Details of this murky scenario are still
> unravelling.
>
> Fortunately, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, currently the most respected voice
> within the separatist camp, and the undisputed leader of the Hurriyat(G)
> faction, despite his reputation as an Islamist hardliner has strongly and
> unequivocally condemned the school burning and other acts of arson in
> protest against the desecration of the Quran. His statement, carried in
> today's Greater Kashmir newspaper, deserves a lengthy quotation, because
> of the seriousness of the situation, and the need for saner voices, such
> as that of Geelani (in the current context of mobs intent on arson) to
> prevail.
>
> The report is as follows -
>
> ------------
>
> Geelani calls for restraint in protests over Quran ‘desecration’
>
> GK NEWS NETWORK
>
> http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2010/Sep/14/geelani-calls-for-
> restraint-in-protests-over-quran-desecration--11.asp
>
> Srinagar, Sept 13:The Chairman of Hurriyat (G) Syed Ali Shah Geelani has
> called people of the Valley to exercise restraint over the
> allegeddesecration of Quran in US.
> The veteran leader condemned the attacks on Christian Missionary School
> in Tangamarg terming it handiwork of vested interests.
> “I can understand that emotions of Kashmiris Muslims have been hurt by
> the desecration of Quran. But at the same time, we have to control our
> emotions and not create such a situation which could given chance to
> vested interests to defame Islam and our movement,” Geelani told Greater
> Kashmir.
> In a bid to calm down angry protesters who had taken to streets against
> Quran desecration, Geelani addressed the protesters through telephones in
> various parts of the Valley.
> Geelani said Quran does not approve attacks on the minority communities
> or their establishments. “I urge the Muslims to protect the members of
> minority community and their religious places. We should at any cost
> maintain the age old communal harmony and brotherhood for which Kashmir
> is known World over,” he said while
> hailing the role of Christian missionaries in dissemination of education.
> Strongly condemning the desecration, Geelani said such acts show the
> frustration of US and its allies over the popularity of Islam. “Quran is
> in our hearts. By desecration of Quran the US has accepted its defeat and
> shown its cowardice,” he added.
>
> ----------------------------
>
> However, the damage had been done.
>
> The police responded to protests, not all of which were intent on arson
> and destruction of property, with massive gunfire, people died, which
> precipitated more protests. News spread in the valley faster than fire
> spreads in unprotected wooden structures. More protests, more firing. The
> result, a shocking number of sevehteen more dead in one day, smug
> television anchors nodding to the rhyhtm of their 'I told you so'
> incantations, and headlinesed that screamed - 'Kashmir Burning'.
>
> For detailed reports of the day's violence see -
>
> ---------
>
> BLOODBATH IN VALLEY: 17 killed, 100s injured; Toll 88
>
> Greater Kashmir, 15 September
>
> http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2010/Sep/14/bloodbath-in-valley-17-
> killed-100s-injured-toll-88-28.asp
>
> -----------
>
> Within a flash, the image of the resistance in Kashmir was transformed
> from being an example of the massive moral strength of unarmed,
> leaderless crowds to the picture of orchestrated mayhem and destruction
> at the behest of a few individuals, seeking to usurp 'leadership' from a
> functioning, well organized, peaceful, articulate, resistant, anarchy,
> mainly of the young and the very young. Every effort needs to be made
> (on the ground, in the web, and face to face) now to ensure that this is
> only a temporary setback, and that the powerful, leaderless and unarmed
> character of the protests is not hijacked by a new crop of 'leaders' bent
> on subversion of hard won successes.
>
> The so called 'dilution' or partial repeal of the hated AFSPA, on which
> the Central Cabinet was supposed to take a decision, now seems highly
> unlikely. The fires, and those who started them, have done their work.
> The momentum that the sacrifices of the two month long period of peaceful
> protests had generated is now threatened by two days of arson. Shall the
> people of Kashmir, and those of us outside who are concerned by their
> fate, let this pass?
>
> It is curious that the elements associated with the ruling NC, the puppet
> party of the Indian state in Kashmir have had such an open hand in the
> latest incident. This is an excellent opportunity for a section within
> the NC to re-cast itself as a champion of Islam, and to steal the
> thunder of a section of pro-Azaadi protestors by suddenly appearing to
> be even more ultra-islamist than the genuine Islamists. Similar
> situations have occurred before - the dubious role played by Kashmiri
> politicians close to Delhi (and secretly close to Delhi) in the protests
> surrounding the episode of the theft and recovery of a holy relic (a
> hair of the prophet kept at the Hazratbal shrine) in 1963 which were
> defly handled by Indian intelligence agencies allowed an earlier
> generation to lose their focus, to realize, that suddenly, the wind was
> no longer in their sails. Then too, leading mobs against the 'desecration
> of a holy relic' was a National Conference emi,nence his name happens to
> be Farooq Adullah. The drift that set in during the seventeen days of
> crisis around the holy hair in 1963 was to the greatest advantage of the
> Indian state.
>
> The same constellation of forces and opportunities seems to want to
> repeat itself today. A massive crackdown, no budging on AFSPA, and an
> opportunity for the NC and its allied cast of sleaze and shadow to
> reinvent themselves as the champions of Islam in Kashmir (with a little
> help from the - at worst, uncscrouplous, or, at best, unknowing, media
> hype of Press TV). For those who do not know it well, Press TV is not
> unlike a more urbane and sophisticated version of 'Times Now' in Iran,
> and acts as the notionally 'independent' mouthpiece of an increasingly
> unpopular regime that treats its own young people exactly as callously
> and brutally as the Indian regime does in Kashmir.
>
> The raving book burning lunacy of a lone bigot in America is not a threat
> to the world of Islam, or to the people of Kashmir and their struggle. It
> should be treated as an isolated act that has received the harshest
> condemnation of a broad spectrum of the American people, including
> politicians ranging from Barack Obama and even Sarah Palin, secular
> commentators as well as the overwhelming number Christian and Jewish
> religious leaders, along with that of of world public opinion.
> Paradoxically, the threat to burn the Quran has generated more sympathy
> for Muslims in America, especially for American Muslims, amongst ordinary
> decent Americans, than any other incident has done so far. Even in the
> concerned video clip, we can hear the voices of numerous ordinary
> Americans loudly and clearly expressing their anger and outrage at the
> thoughtless assault by the lone-ranger on the freedom of Muslims to read
> and revere their scriptures.
>
> This response (as is evident in the video, and in the broad based
> condemnation of the inicident) should be interpreted intelligently, as a
> clear victory for the rights of the freedom of worship and consience by
> Muslims in America, rather than as evidence of their marginalization, or
> threat of marginalization, by a lunatic fringe.
> SAS Geelani is right in calling for restraint while protesting, but
> incorrect in implying that the people of the US as a whole are anti-
> muslim. Such broad generalizations are neither accurate, nor useful.
>
> To be distracted, at this instant, from the pressing concerns of the
> people of Kashmir, which have to do with violence, human rights
> violations, disappearances, the AFSPA and the illegitimacy of the
> occupation itself into a wild goose chase in search of the global Muslim
> Umma's notionally wounded honour, and into an ersatz Anti-
> Indianism/Anti-Americanism/Anti-Semitism is to play directly into the
> hands of the state in India, USA and Israel, which can happily paint the
> people of Kashmir (and Muslims everywhere) as 'Islamist zealots' on the
> one hand, even as it stokes the fires of communal and secterian passion
> through the underhand games of its trusted clients.
>
> The people of Kashmir, if they do not wish to fritter away the gains of a
> sophisticated and maturing political language of action in this current
> phase of their struggle, must not let their movement be derailed by a
> newly discovered, self-declared 'Islamist' leadership, which is composed
> either of a section of delusional rank reactionaries, or of
> double-agents, willing to play the Indian state's dirty game to subvert
> the movement for Azaadi in Kashmir.
>
> Those who know the history of the Palestinian people know fully well that
> the divisions within Palestinian society were used to the hilt by the
> Israeli military occupiers, who promoted the direct precursors of Hamas,
> through the seventies and the eighties, by turning a blind eye to
> 'Islamist' politics in the , as a means of destabilizing the unity,
> achieved through struggle, of the movement against the occupation of
> Palestinian lands. The result, several decades later, is a sclerotic,
> divided Palestinian resistance, more content with fighting within than
> with struggling against the enemy without, more busy acting in accord
> with the conflicting agendas of cynical puppeteers in Iran, Syria and
> Saudi Arabia (who express nothing other than a 'token' sympathy with
> Palestinians in order to mask the stench of their own regimes)
>
> The bogey of 'Islam in Danger' in Kashmir is an instrument wielded by the
> clients of the shadowy operatives of the Indian state. The Iranian
> regime, as is to be expected, is also playing its dubious part. These may
> at first seem to be at cross purposes, but in reality, they are not very
> different from each other. Both have a stake (coming from different
> directions) in diluting the popular content of Kashmiri resistance into a
> 'pan-Islamic' movement that loses its specificity, its acuteness and
> sharpness, and begins to degenerate into the rhetorical banality of
> global Islamism - a chimera that can very conveniently mean all things
> to all people, and nothing at all to those it claims directly to
> represent.
>
> The Islamic Republic of Iran has consistently supported the objective
> reality of the Indian occupation of Kashmir. It has done this in order to
> bolster its own doctrine of suppressing the Kurds, Iranian Arabs and
> other Iranian minorities and to irritate Pakistan, which it has always
> seen as a client state of the USA, and with which it has issues of its
> own.
>
> This said, factions within the current Iranian regime may appear to be
> moving in the direction of thinking of a replacement of Indian power in
> Kashmir, but this does not by any means signify that it wants to see the
> emergence of a stable and independent Kashmir. Its new found concern for
> Kashmir does not stem from a genuine sympathy for Kashmir, but out of its
> own geo-political concerns. It is competing with India to be a regional
> hegemon, and its dabbling in Kashmir's troubled waters is just an
> indication of the moves it is preparing to make. Kashmiri people by and
> large (with the exception of a few gentlemen in the separatist camp) have
> few illusions about the dubiousness of successive Pakistani state
> sponsored support for the 'Kashmir Cause'. It would be at tragedy if this
> measure of mature realism about Pakistan were to be replaced by an
> untimely and credulous enthusiasm for the cynical moves of the current
> Iranian regime.
>
> The wider world (beyond the reach of the cliches of the self- declared
> leadership of the so-called Muslim umma, which never cared fundamentally
> for the fates of struggling people anywhere, within or without the
> Islamicate sphere) is just about beginning to be interested again, (and
> about time) in Kashmir. For this wider world to be suddenly confronted
> by images of bigots who burn schools in rage against bigots who burn
> pages from the scriptures is to virtually ensure that it's interest
> rapidly turns into indifference, if not into disdain. The people of
> Kashmir cannot afford to let that happen at this crucial juncture in
> their history. They must remember, that some fires, like the fire in the
> Reichstag in Berlin, at the beginning of Nazi power, are started
> precisely by those in power in order to put down the flames of liberty,
> and to give resistance a bad name. I hope that the people of Kashmir are
> not fooled into witnessing Kashmir's own distributed and dispersed
> version of the Reichstag Fire.
>
> It is time that the broad masses of the people of Kashmir, and their
> friends outside Kashmir, understood this very simple fact. Stick to what
> is happening on the ground, to the evil that men do to men, women and
> children. Let offences against God and faith, be taken care of by God,
> if, whoseover he or she is, so desires. And, burn nothing - neither
> books, nor buildings, nor schools, nor places of refuge or worship, nor
> the remaining chances of the forging of a new, exemplary language of
> resistance in Kashmir.
>
> END
> ___________
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>
>
>
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