Ramachandra Guha: Why attack young Kashmiris for a crime committed by someone else? // This Student Helped Evacuate Hundreds Of Kashmiris After Pulwama
NB: It has been a long-standing feature of communal politics to make innocent people pay for the crimes of a few. This noxious habit is now being pushed and encouraged by the political fronts of the RSS, which in effect means the Government of India. These people claim to hold a monopoly on patriotic fervour, but let it be said that their activities are hateful and destructive of social and national integrity. It is the duty of all citizens to resist this communal mobilisation and to protect innocent Kashmiri students who left their homes in order to study, and are now being treated as criminals.
The real criminals are the goons who have begun hounding innocents. Teachers and students across India who have any respect for human decency should do all within their power to protect these students wherever they are and put pressure on the authorities to do their constitutional duty DS
Ramachandra Guha: Why attack young Kashmiris for a crime committed by someone else?
If young Kashmiris are told that colleges in the mainland have no place for them, who does that help but jihadis? The political response within India to the barbarous attack in Pulwama has played absolutely into the hands of the Lashkar, the Jaish, and the ISI.
The real criminals are the goons who have begun hounding innocents. Teachers and students across India who have any respect for human decency should do all within their power to protect these students wherever they are and put pressure on the authorities to do their constitutional duty DS
Ramachandra Guha: Why attack young Kashmiris for a crime committed by someone else?
If young Kashmiris are told that colleges in the mainland have no place for them, who does that help but jihadis? The political response within India to the barbarous attack in Pulwama has played absolutely into the hands of the Lashkar, the Jaish, and the ISI.
I was born and raised
in Dehradun, a town which has been on the front pages of this newspaper in
recent days, for reasons that do its history and reputation no credit at all. A
series of chilling reports have appeared on the harassment of Kashmiri students
studying in that town. They were forced to flee back to their home state, while
the administrators of their colleges have been made to pledge that they will
admit no Kashmiris in future. In at least one case, a senior faculty member of
Kashmiri origin has been dismissed from his post.
This Student Helped Evacuate Hundreds Of Kashmiris After Pulwama
The Broken Middle - on the 30th anniversary of 1984
The Broken Middle - on the 30th anniversary of 1984
Those persecuting
innocent Kashmiris in Dehradun were led by activists of the Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad. Radical students of both the left and right are not prone
to reason at the best of times, and in this case the ABVP has, at it were, a
visible external stimulus for their anger — the horrific attack by terrorists
on a CRPF convoy in Pulwama. The attack was coordinated by a jihadi group based
in Pakistan, a group aided by the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani State. But
why attack young citizens of the Republic for a crime committed by someone
else, and orchestrated from across the border? And particularly the Kashmiris,
who have come to seek a decent education outside their own state, hoping
thereby to equip themselves for a job in the modern economy? How will attacking
these students help in the war against terror and in the shaming of Pakistan?
The leaders of the
ABVP are not known for careful or logical thinking. It may be hard for them to
comprehend that the Kashmiris who come outside their home state to study are,
in effect, India’s best hope for stemming the rising tide of Islamic
fundamentalism in the Valley. If these Kashmiris can go to college safely and
with self-respect in Dehradun, and then go on to work safely and with
self-respect in places like the town I now call home, Bengaluru, then other
Kashmiris will come to recognise what the jihadis seek to obscure - namely,
that for a better future for themselves and their families, a country like
India offers far better prospects than a country like Pakistan.
The ABVP is unwilling
or unable to understand that knowledge-seeking Kashmiri students can be an
indispensable aid in India’s battle against jihad. But surely the president of
the BJP can. He is
an exceptionally intelligent and well-informed man. However, he has an election
to fight, and surveys suggest that his party will be hard put to achieve
anything close to a majority in the Lok Sabha. So he chooses to go down the
path of communal bigotry. Thus, in a recent speech in Guwahati, Amit Shah said
that if the BJP returned to power in New Delhi, it “won’t allow Assam to become
another Kashmir”. It is very clear what he means by this; that the BJP will not
allow Muslims to settle in that state. The President of the BJP is willing to
stigmatise citizens of Kashmir on the basis of their religion, in order to win
more seats in Assam (where the majority religion is more compatible with the
ideology of his party).
What the ABVP did to
Kashmiris in Dehradun and what the BJP president said about Kashmir in Assam
was awful enough. Even worse, from the point of view of constitutional
propriety, were the tweets of the Governor of Meghalaya, endorsing the boycott
of Kashmiris and of their products by the rest of India. These tweets were
brought to the attention of the President’s Office soon after they were issued.
But they have not been retracted; indeed, no doubt in the knowledge that he is
protected by those he reports to, the governor has defended his despicable
statements in an interview to this newspaper.
The prime minister has
been silent on the subject - as is his wont, when it comes to matters
disturbing or controversial. One word by him would have stopped the goons of
the ABVP in their tracks. Expectedly, it has not come. Notably, though, the
president of the Congress party has said nothing either about the demonisation
of ordinary Kashmiris in the streets of Northern India, on social media, and by
powerful people in office. He, too, has an election to fight; and so cowardice
has prevailed over courage, political expediency over plain human decency.
While the BJP seeks to demonise Kashmiris to win seats elsewhere in India, the
Congress will act as if Kashmiris do not exist at all.
Kashmir, says the
political class in one voice, is an integral part of India. Kashmiris are
another matter altogether. So, instead of identifying, isolating, and weakening
those elements in the Valley who promote Islamic fundamentalism, the ruling
party now wants us to think of all residents of the Valley as traitorous. And
the leading Opposition party is happy to go along with this. This is not just
morally wrong, but politically suicidal — that is, if one’s conception of
politics goes beyond winning a particular election to assuring a secure and
prosperous future for our Republic.
The threats and
intimidation issued by the ABVP, the dog-whistles issued by Amit Shah and by
the Meghalaya governor, the silence of the prime minister and of the Congress
president - not one of these will make our jawans any safer. On the other hand,
they will please and comfort our enemies, and embolden them further. If young
Kashmiris are told that colleges in the mainland have no place for them, who
does that help but the jihadis? If the governor of one state asks us to boycott
citizens of another state, who does that help but the jihadis? If the president
of India’s ruling party insinuates that all Muslims are untrustworthy, who does
that help but the jihadis? And if all these statements go uncontested by the
prime minister and by the Congress president, who does that help but the
jihadis?
The political response
within India to the barbarous attack in Pulwama has played absolutely into the
hands of the Lashkar, the Jaish, and the ISI. When we should have been
proactive in shaming and stigmatising the Government of Pakistan for its
sponsorship of terror, we have instead been proactive in shaming and
stigmatising ourselves.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/pulwama-attack-kashmiri-students-attacked-jammu-and-kashmir-dehradun-protests-5593560/This Student Helped Evacuate Hundreds Of Kashmiris After Pulwama
Even as hundreds of
students were fleeing from cities like Dehradun and Ambala this week, the state
authorities refused to admit that Kashmiris were being targeted by right wing
activists. While one
Twitter account of the CRPF (Central Reserved Police Force)
gave out a helpline number for Kashmiri students who felt they were in danger,
the next day, another CRPF account said that news of the Kashmiri students facing
harassment was fake.This denial continued
despite video
proof of threats and intimidation against Kashmiri students and
traders in different cities of North India, and even while police officers — in
some places — were acting swiftly to ensure their safety.
Celebrities like
Anupam Kher and other persons with a large Twitter following forged a narrative
of us versus them. They said that reporting
on the Kashmiri students, who were being harassed and forced to leave, somehow
detracted from the sympathy one had for the families of the slain soldiers.
This is a false and divisive narrative. An even more illogical
narrative was built around how wrong it was to support these students because
Islamic militants had driven Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir in the early
nineties.
Almost two dozen
Kashmiri students have been suspended for posting offensive messages about the
Pulwama attack. At least five have been booked for sedition. The
insensitivity of a few students, however, is no excuse for frightening hundreds
of Kashmiris into fleeing their colleges. Earlier this week,
Vikas Verma, the convener of the Bajrang Dal in Dehradun, told HuffPost
India that he wanted “all” Kashmiri students out of Uttarakhand and
they could return when the Indian flag was raised in every house in Kashmir.
Verma also said that
the Bajrang Dal was tracking the social media account of Kashmiri students and
preparing a “dossier” to submit to the police. This vicious
environment will only prevent Kashmiris students from completing their
education and leading productive lives. Two colleges in
Dehradun have said that Kashmiri students will not be admitted in
the new academic year...
