[Reader-list] Fwd: The country didn’t want its official narrative on Kashmir to be questioned: Barsamian

[Nagraj Adve]

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws230911Kashmir.asp

The country didn’t want its official narrative on the state to be
questioned: Barsamian

*He had to travel to Srinagar on 26 September to do a story on the State
Human Rights Commission’s report on unmarked graves*

*Riyaz Wani*
Srinagar

Deported American radio broadcaster David Barsamian has said that India
denied him entry because of his views on Kashmir. Barsamian was deported
from New Delhi airport and put back on the return plane to the United States
on Friday. He said that Kashmir was, “at the heart of India’s concerns and
the country didn’t want its official narrative on the state to be
questioned”. "It's all about Kashmir,” Barsamian said in an email to TEHELKA
from the US. “I've done work on Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal,
Narmada dam, farmer suicides, Gujarat pogrom, and the Binayak Sen case. But
it's Kashmir that is at the heart of the Indian state's concerns. The
official narrative must not be contested”.

He further wrote that he was happy that he escaped without being tortured.
“I have my fingernails, no welts on my back, no electric shock. I am safe
and sound unlike some in the world's largest democracy," Barsamian said.
Barsamian who is known for his independent views on American foreign policy
and is the director of Alternative Radio, a Colorado-based syndicated weekly
talk program heard on some 125 radio stations in various countries said he
is “sad and furious” for being turned back from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi
International Airport.

He is also known for his interview-based books on Noam Chomsky, Eqbal Ahmad,
Edward Said, Howard Zinn and others. It were his recent forays in Kashmir
that became a source of unease for the central government which apparently
didn’t want him to visit the state at a time when situation here was
peaceful. This time round, Barsamian had to travel to Srinagar on 26
September to do a story on the State Human Rights Commission’s report on
unmarked graves. “He was scheduled to do interviews with the families of the
disappeared persons and also take a look at the overall human rights
situation in the state,” Khurram Parvez, coordinator of Association of
Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), told TEHELKA.

During his past two visits to Kashmir – in 2007 and 2011 – Barsamian
alienated the establishment by siding with the separatist resistance, even
urging people to “persevere” in their struggle. He also did interviews with
the people to highlight the situation in the state. In an interview he gave
himself, Barsamian drew a parallel between the uprisings in Kashmir over the
past three years and the revolution in Egypt. “In a way what happened over
the last three summers (in Kashmir) was similar to Tahrir Square in Egypt
over and over again, but without a neutral army, with a security force that
was actually not showing restraint and was shooting into the crowds and so
on,” Barsamian said. “So what we saw is a sentiment for freedom, which keeps
expressing itself in different ways”.

Barsamian is also known for his critique of US war on terror, challenging in
the process the prevalent understanding of terrorism. “What is terrorism?
What do you call these bombings, these drone attacks on Pakistan, when they
hit a wedding party, a madarsa, a Masjid or people’s homes, a school, what
is that? That’s State terror. But when the State does it, it becomes
defence. If you have a small group of people who blow up a bus, that’s
terrorism,” he said in an interview.

Barsamian is the second US citizen to be deported from New Delhi airport in
the past ten months. In November 2010 US academic Professor Richard Shapiro
was denied entry by immigration authorities in New Delhi. Shapiro is
chairman and associate professor at the Department of Anthropology at the
California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. He is
married to Angana Chatterji, co-convener of International People's Tribunal
on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir. In May this year, J-K government
deported human rights activist Gautum Navlakha from Srinagar airport.

Barsamian's tryst with India goes back long. He first arrived in India in
1966. His association with sitar maestro Debu Maharaj, who also teaches him,
deepened his bond with the country.

*Riyaz Wani is a Special Correspondent with Tehelka. *
riyaz at tehelka.com

-- 
Peace Is Doable