Amitabh Mattoo - The Meerut scar
When, in June 1977, then prime minister Morarji Desai visited Srinagar on the eve of the elections for the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly, he was greeted, it is said, by women singing a traditional Kashmiri anthem, the wanwun. “Desai was the prince”, they sang, “Who had arrived from Pakistan (Pakistanuk shahzad aww)”. Unruffled by this unexpected tribute, Desai quickly became a hero for the Kashmiris as he promised and delivered the only fair election in Kashmir’s history till then, even as his Janata Party aligned itself with the pro-Pakistan Awami Action Committee of Maulvi Farooq. For Desai, winning the trust of Kashmiris was critical to India’s strategic objectives; if that happened, Pakistan would remain for most Kashmiris no more than a slogan or a song. It is worth recalling this probably apocryphal anecdote to illustrate not just how the challenge before every prime minister of India since 1947 has been to make the Muslims of Kashmir believe in and perhaps even celebrate the idea of India, but also the complex and ambivalent relationship that the people of Kashmir have had with Pakistan.
The ugly treatment meted out recently by the authorities of a Meerut university and the police to a group of Kashmiri students, who were said to be cheering for the Pakistan cricket team during the Asia Cup match against India, has just added to the disconnect between the Valley and the rest of India. It is precisely such events that demonstrate how that complex and ambivalent relationship manifests itself too often as a lack of understanding of the uniqueness of Kashmir and of the Kashmiri identity.
It is easy to forget that unlike most other parts of India, Kashmiris consciously chose India over Pakistan in 1947. If it had not been for the vacillations of Maharaja Hari Singh, there would have been no Kashmir dispute. The then most popular Kashmiri leader, Sheikh Abdullah, believed in the ideals of India’s freedom movement and was convinced that the Kashmiri identity would be more secure in Mahatma Gandhi’s India than in Jinnah’s Pakistan. In turn, a Muslim majority state that voluntarily acceded to India in 1947 lent tremendous strength to the construction of India as a vibrant, pluralistic state.
Despite the huge resources invested by Islamabad, few in Kashmir have ever really wanted to be part of Pakistan, least of all the dysfunctional state that exists today. Consider this. In 1947, it was the Kashmiri Maqbool Sherwani who led the resistance against the tribal invaders from Pakistan and sacrificed his life in defence of his cause. In 1965, it was the Kashmiris who revealed the presence of Pakistani infiltrators and foiled the Pakistan army’s Operation Gibraltar. More recently, it was the Kashmiris who resisted the “foreign” militants who had been sponsored by Pakistan.
And yet, Pakistan has loomed large in the Kashmiri imagination and continues to do so for a variety of reasons. In his masterly study, Weapons of the Weak, James C. Scott emphasises the importance of subtle everyday acts of resistance as an instrument of protest. Cultural resistance and non-conformation is often an articulation of the collective anger of a traumatised people. In this case, pro-Pakistan sentiment is simply a symbol of anger against India. Pakistan is the choice that Kashmiris did not exercise, but each time India makes yet another mistake, Sheikh Abdullah’s decision is called into question. Pakistan is the “alternative” Kashmiris have to prevent India from taking them for granted. In failing to understand this paradox, the authorities of Swami Vivekanand Subharti University in Meerut (led — not surprisingly — by a chancellor who is a retired IAS officer, a pro-chancellor who is a retired general, and a vice chancellor who is a retired police officer) have failed India.
Remember when the disconnect with India intensifies, Kashmiris are ready to support just about anyone else — not just Pakistan. On October 13, 1983, at the first one-day international between India and the West Indies in Srinagar, Kashmiris booed the Indians and cheered for the West Indians to the point that the visiting captain, Clive Lloyd, said he could never expect such a reception even in his hometown, Guyana. Twelve Kashmiris were arrested for digging up parts of the pitch that day and were acquitted only 28 years later for “lack of evidence”. Many spent several months in jail, and later formed the backbone of the militancy. One of them, Showkat Bakshi, became a top commander of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. He later told a newspaper: “I was a kid then, and we were simply protesting against holding the match here. I was arrested and put behind bars for four months initially and booked for waging war against the country. For the next six years, I was continuously harassed — so much so that I picked up the gun.”
A whole generation of Kashmiris has been born and has grown up during the worst years of violent conflict. They have viewed India through the traumas of militancy and the lack of any form of governance. Two years ago, more than a 100 young Kashmiris were killed during largely peaceful protests. But there is a change. More and more Kashmiris are now realising that there is an India beyond bunkers, security forces and corrupt and corrupted politicians. It is the vibrant India of entrepreneurs, professionals, civil society activists and the robust and free media, among others. The authorities at the Meerut university have unfortunately deeply damaged the Kashmiris discovery of this India, hopefully not beyond repair...
read more:
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-meerut-scar/99/Karan Thapar - When India toured Pakistan & our hosts cheered our victories, we applauded them for doing so.
The Meerut police’s decision to file criminal charges against 67 Kashmiri students for cheering the Pakistani cricket team raises serious questions that have not been properly addressed. Those questions, in turn, reveal disturbing aspects about the police, our society, and the young Kashmiris. Although the police dropped sedition charges, were they unaware that as far back as 1962 the Supreme Court read down Section 124 of the Penal Code to only apply in situations where violence is threatened against the State and not simply because something critical, even if it amounts to disaffection, has been said? Over 50 years later the police have no excuse for this ignorance. Second, cheering the Pakistani cricket cream cannot be construed as disaffection, leave aside sedition.
The police, however, have still charged the Kashmiris with promoting enmity and mischief. That suggests it’s a crime to cheer the opponents of the Indian cricket team. But it’s not; not by any stretch of the imagination. This is nothing short of blatant abuse of the law. This dismal episode also reveals our society in a hypocritical light. Normally, praising the other side is good sportsmanship. In 2004, when India toured Pakistan, and our hosts cheered our victories, we applauded them for doing so. We praised the large heartedness of the Pakistani audience. Isn’t it strange that 10 years later, when Kashmiris cheer Pakistan, we press criminal charges?
I’ve found several lawyers who sharply criticise the Meerut police but very few politicians. Even our external affairs minister, a prominent Muslim MP and in his personal capacity a leading lawyer, refuses to comment on the charges. Yet he spoke without hesitation about how “distressing” he found the Kashmiri behaviour. Of course, there’s no denying the fact the Kashmiri students were doing more than just cheering India’s opponents. This wasn’t simply a case of good sportsmanship. It was primarily an expression of alienation from the rest of the country. It was a political and not a sporting gesture. In many ways the students remind me of Indian and Pakistani spectators in the 1980s and 1990s at cricket matches in England when the home team played visitors from the subcontinent. The Indians and Pakistanis would frequently, visibly if not vociferously, cheer England’s opponents. Yet these were people who had consciously chosen to leave their original countries and settle in Britain.
What lay behind this behaviour were two simple facts. First, the immigrants did not feel at home in England. But it also revealed they were not made to feel welcome... read on
http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/karanthapar/they-re-indian-but-don-t-feel-that-they-re-indian/article1-1195703.aspx
