ARUNDHATI ROY ON KASHMIR

Arundhati Roy’s recent statement on Kashmir, as quoted by The Times of India, that “India needs azadi from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs azadi from India” has raised a storm in the electronic and print media across the country. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to make a statement like this in today’s circumstances, where India, on the one hand, is completely at the mercy of self-serving, vote-bank politicians, while its neighbour, Pakistan, is re-experimenting with democracy with a known set of politicians who are no different from their coevals here. At the time of writing, there are 337 comments on The Times of India website, and these are, predictably, divided on religious lines. While a majority of Hindu commentators have roundly trashed her statement as anti-national, and questioned her mental credibility, the Muslim commentators have come in support of her views. This fact, by itself, should vindicate her observations. However, it is time that the question of Kashmir is debated widely, and dispassionately, as it is in the interest of world peace that a lasting solution is found to this problem.

From the moment the two-nation theory was conceived, there should have been no doubt in the minds of rational people that it would be inconceivable to keep Muslim-majority areas within the Indian union, especially those contiguous with Pakistan. It is too late now to question the legitimacy of the Radcliffe Line, and the subsequent merger of the princely states with the Indian Union. But the question of Kashmir was never settled, even after three wars were fought by the two neighbours in 1948, 1965, and 1971. India had an opportunity in 1971 to force a permanent settlement down the throat of Bhutto in Simla, but Mrs. Indira Gandhi, gloating in the adulation of an hysterical nation, and completely charmed by the wily Pakistani, not only returned the POW’s, but also frittered away the fruits of the famous military victory. The defeat of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh was not followed-up by hard political thinking, and instead of making the country a secure nation, we have ended up by creating a stronger enemy on our western borders, unfettered by the need to keep a rebellious province, 2000 kms away, in check; while ending up with a more than hostile neighbour on the eastern front. Mrs. Gandhi could have made Pakistan accept the LOC as the international border between India and Pakistan, and the Kashmir issue could have been settled permanently. Even Sheikh Mujib could have been offered the choice of joining his fledgling state with India, combining the two Bengals together, and making him the Chief Minister of the new state. In the afterglow of the humiliating defeat inflicted upon Pakistan, the Indian Prime Minister was in a unique position to make the Indian people accept these decisions. On the other side, the people of Pakistan would also have accepted our terms under pressure from the families of the 90000 POWs. The people of Kashmir, always ambivalent and dissembling, would have had no difficulty in accepting the situation, and would have settled down to a life of languid lassitude.

However, as the saying goes, it is no use crying over spilt milk. Mrs. Gandhi, as subsequent events revealed, did not possess the skills and temperament of a thinking politician. Her deep sense of insecurity led her into the clutches of flatterers, charlatans, and plain crooks, who manipulated her for their own personal benefits. Within four years she had lost control of the nation. Misguided by her son and the coterie around him, she declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution, and almost created the same conditions in India as had existed in Pakistan. The moral ground was totally lost! And with that was lost the opportunity of making India a strong nation, respected and feared by its neighbours and the world at large. Bhutto, in the West, was overthrown by one Zia, and hanged; while Mujib, in the East, was assassinated with his family, on the orders of another Zia.

With the army once more in power in Pakistan, it lost no time in renewing its demand for Kashmir, but this time it infiltrated the small separatist element in the valley, and under the guise of creating a global Islamic society, took over the agenda of this fringe. The Kashmiris fell easily into this trap, and from 1989 onwards have been totally under the influence of the Islamic Jehadis under the control of the ISI. In the last two decades the Islamists have managed to practically cleanse the valley of its non-Muslim residents, both through murder, and intimidation. The Pandits and the Sikhs, already marginalized since independence, were anyway relocating in other parts of India and abroad. Educational and employment opportunities were very limited, and these were grabbed by the Muslims. Investment in institutions in Jammu province was negligible, while all the money poured into the state by India went to feathering the nests of the politicians of the valley, and financing projects for the benefit of their constituents.

The methodology of terror, intimidation, and murder employed against the hapless Pandits and Sikhs of the valley, was totally unnecessary, as they were no threat to the complete political and economic domination of the Muslim majority. The ethnic cleansing can be compared to the Nazi’s ‘final solution’ of the Jewish problem, and can be understood only in Jihadi terms. M.J. Akbar, in his book “Blood Brothers” writes: ‘Muslims are peaceful only when powerless’… ‘Muslims will tell you that Islam is a religion of peace. Bunk! There are two kinds of verses in the Quran, those uttered in Mecca and those uttered in Medina. In Mecca the Prophet of Muslims was not in power, so in Mecca he said things like, your religion for you and mine for me. But in Medina he became a king. What happened then? His Allah suddenly began to send verses saying that all non-Muslims should be slaughtered in a jihad…’Kashmir emphatically confirms this mentality and it is futile to expect the Kashmiri Muslim to ever feel that he belongs to a nation where Hindus are in a majority. The Muslim will always be more loyal to Mecca and Medina than to his own land. This is something the secularists are unable to see, and they continue to propound the myth that Kashmir is an integral part of India.

Philip Spratt, an English journalist, editing a Bangalore journal MysIndia, wrote in 1952 that India should abandon its claim over Kashmir, and allow Sheikh Abdullah to realize his dream of independence. Spratt wanted the Indian army to be withdrawn from J & K and all loans to the state written off. ‘Let Kashmir go ahead, alone and adventurously, in her explorations of a secular state’, he wrote. ‘We shall watch the act of faith with due sympathy but at a safe distance, our honour, our resources and our future free from the enervating entanglements which write a lie in our soul.’ Ramachandra Guha, in his "India After Gandhi” writes, 'Spratt’s solution was tinged with morality, but more so with economy and prudence. Indian policy, he argued, was based on ‘a mistaken belief in the one-nation theory and greed to own the beautiful and strategic valley of Srinagar’. The costs of this policy, present and future, were incalculable. Rather than give Kashmir special privileges and create resentment elsewhere in India, it was best to let the state go. As things stood, however, Kashmir ‘was in the grip of two armies glaring at each other in a state of armed neutrality. It may suit a handful of people to see the indefinite continuance of this ghastly situation. But the Indian taxpayer is paying through his nose for the precarious privilege of claiming Kashmir as part of India on the basis of all the giving on India’s side and all the taking on Kashmir’s side’.

Coming back to Arundhati Roy’s statement on Kashmir, I am assuming that she would like freedom to and from the Muslim-majority valley of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. The people of Jammu have never been equivocal in their preference and we can believe that they would never want to be a part of Pakistan. The Ladakhis, I am afraid, have never been asked, and if given a choice, they could go either way. Islam is as prevalent as Buddhism in their province. Roy, in her proposal, is probably suggesting that India should do what Philip Spratt had suggested in 1952, with the modification that the Jammu province remains with the Indian Union, and the valley is given its cherished ‘azadi’. A referendum could be held in Ladakh allowing its people to determine their future.

It is my contention that an ‘azad’ Kashmir would only be as ‘azad’ as the Pakistan-occupied Azad Kashmir is today. David Devadas, in his excellent book ‘In Search of a Future – The Story of Kashmir’, writes in the epilogue, ‘Kashmir has not, despite education and wealth, transcended its hateful contempt-ridden past. Religious, sectarian and ethnic antipathies continue’. ‘Over five centuries of frequent chaos, exploitation and repression, the trust that any society requires – the willingness to set aside religious, sectarian, caste, ethnic or even personal interests for the collective good – is in tatters. Civil society bustles, but mistrust, so often evinced as ambivalence, constantly lurks. Kashmiris have deeply imbibed a consciousness of the illegitimacy of the state, its institutions and officers. Kashmiris feel they are right to blame the Indian state for fraudulent elections and weak democracy but New Delhi’s machinations are only part of the story. Kashmiris are loath to examine the roles of their leaders, the effects of their history and the state of their society…The unfortunate fact is that personal ambitions are foremost in the minds of many of Kashmir’s leaders – but no more than among most of Kashmir’s people.’

At the slightest pretext the Kashmiris of the valley are ready to storm into the streets, raising anti-India slogans, waving Pakistani flags, and engaging the security forces in pitched street battles. How then can we claim them as an integral part of India? If the transfer of a mere 100 acres of uncultivable land for the use of providing temporary shelter to Hindu pilgrims once in a year can cause so much turmoil in the valley, then how can we justify the billions that are being poured into Kashmir year after year? Isn’t Arundhati Roy justified in demanding that we Indians should get ‘azadi’ from Kashmir? Why are we continuing to be slaves to an idea which never existed in the first place? For heaven’s sake let us get rid of this yoke for ever. Let us leave the Kashmiris of the valley to make their own future and say, “good riddance”. But before that let us relocate the remaining few non-Muslims to a more hospitable India; for it is certain that they will either be forced to convert to Islam or be put to the sword in an “Azad Kashmir”. Hell, as Sartre would have said, ‘is the other’.