Posts
MY KASHMIR:
CONFLICT AND THE PROSPECTS OF ENDURING PEACE
BY
WAJAHAT HABIBULLAH
“They make a desolation and call it peace.”
--Agha Shahid Ali in
“Country without a Post Office”
Perhaps the most qualified among the commentators on the issue of Kashmir, Wajahat Habibullah has drawn upon his extraordinary career as an IAS Officer, serving in various administrative positions in the state of Jammu & Kashmir; and put together an account that tries to unravel the intricate web of the ethnic, religious, political, economic, and territorial issues that have made Kashmir into an “island the size of a grave.”
From first being posted to J&K in 1969 as the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of a District, and until his retirement in 2005, he served in various positions of administrative authority in almost all the districts of the state. Between1990 and 1993 as the Divisional Commissioner of the nine districts of Kashmir, he almost got killed in a militant attack during the siege of the Hazratbal shrine. His is a classic view of the insider, being privy to the interactions between the Indian government, the state government, and the local politicians. “My Kashmir” is the outpouring of a sensitive mind anguished by a wanton culture of violence and destruction.
Tracing the origins of the conflict from almost as far back as 1846 when the Dogras bought the territory from the British, Habibullah takes us through the history of the state from being a Paradise on Earth to becoming a veritable Hell. How the Islam of sufi syncretism, that so easily absorbed the essences of Buddhism and Saivite Hinduism, transformed into its present exclusivist form, leading to the mass migration of the Kashmiri Pandits whose numbers dwindled from 1,25,000 to a mere 7,000 in the valley? How the Indian government exacerbated the problem because of the exigencies of national politics rather than the wishes of the Kashmiri people? How the lack of trust between the Indian government and the people of Kashmir gave Pakistan an opportunity to fish in the troubled waters and keep the fires of militancy raging?
Kashmiris themselves are unable to define what they mean by azadi., but generally they mean political and territorial independence. But an independent state of about five-and-a-half million people occupying 8,500 sq. miles of mostly mountainous territory, located in one of the world’s most volatile regions, amid rival nuclear powers, is hardly likely to be left free.
With acute perspicacity, Habibullah states that for Pakistan Kashmir may be the core issue. “But the explanation of Pakistan’s unabated hostility lies elsewhere. It is characterized by Pakistan’s quest for balance with India since 1947. This quest led to an overemphasis on the military budget giving the army a privileged, and unduly powerful, political status even when Pakistan was not under direct military rule. It lies in the quest for a distinct identity of a state that aspired on its creation, to represent the Muslims of the entire Indian subcontinent even though it became home for fewer than one-third. This tension was exacerbated by continuing Indian perceptions of Pakistan as a breakaway part of greater India.”
However, even though Pakistan today may have reluctantly come to the conclusion that a plebiscite in Kashmir may not result in the Kashmiris opting to accede to Pakistan, yet there cannot be a resolution to the problem without bringing Pakistan into the picture. Whereas Pakistan considers Kashmir as the unfinished work of partition, India sees it as the vindication of its own concept of secular nationhood. Any settlement should, therefore, be placed in the “context of national pride for both nations, so no substantial compromise on territory can or should be expected.”
Habibullah believes that for enduring peace to return to the troubled valley, “terrorism in the state must cease, and Pakistan’s commitment to it must precede any further move. If terrorism were to persist, the Indian army had to maintain its presence in full force. Cessation of cross-border terrorist activity would need to be reciprocated by withdrawal of security forces from residential townships in the state”. According to him, the ingredients for the exercise of real freedom are present in the existing framework of India, as India’s constitutional and institutional machinery has evolved to allow freedom. “Freedom can be achieved while retaining the territorial integrity of both India and Pakistan, with the present boundaries becoming soft borders.” “India must concede to the people of Jammu & Kashmir the liberty that is the right of every Indian citizen.” Enduring peace will come through democratic processes, making the affected people feel that they are in charge of their own lives’. Decentralization, free and fair elections allowing all elements to participate, self-government down to the village level, and respect for the dignity of the Kashmiri people, are central to the resolution of the problem.
Habibullah even sees a role for the US in the resolution of the conflict. According to him Kashmiris have historically viewed the US as an honest broker, despite 9/11 and Iraq. This image the US could do well to cultivate by exerting pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the terrorist structure on its side of the Line of control, and to restrain the ISI from providing support to the separatist and militant outfits in Kashmir.
Finally, he echoes the anguish of a young Kashmiri, Usmaan Rahim Ahmed, who wrote on April 30, 2004: “My conviction is that all of us in generation next, in our own humble ways, must hope, pray, and search and work so that, from these mountains of ashes in Kashmir, a phoenix will rise, not phantoms!”
Saturday, September 20, 2008
PSYWAR AND THE FUTURE OF KASHMIR
The list of the 20 signatories to the open statement on the captioned subject carried by The New Indian Express in its edition of September 19, 2008 reads like a who’s who of people who in their various capacities as senior government officials, diplomats, top brass of the Indian armed forces, Intelligence and security agencies’ chiefs, responsible members of the press, and leaders of industry, could have exercised their combined and considerable influence in resolving what has become an intractable problem—the conflict in Kashmir. But the fact remains that even sixty years after the “unquestionable” accession of Kashmir to India we are still fighting a secessionist insurgency in the state, overtly and covertly supported by a hostile neighbour.
It is very well to quote the authority of the Constitution, and to reassert “national will” and “state power”. But when a whole population of a section of a state is demanding freedom, and waging war to attain it, we cannot take shelter behind considerations of “a nation aspiring to become a major player in global power dynamics”. To state that “there is no basis on which any change in the political status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir could be considered” without providing an alternative solution to end insurgency and bring peace to this troubled valley is to escape responsibility while sounding patriotic. Just saying and repeatedly asserting “as proud and patriotic Indians who strongly believe that the unity and secular democratic fabric of our republic must be preserved at all costs” and calling upon “the Government of India to make it unequivocally clear at the highest level that under no circumstances will the government and people of India countenance any compromise with the integrity of the nation” has not made the problem disappear. Such statements look nice in print and sound very lofty. But they alone are not enough to make the affected people to suspend and terminate their protests and return to a peaceful way of existence. From such a formidable galaxy of minds and experience one would have expected at least a half-solution to the problem, but what we have is nothing but a repetition of pious declarations, clichés, and platitudinous exhortations.
Extraordinary situations require extraordinary solutions. And there is no denying the fact that the situation in Kashmir is extraordinary. The insurgency since 1989 has wreaked havoc on the social, cultural, ethnic and religious fabric of not only Jammu & Kashmir, but on the entire nation. What the Kashmiri Pandits have faced is nothing short of ethnic cleansing, and from being an integral part of the valley, have today been reduced to becoming refugees in their own country, living in abysmal conditions in shanties spread over the city of Jammu and its suburbs. Even there they are just tolerated, as their presence has put pressure on the economic resources of the province, leading to escalation in the prices of land and other commodities. The Pandits are also competing for jobs with the people of Jammu, and such situations can only exacerbate conflict. There were about 1,25,000 Pandits in the valley before the insurrection. Today, I believe there are a mere 7,000 left, perhaps because they have nowhere else to go, living in mortal fear, existing practically from day to day. Their lives can be snuffed out by any or all of the militant groups operating in the valley without a second thought. The Kashmiri Pandits today are practically on the verge of extinction as the ‘aspiring major player in global power dynamics” has no time for them. They are an expendable community as they do not constitute enough numbers to qualify as a vote bank.
The cascading effect of the insurgency and the proxy war in Kashmir on the rest of India has not been fully comprehended by the signatories. That Pakistan has taken advantage of the disaffection in Kashmir and utilized it to further its own agenda of weakening the unity of the Indian state cannot be denied. Wajahat Habibullah, perhaps the most qualified commentator on Kashmir, says in his book, “My Kashmir, Conflict and the Prospect of enduring Peace” that for Pakistan Kashmir may be the core issue, but “the explanation of Pakistan’s unabated hostility lies elsewhere. It is characterized by Pakistan’s quest for balance with India since 1947. This quest led to an overemphasis on the military budget, giving the army a privileged – and, unduly powerful – political status even when Pakistan was not under direct military rule. It lies in the quest for a distinct identity of a state that aspired, on its creation, to represent the Muslims of the entire Indian subcontinent even though it became home for fewer than one-third”.
The idea of letting the valley separate is not something of recent origin. 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 “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’.”
Pakistan has been pushing militant Jihadis of different nationalities like Sudan, Chechnya, Afghanistan, etc., to wage low intensity war in Kashmir and to train militant outfits across India. The increase in acts of violence against soft targets across the country is calculated to destroy the communal and social harmony in the country. And we have to admit that Pakistan has been more than reasonably successful in its nefarious designs. If it had not been for some covert and overt pressure from the USA after 9/11, the situation could have been much worse.
Today, the state of Jammu and Kashmir cannot be compared with any other state within the Indian union. Its three provinces are as dramatically distinct from one another as Tamil Nadu is from Haryana, or Bengal is from Gujarat. The people of Jammu are predominantly of a Punjabi culture. Even the Muslims of the Jammu province come from Rajput stock, speak a Punjabi dialect, and hold the valley Kashmiri Muslims in contempt, The Pandits and the Muslims of the valley originate from the same ethnic stock, speak the same language, which is a variant of Dardic, and have almost similar dietary habits. The Ladakhis are more akin to Tibetans, almost identical in diet and attire. The Jammu province is predominantly Hindu; Ladakh is almost equally Buddhist and Muslim, while the Kashmir valley is almost cent percent Muslim. It is unfortunate that the militants had to target a hapless, hopeless minority, who could not, and did not, pose any threat to Muslim majoritarianism in the state. The Pandits were anyway being forced by discriminatory methods to leave the state and to look for educational and employment opportunities in the rest of the country and abroad. The objective of cleansing the valley of the “non-believers” could have been achieved without violence. But Pakistan was in a hurry and it found willing allies in the disaffected youth of the valley. Being preoccupied with the exigencies of national politics, rather than with the wishes of the people of Kashmir, the Indian governments failed to develop a workable long range policy for Kashmir. Corruption and nepotism among the political leaders of Kashmir, and the Indian government’s complicity in letting such conditions persist led to a quick alienation of the youth. It is the state’s misfortune that apart from Sheikh Abdullah, no political leader has emerged who would be acceptable to all the people. At the time of partition, the Sheikh had a choice: join Pakistan, a Muslim nation but under Punjabi leadership, or join a secular nation where Kashmiris would be free to live as they chose. Sheikh Abdullah chose the second option, and to his credit, never deviated from this stand. The Indian government, in a series of blunders while dealing with Kashmir, made its first great blunder when it dismissed Sheikh Abdullah’s government and arrested him in 1953. From then onwards it has been a continuous pattern in political and administrative insincerity in dealing with Kashmir. Elections routinely rigged, corrupt and unpopular leaders installed through financially engineered defections, convinced the people that New Delhi would only allow supplicants to rule. The reactive rather than proactive response to challenges led to trigger-happy decisions, resulting in such monumental tragedies as the unprovoked firing on the funeral procession of Mirwaiz Moulavi Farooq in May 1990, causing the death of 27 mourners; the firing on a crowd of civilians in Bijbehara following the siege at Hazratbal, and countless violations of human rights in the valley. Escalating violence inevitably leads to escalating human rights abuse, both by the militants and by the security forces.
Keeping this reality of the situation on the ground in mind, and holding the cause of peace as more important than some misplaced sense of power and superiority, does one recommend a solution that takes into account the aspirations and yearnings of the people of Kashmir. The continuous violence and disturbance has led to such confusion that Kashmiris themselves are unable to define what they mean by azadi. But a politically independent, but powerless state, situated in one of the world’s most volatile regions, flanked by rival nuclear powers, has no hope that it will be left in peace.
To believe that if the valley separates because it is Muslim dominated will have its own repercussions in the rest of the country, is not a valid argument. Geographically, apart from Kashmir, these Muslims are not a majority in any of the states contiguous with Pakistan. Further, as the honourable signatories have averred: “the overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims, who constitute over 15 per cent of the population, has absolutely no sympathy for the partisan few who still fan a tired idea called secession”. In fact if the Kashmir valley is allowed to separate it will take the wind out of the sails of the Islamists, and will leave Pakistan with no excuse to further its nefarious designs in India. The move will release the vast military apparatus tied down in the valley that can be deployed for better security in the rest of the country. It will also save the national exchequer vast amounts of money literally going down the drain in the valley. Internationally too the country will gain as the allegations of human rights violations, true or imaginary, will cease and India will be able to occupy its rightful place in the comity of nations. Pakistan, on the other hand, could also benefit, as it will have no more reason to maintain a huge military establishment, thereby reducing the role of the armed forces in its governance. The country may eventually grow out of its medievalist mind-set and achieve some kind of democracy. A less hostile, democratic neighbour can only be good for India and the subcontinent.
It is very well to quote the authority of the Constitution, and to reassert “national will” and “state power”. But when a whole population of a section of a state is demanding freedom, and waging war to attain it, we cannot take shelter behind considerations of “a nation aspiring to become a major player in global power dynamics”. To state that “there is no basis on which any change in the political status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir could be considered” without providing an alternative solution to end insurgency and bring peace to this troubled valley is to escape responsibility while sounding patriotic. Just saying and repeatedly asserting “as proud and patriotic Indians who strongly believe that the unity and secular democratic fabric of our republic must be preserved at all costs” and calling upon “the Government of India to make it unequivocally clear at the highest level that under no circumstances will the government and people of India countenance any compromise with the integrity of the nation” has not made the problem disappear. Such statements look nice in print and sound very lofty. But they alone are not enough to make the affected people to suspend and terminate their protests and return to a peaceful way of existence. From such a formidable galaxy of minds and experience one would have expected at least a half-solution to the problem, but what we have is nothing but a repetition of pious declarations, clichés, and platitudinous exhortations.
Extraordinary situations require extraordinary solutions. And there is no denying the fact that the situation in Kashmir is extraordinary. The insurgency since 1989 has wreaked havoc on the social, cultural, ethnic and religious fabric of not only Jammu & Kashmir, but on the entire nation. What the Kashmiri Pandits have faced is nothing short of ethnic cleansing, and from being an integral part of the valley, have today been reduced to becoming refugees in their own country, living in abysmal conditions in shanties spread over the city of Jammu and its suburbs. Even there they are just tolerated, as their presence has put pressure on the economic resources of the province, leading to escalation in the prices of land and other commodities. The Pandits are also competing for jobs with the people of Jammu, and such situations can only exacerbate conflict. There were about 1,25,000 Pandits in the valley before the insurrection. Today, I believe there are a mere 7,000 left, perhaps because they have nowhere else to go, living in mortal fear, existing practically from day to day. Their lives can be snuffed out by any or all of the militant groups operating in the valley without a second thought. The Kashmiri Pandits today are practically on the verge of extinction as the ‘aspiring major player in global power dynamics” has no time for them. They are an expendable community as they do not constitute enough numbers to qualify as a vote bank.
The cascading effect of the insurgency and the proxy war in Kashmir on the rest of India has not been fully comprehended by the signatories. That Pakistan has taken advantage of the disaffection in Kashmir and utilized it to further its own agenda of weakening the unity of the Indian state cannot be denied. Wajahat Habibullah, perhaps the most qualified commentator on Kashmir, says in his book, “My Kashmir, Conflict and the Prospect of enduring Peace” that for Pakistan Kashmir may be the core issue, but “the explanation of Pakistan’s unabated hostility lies elsewhere. It is characterized by Pakistan’s quest for balance with India since 1947. This quest led to an overemphasis on the military budget, giving the army a privileged – and, unduly powerful – political status even when Pakistan was not under direct military rule. It lies in the quest for a distinct identity of a state that aspired, on its creation, to represent the Muslims of the entire Indian subcontinent even though it became home for fewer than one-third”.
The idea of letting the valley separate is not something of recent origin. 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 “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’.”
Pakistan has been pushing militant Jihadis of different nationalities like Sudan, Chechnya, Afghanistan, etc., to wage low intensity war in Kashmir and to train militant outfits across India. The increase in acts of violence against soft targets across the country is calculated to destroy the communal and social harmony in the country. And we have to admit that Pakistan has been more than reasonably successful in its nefarious designs. If it had not been for some covert and overt pressure from the USA after 9/11, the situation could have been much worse.
Today, the state of Jammu and Kashmir cannot be compared with any other state within the Indian union. Its three provinces are as dramatically distinct from one another as Tamil Nadu is from Haryana, or Bengal is from Gujarat. The people of Jammu are predominantly of a Punjabi culture. Even the Muslims of the Jammu province come from Rajput stock, speak a Punjabi dialect, and hold the valley Kashmiri Muslims in contempt, The Pandits and the Muslims of the valley originate from the same ethnic stock, speak the same language, which is a variant of Dardic, and have almost similar dietary habits. The Ladakhis are more akin to Tibetans, almost identical in diet and attire. The Jammu province is predominantly Hindu; Ladakh is almost equally Buddhist and Muslim, while the Kashmir valley is almost cent percent Muslim. It is unfortunate that the militants had to target a hapless, hopeless minority, who could not, and did not, pose any threat to Muslim majoritarianism in the state. The Pandits were anyway being forced by discriminatory methods to leave the state and to look for educational and employment opportunities in the rest of the country and abroad. The objective of cleansing the valley of the “non-believers” could have been achieved without violence. But Pakistan was in a hurry and it found willing allies in the disaffected youth of the valley. Being preoccupied with the exigencies of national politics, rather than with the wishes of the people of Kashmir, the Indian governments failed to develop a workable long range policy for Kashmir. Corruption and nepotism among the political leaders of Kashmir, and the Indian government’s complicity in letting such conditions persist led to a quick alienation of the youth. It is the state’s misfortune that apart from Sheikh Abdullah, no political leader has emerged who would be acceptable to all the people. At the time of partition, the Sheikh had a choice: join Pakistan, a Muslim nation but under Punjabi leadership, or join a secular nation where Kashmiris would be free to live as they chose. Sheikh Abdullah chose the second option, and to his credit, never deviated from this stand. The Indian government, in a series of blunders while dealing with Kashmir, made its first great blunder when it dismissed Sheikh Abdullah’s government and arrested him in 1953. From then onwards it has been a continuous pattern in political and administrative insincerity in dealing with Kashmir. Elections routinely rigged, corrupt and unpopular leaders installed through financially engineered defections, convinced the people that New Delhi would only allow supplicants to rule. The reactive rather than proactive response to challenges led to trigger-happy decisions, resulting in such monumental tragedies as the unprovoked firing on the funeral procession of Mirwaiz Moulavi Farooq in May 1990, causing the death of 27 mourners; the firing on a crowd of civilians in Bijbehara following the siege at Hazratbal, and countless violations of human rights in the valley. Escalating violence inevitably leads to escalating human rights abuse, both by the militants and by the security forces.
Keeping this reality of the situation on the ground in mind, and holding the cause of peace as more important than some misplaced sense of power and superiority, does one recommend a solution that takes into account the aspirations and yearnings of the people of Kashmir. The continuous violence and disturbance has led to such confusion that Kashmiris themselves are unable to define what they mean by azadi. But a politically independent, but powerless state, situated in one of the world’s most volatile regions, flanked by rival nuclear powers, has no hope that it will be left in peace.
To believe that if the valley separates because it is Muslim dominated will have its own repercussions in the rest of the country, is not a valid argument. Geographically, apart from Kashmir, these Muslims are not a majority in any of the states contiguous with Pakistan. Further, as the honourable signatories have averred: “the overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims, who constitute over 15 per cent of the population, has absolutely no sympathy for the partisan few who still fan a tired idea called secession”. In fact if the Kashmir valley is allowed to separate it will take the wind out of the sails of the Islamists, and will leave Pakistan with no excuse to further its nefarious designs in India. The move will release the vast military apparatus tied down in the valley that can be deployed for better security in the rest of the country. It will also save the national exchequer vast amounts of money literally going down the drain in the valley. Internationally too the country will gain as the allegations of human rights violations, true or imaginary, will cease and India will be able to occupy its rightful place in the comity of nations. Pakistan, on the other hand, could also benefit, as it will have no more reason to maintain a huge military establishment, thereby reducing the role of the armed forces in its governance. The country may eventually grow out of its medievalist mind-set and achieve some kind of democracy. A less hostile, democratic neighbour can only be good for India and the subcontinent.
Friday, September 12, 2008
KANDHAMAL
KANDHAMAL, THE CONTINUING STORY OF
EXPLOITATION AND DISPOSSESSION
I have to confess that like most of the urban, educated, English-language-speaking elite I was not aware of the existence of this small and backward district of Orissa, a state generally associated with starvation and famine. The outbreak of violence and the resultant deaths of several poor people, therefore, did not seem as something out of the ordinary, for such incidents are happening every other day in some part of India. Nor did the temporary spotlight turned upon the area by the print and television media appear to be different. The secular media, of course, went to town about the clash between Hindus and Christians, declaiming that the Hindu mobs had unleashed its fury on the hapless Christians of the district, without sufficient cause. The political parties jumped upon the bandwagon, seeing an opportunity for destabilizing the incumbent state government. All this, by itself, does not make one sit up, as violence seems to have become a way of everyday life. Our sensibilities have become inured to these daily occurrences, and we hardly take note of them. Therefore, when Kandhamal erupted, it did not evoke a different response.
Gurumurthy’s article in The New Indian Express of Sept. 11 again did not have anything unusual to tell. The activities of evangelical missionaries in the backward districts of India; the huge global funds available to them for the “harvest of souls” etc.; the declining numerical gap between Hindus and Christians in these areas; are all known facts. What really came as a surprise was his statement that the Kandhas, the traditional, tribal rulers of the area, chose to remain true to their faith and refused to convert, rejecting the allurements and blandishments held out to them by the missionaries. The Kandhas are aboriginal tribals, and in spite of reservations offered to the tribals by a patronizing state, they have been systematically marginalized and driven from their traditional lands. Their continuous exploitation and dispossession has made the tribals easy fodder for the missionaries, ever on the lookout for ways to increase the number of true believers in the “only true faith”.
Why the Kandhas resisted the onslaught of nearly 360 evangelical outfits is perhaps a subject for a different study? What, however, is obvious is that India has miserably failed in its attempt to lift its “naked, hungry mass” out of abject poverty, deprivation, and degradation, even sixty years after independence from British rule. Fifty years after independence, in 1997, the government estimates reveal that the number of people who are below the absolute poverty level is equal to 35 crore; which was the total population of the country in 1947. Why has this condition endured in the country despite its rapid economic growth, despite the IT revolution, the “commanding heights” of a planned economy with a commitment to socialism? Why the “levels of hunger, illiteracy, excess mortality and other indicators of deprivation are today far higher in India than in China, the Philippines or Indonesia”. The young Siddharth Dube first asked this question in his brilliantly researched and evocatively written “Words Like Freedom”, published in 1998. And he proceeded to find the answer through “the memoirs of an impoverished Indian family”. The following two passages are drawn from his book which outlines in detail the reasons for the continuance of this cycle of intense deprivation and poverty.
Before the British rule, there was very little idea of private ownership of land. Usually, land would be shared between the cultivators and tillers who would enjoy hereditary rights, and the zamindars, whose role was to collect revenue from the peasants. They did not have the absolute right to dispossess the peasants, and so long as the farmer paid his dues and taxes he could not be evicted from the land. The British changed all that as they wanted to deal with one individual from an area who would be elevated to the position of ‘proprietor’ of the land and who would pay the taxes and dues to the treasury. By this mechanism all the cultivated land was transferred to the zamindars. Additionally the “British soon made them the owners of inhabited sites, fallow and barren land, groves and orchards, water sources, river crossings, markets and roads”. These landlords or zamindars became the “linchpin of the colonial order”. By elevating the zamindar’s position and making him the absolute ruler of all those subservient to him, the British ensured the upper-caste domination of society, as most of the zamindars were upper-caste Hindus, and some powerfully placed Muslims. Conversely, the lower castes, the tribals, and the petty peasants were condemned to permanent impoverishment and severe discrimination.
The peasant revolt of 1919 in the Awadh was the first rebellion against this system of exploitation by the entrenched colonial administration, but after three years of intense struggle in which reportedly one lakh peasants participated, the movement failed. It failed because the Congress refused to provide it the required leadership and support. Gandhi and Nehru both let the peasants down by asking them to “abort their struggle”. The Congress drew its ranks from the upper castes and was dominated by the landed elite. The zamindars and the landed capitalists were the financiers of the Congress party, and Gandhi would not support a movement that threatened this class. In fact Gandhi even betrayed his Harijans for whom Babasaheb Ambedkar was trying to obtain special electoral representation as a minority in the early 1930s (something that had been granted to the Muslims in 1906). Both Nehru and Gandhi were “adamantly opposed to allowing either reserved seats or separate electorates for the untouchables”. By going on a ‘fast unto death’, Gandhi forced Ambedkar to withdraw his demand for separate electorates, who wrote: “Mr. Gandhi, the friend of the Untouchables, preferred to fast unto death rather than consent to them and although he yielded he is not reconciled to the justice underlying these demands.”
Similarly, the aboriginal inhabitants of this land, the Adivasis were also “completely left out of the picture.” One of these Adivasis was a Munda from Chotanagpur (today’s Jharkhand). Jaipal Singh was a brilliant young man, sent by the missionaries to study in England, at Oxford, with the hope that on his return he would preach the Gospel, and increase the fold of His Lord. Jaipal Singh was also a brilliant hockey player. He captained the Indian team that won the Olympic Gold Medal in 1928. In 1938 he founded the Adibasi Mahasabha and made the first demand for a separate state of Jharkhand. In the Constituent Assembly he was the most articulate representative of the tribals of India. It is worth recalling his speech on 19th December 1946, when he spoke on the Objectives Resolution:
“I am not expected to understand the legal intricacies of the Resolution. But my common sense tells me that every one of us should march in that road to freedom and fight together. Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilization, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the newcomers – most of you here are intruders as far as I am concerned – it is the newcomers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastness….The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellion and disorder.”
He further went on to say, “And yet I take Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected.”
Jaipal Singh was a unique individual, at once deeply proud of his aboriginal roots, while completely committed to the Indian union unlike the radical tribal leaders of the North East.
His spirited affirmation of faith in the members of the Constituent Assembly did result in some partial amends being made by the inclusion of some 400 tribal communities in a “Scheduled Tribes” list, which would give its members reserved seats in the legislatures and government jobs.
However, like Nehru’s Independence Day speech, this pledge also remains unredeemed in “full measure”. The unwillingness of successive governments at the centre and in the states to institute substantive land reforms, in order to protect their primary backers, who are the landed and the capitalist elite in the case of the Congress and the BJP; and the creamy layer of the scheduled and middle castes who support the Samajwadi and the Bahujan Samaj parties, is at the centre of this failure. In the skewed development model that the country has adopted from 1985, there is no room for the “naked, hungry mass”. It is as if this vast number has dropped from the radars of the planners’ screens, and as if they have been eliminated from view by the pushing of a button.
I am afraid, we will witness many more Kandhamals, not because the evangelists are busy gathering their ‘harvest of souls’, but because the model of our governance and development does not allow the poor and the marginalized to participate in the country’s growth. To conclude in Siddharth Dube’s words: “poverty might indeed worsen despite accelerated economic growth. This is a possibility if the Indian government further reduces public spending, particularly on agriculture, infrastructure and the social sectors. The risks to the poor will be even greater if the government further loosens land ceiling laws, as is being demanded by the rural rich and the many votaries of economic liberalization.”
“To enable the poor to participate and benefit from economic growth, the Indian government would need to undertake widespread land reform, promote good healthcare and schools, foster gender equity, and encourage local democracy. It has not done so for fifty years. The reasons for the tragic inaction remain unchanged. In the future, as in the half-century past and in centuries earlier, India is destined to remain the land of hunger, want and suffering.”
EXPLOITATION AND DISPOSSESSION
I have to confess that like most of the urban, educated, English-language-speaking elite I was not aware of the existence of this small and backward district of Orissa, a state generally associated with starvation and famine. The outbreak of violence and the resultant deaths of several poor people, therefore, did not seem as something out of the ordinary, for such incidents are happening every other day in some part of India. Nor did the temporary spotlight turned upon the area by the print and television media appear to be different. The secular media, of course, went to town about the clash between Hindus and Christians, declaiming that the Hindu mobs had unleashed its fury on the hapless Christians of the district, without sufficient cause. The political parties jumped upon the bandwagon, seeing an opportunity for destabilizing the incumbent state government. All this, by itself, does not make one sit up, as violence seems to have become a way of everyday life. Our sensibilities have become inured to these daily occurrences, and we hardly take note of them. Therefore, when Kandhamal erupted, it did not evoke a different response.
Gurumurthy’s article in The New Indian Express of Sept. 11 again did not have anything unusual to tell. The activities of evangelical missionaries in the backward districts of India; the huge global funds available to them for the “harvest of souls” etc.; the declining numerical gap between Hindus and Christians in these areas; are all known facts. What really came as a surprise was his statement that the Kandhas, the traditional, tribal rulers of the area, chose to remain true to their faith and refused to convert, rejecting the allurements and blandishments held out to them by the missionaries. The Kandhas are aboriginal tribals, and in spite of reservations offered to the tribals by a patronizing state, they have been systematically marginalized and driven from their traditional lands. Their continuous exploitation and dispossession has made the tribals easy fodder for the missionaries, ever on the lookout for ways to increase the number of true believers in the “only true faith”.
Why the Kandhas resisted the onslaught of nearly 360 evangelical outfits is perhaps a subject for a different study? What, however, is obvious is that India has miserably failed in its attempt to lift its “naked, hungry mass” out of abject poverty, deprivation, and degradation, even sixty years after independence from British rule. Fifty years after independence, in 1997, the government estimates reveal that the number of people who are below the absolute poverty level is equal to 35 crore; which was the total population of the country in 1947. Why has this condition endured in the country despite its rapid economic growth, despite the IT revolution, the “commanding heights” of a planned economy with a commitment to socialism? Why the “levels of hunger, illiteracy, excess mortality and other indicators of deprivation are today far higher in India than in China, the Philippines or Indonesia”. The young Siddharth Dube first asked this question in his brilliantly researched and evocatively written “Words Like Freedom”, published in 1998. And he proceeded to find the answer through “the memoirs of an impoverished Indian family”. The following two passages are drawn from his book which outlines in detail the reasons for the continuance of this cycle of intense deprivation and poverty.
Before the British rule, there was very little idea of private ownership of land. Usually, land would be shared between the cultivators and tillers who would enjoy hereditary rights, and the zamindars, whose role was to collect revenue from the peasants. They did not have the absolute right to dispossess the peasants, and so long as the farmer paid his dues and taxes he could not be evicted from the land. The British changed all that as they wanted to deal with one individual from an area who would be elevated to the position of ‘proprietor’ of the land and who would pay the taxes and dues to the treasury. By this mechanism all the cultivated land was transferred to the zamindars. Additionally the “British soon made them the owners of inhabited sites, fallow and barren land, groves and orchards, water sources, river crossings, markets and roads”. These landlords or zamindars became the “linchpin of the colonial order”. By elevating the zamindar’s position and making him the absolute ruler of all those subservient to him, the British ensured the upper-caste domination of society, as most of the zamindars were upper-caste Hindus, and some powerfully placed Muslims. Conversely, the lower castes, the tribals, and the petty peasants were condemned to permanent impoverishment and severe discrimination.
The peasant revolt of 1919 in the Awadh was the first rebellion against this system of exploitation by the entrenched colonial administration, but after three years of intense struggle in which reportedly one lakh peasants participated, the movement failed. It failed because the Congress refused to provide it the required leadership and support. Gandhi and Nehru both let the peasants down by asking them to “abort their struggle”. The Congress drew its ranks from the upper castes and was dominated by the landed elite. The zamindars and the landed capitalists were the financiers of the Congress party, and Gandhi would not support a movement that threatened this class. In fact Gandhi even betrayed his Harijans for whom Babasaheb Ambedkar was trying to obtain special electoral representation as a minority in the early 1930s (something that had been granted to the Muslims in 1906). Both Nehru and Gandhi were “adamantly opposed to allowing either reserved seats or separate electorates for the untouchables”. By going on a ‘fast unto death’, Gandhi forced Ambedkar to withdraw his demand for separate electorates, who wrote: “Mr. Gandhi, the friend of the Untouchables, preferred to fast unto death rather than consent to them and although he yielded he is not reconciled to the justice underlying these demands.”
Similarly, the aboriginal inhabitants of this land, the Adivasis were also “completely left out of the picture.” One of these Adivasis was a Munda from Chotanagpur (today’s Jharkhand). Jaipal Singh was a brilliant young man, sent by the missionaries to study in England, at Oxford, with the hope that on his return he would preach the Gospel, and increase the fold of His Lord. Jaipal Singh was also a brilliant hockey player. He captained the Indian team that won the Olympic Gold Medal in 1928. In 1938 he founded the Adibasi Mahasabha and made the first demand for a separate state of Jharkhand. In the Constituent Assembly he was the most articulate representative of the tribals of India. It is worth recalling his speech on 19th December 1946, when he spoke on the Objectives Resolution:
“I am not expected to understand the legal intricacies of the Resolution. But my common sense tells me that every one of us should march in that road to freedom and fight together. Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilization, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the newcomers – most of you here are intruders as far as I am concerned – it is the newcomers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastness….The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellion and disorder.”
He further went on to say, “And yet I take Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected.”
Jaipal Singh was a unique individual, at once deeply proud of his aboriginal roots, while completely committed to the Indian union unlike the radical tribal leaders of the North East.
His spirited affirmation of faith in the members of the Constituent Assembly did result in some partial amends being made by the inclusion of some 400 tribal communities in a “Scheduled Tribes” list, which would give its members reserved seats in the legislatures and government jobs.
However, like Nehru’s Independence Day speech, this pledge also remains unredeemed in “full measure”. The unwillingness of successive governments at the centre and in the states to institute substantive land reforms, in order to protect their primary backers, who are the landed and the capitalist elite in the case of the Congress and the BJP; and the creamy layer of the scheduled and middle castes who support the Samajwadi and the Bahujan Samaj parties, is at the centre of this failure. In the skewed development model that the country has adopted from 1985, there is no room for the “naked, hungry mass”. It is as if this vast number has dropped from the radars of the planners’ screens, and as if they have been eliminated from view by the pushing of a button.
I am afraid, we will witness many more Kandhamals, not because the evangelists are busy gathering their ‘harvest of souls’, but because the model of our governance and development does not allow the poor and the marginalized to participate in the country’s growth. To conclude in Siddharth Dube’s words: “poverty might indeed worsen despite accelerated economic growth. This is a possibility if the Indian government further reduces public spending, particularly on agriculture, infrastructure and the social sectors. The risks to the poor will be even greater if the government further loosens land ceiling laws, as is being demanded by the rural rich and the many votaries of economic liberalization.”
“To enable the poor to participate and benefit from economic growth, the Indian government would need to undertake widespread land reform, promote good healthcare and schools, foster gender equity, and encourage local democracy. It has not done so for fifty years. The reasons for the tragic inaction remain unchanged. In the future, as in the half-century past and in centuries earlier, India is destined to remain the land of hunger, want and suffering.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)