MY KASHMIR: CONFLICT AND THE PROSPECTS OF ENDURING PEACE

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!”