DroneAcharya
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Kashmir is not Palestine, India is not Israel!
Palestinians have been thrown out of their ancestral land that the Jews have occupied. If there is any displacement that has occurred in Kashmir, it has been the ethnic cleansing faced by Hindu pandits.
The analogy of comparing Kashmir with Palestine has been making a hum for some time now.
Scholars -genuine and otherwise- debating the possible solutions to either areas of tumult, have looked around to seek intellectual inspiration and inevitably the Muslim component of the population has brought about the comparison. Others, seeking to promote Kashmir as an extension of global jihad, have made similar observations.
The uninformed have played along.
Closer home, General Pervez Musharraf, CEO extraordinaire, was perhaps the first Pakistani leader to compare Palestine and Kashmir. The clarion call has been picked up by the current disposition, with President Zardari and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar being the latest to join in, more out of a growing sense of desperation than conviction.
With their own house up in flames and separatist agendas mushrooming, the latter is a scarce emotion. However, given the fascination of the Pakistani establishment with Kashmir and that being the only currency available for diplomatic barter, an anxious Pakistan is keen to establish a link with an internationally recognised turmoil.
This is perhaps in the futile hope that once the two issues are spoken of in the same vein, they become symbiotic and self-sustaining in diplomatic circles. Of course, Mr Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a protégé of Pakistan, has also chipped in with assenting murmurs labeling Palestine and Kashmir as the two reasons for global instability and exhorting the Kashmiris to take a leaf out of the Palestinian book.
Further, the protests of 2010 were tagged as an Intifada (uprising) by the Kashmir Action Committee of Pakistan (KACP), a Lahore-based organisation that comprises retired bureaucrats and army officers whose raison dêtre (reason for existence) is supporting Kashmirs merger with Pakistan. The local media in the valley picked up the romantic notion and institutionalised the metaphor.
However, there are a number of coherent arguments to counter the canard.
Religion is not the basis for protests in Kashmir
Firstly, the Intifadas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are an Islamic struggle against a Jewish occupation. There is no religious factor in the Kashmiris protests, which are more against mis-governance, stifling presence of security forces and for an easier daily existence.
The ordinary Kashmiri as against the average Palestinian will have nothing to do with religious bigotry. Their brand of Islam, which they call Rishi Islam, is a strain of Sufi Islam that is unique to Kashmir and has tolerance and forbearance as its cornerstones.
Ethnic cleansing against Hindus, not Muslims!
Secondly, the Palestinians have been thrown out of their ancestral land that the Jews have occupied. If there is any displacement that has occurred in Kashmir, it has been the ethnic cleansing faced by the Hindu pundits, a radicalisation brought in by Pakistani infiltrators and supported by a few stage props from amongst the Kashmiri political leaders.
Article 370 of the Indian constitution ensures a special status that safeguards Kashmir for the Kashmiris. No other state of the Indian Union enjoys the provision and therefore most quote it as being singularly responsible for the lack of integration with the rest of the country.
Motivation for protests is not independence
Third is the motivation for protests. While the Palestinians struggle for their homeland, a minor section of the Kashmiris, influenced by happenings around the world and fed on an overdose of misplaced ****** sentiment and false machismo have endeavoured to cause disturbance.
The stone-throwing of 2010 was motivated in part by payments to agents who organised the youth into rampaging mobs even as the promoters of this mode of protest sat smug in safety, provided by the very forces their apprentices confronted, and travelled in bulletproof SUVs. The Chief Minister, Mr Omar Abdullah, called it an industry. The average Kashmiri is upset more by corruption and non-performance in the public offices than by any concept of a denied nationhood.
Intifada: Who is really responsible for disorder in Kashmir?
Fourth and last is the concept of Intifada. The visual images from Kashmir of 2010 may seem akin to those from Palestine, with youth donning face masks, graffiti sprayed on the walls, women and children forming part of the mob as the men pelted stones and hid behind them, confident that the security forces would not target the children and women.
However, thats where the similarity ends. Putting women and kids on the streets was the handiwork of peer pressure created by Dukhtran-e-Millat led by Asiya Andrabi and not in answer to a higher calling. Coercing women and children to participate in protests where the menfolk intend to stoke violence is contemptible, to say the least.
A few took to the streets as an expression of disenchantment with the security and state apparatus that could not ensure that their children stay safe. Since the Pakistani infiltrators and their Kashmiri supporters, who are the real culprits for disorder, do not make for a tangible target to protest against, the government becomes the viable object and the police, its law maintaining arm, the obvious adversary, once the protest turns violent.
Also, the sole aim of the police, which is constituted from the subjects of the state, while confronting a disruptive mob is to prevent damage to government property and restore order. This intent is not different from that of the state police in any other state of the Indian Union.
In Palestine, the aim of the Hamas Police (made up of Palestinians, trying to quell an unruly crowd) would be similar. However, once a mob is confronting an Israeli force, the intent of the law-keepers change and their reaction is therefore apparently high-handed and women and children get hurt or worse.
This is never the case in Kashmir. Every prolonged instance of stone-throwing by a disorderly Muslim crowd is not intifada. The word and the sentiment belong to West Asia and specifically to Palestine.
Face masks and graffiti are not the only components of an intifada.
To summarise, Kashmir is not Palestine, India is not Israel. Intifada is a localised concept that answers to the typical politics of West Asia and any juxtaposition of Kashmiri aspirations, borne out of political disillusionment, with the Palestinians struggle for a free land is misplaced and intended to mislead.
MODS, Please move this to the Kashmir section, as i do not have any permissions in posting there.
Palestinians have been thrown out of their ancestral land that the Jews have occupied. If there is any displacement that has occurred in Kashmir, it has been the ethnic cleansing faced by Hindu pandits.
The analogy of comparing Kashmir with Palestine has been making a hum for some time now.
Scholars -genuine and otherwise- debating the possible solutions to either areas of tumult, have looked around to seek intellectual inspiration and inevitably the Muslim component of the population has brought about the comparison. Others, seeking to promote Kashmir as an extension of global jihad, have made similar observations.
The uninformed have played along.
Closer home, General Pervez Musharraf, CEO extraordinaire, was perhaps the first Pakistani leader to compare Palestine and Kashmir. The clarion call has been picked up by the current disposition, with President Zardari and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar being the latest to join in, more out of a growing sense of desperation than conviction.
With their own house up in flames and separatist agendas mushrooming, the latter is a scarce emotion. However, given the fascination of the Pakistani establishment with Kashmir and that being the only currency available for diplomatic barter, an anxious Pakistan is keen to establish a link with an internationally recognised turmoil.
This is perhaps in the futile hope that once the two issues are spoken of in the same vein, they become symbiotic and self-sustaining in diplomatic circles. Of course, Mr Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a protégé of Pakistan, has also chipped in with assenting murmurs labeling Palestine and Kashmir as the two reasons for global instability and exhorting the Kashmiris to take a leaf out of the Palestinian book.
Further, the protests of 2010 were tagged as an Intifada (uprising) by the Kashmir Action Committee of Pakistan (KACP), a Lahore-based organisation that comprises retired bureaucrats and army officers whose raison dêtre (reason for existence) is supporting Kashmirs merger with Pakistan. The local media in the valley picked up the romantic notion and institutionalised the metaphor.
However, there are a number of coherent arguments to counter the canard.
Religion is not the basis for protests in Kashmir
Firstly, the Intifadas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are an Islamic struggle against a Jewish occupation. There is no religious factor in the Kashmiris protests, which are more against mis-governance, stifling presence of security forces and for an easier daily existence.
The ordinary Kashmiri as against the average Palestinian will have nothing to do with religious bigotry. Their brand of Islam, which they call Rishi Islam, is a strain of Sufi Islam that is unique to Kashmir and has tolerance and forbearance as its cornerstones.
Ethnic cleansing against Hindus, not Muslims!
Secondly, the Palestinians have been thrown out of their ancestral land that the Jews have occupied. If there is any displacement that has occurred in Kashmir, it has been the ethnic cleansing faced by the Hindu pundits, a radicalisation brought in by Pakistani infiltrators and supported by a few stage props from amongst the Kashmiri political leaders.
Article 370 of the Indian constitution ensures a special status that safeguards Kashmir for the Kashmiris. No other state of the Indian Union enjoys the provision and therefore most quote it as being singularly responsible for the lack of integration with the rest of the country.
Motivation for protests is not independence
Third is the motivation for protests. While the Palestinians struggle for their homeland, a minor section of the Kashmiris, influenced by happenings around the world and fed on an overdose of misplaced ****** sentiment and false machismo have endeavoured to cause disturbance.
The stone-throwing of 2010 was motivated in part by payments to agents who organised the youth into rampaging mobs even as the promoters of this mode of protest sat smug in safety, provided by the very forces their apprentices confronted, and travelled in bulletproof SUVs. The Chief Minister, Mr Omar Abdullah, called it an industry. The average Kashmiri is upset more by corruption and non-performance in the public offices than by any concept of a denied nationhood.
Intifada: Who is really responsible for disorder in Kashmir?
Fourth and last is the concept of Intifada. The visual images from Kashmir of 2010 may seem akin to those from Palestine, with youth donning face masks, graffiti sprayed on the walls, women and children forming part of the mob as the men pelted stones and hid behind them, confident that the security forces would not target the children and women.
However, thats where the similarity ends. Putting women and kids on the streets was the handiwork of peer pressure created by Dukhtran-e-Millat led by Asiya Andrabi and not in answer to a higher calling. Coercing women and children to participate in protests where the menfolk intend to stoke violence is contemptible, to say the least.
A few took to the streets as an expression of disenchantment with the security and state apparatus that could not ensure that their children stay safe. Since the Pakistani infiltrators and their Kashmiri supporters, who are the real culprits for disorder, do not make for a tangible target to protest against, the government becomes the viable object and the police, its law maintaining arm, the obvious adversary, once the protest turns violent.
Also, the sole aim of the police, which is constituted from the subjects of the state, while confronting a disruptive mob is to prevent damage to government property and restore order. This intent is not different from that of the state police in any other state of the Indian Union.
In Palestine, the aim of the Hamas Police (made up of Palestinians, trying to quell an unruly crowd) would be similar. However, once a mob is confronting an Israeli force, the intent of the law-keepers change and their reaction is therefore apparently high-handed and women and children get hurt or worse.
This is never the case in Kashmir. Every prolonged instance of stone-throwing by a disorderly Muslim crowd is not intifada. The word and the sentiment belong to West Asia and specifically to Palestine.
Face masks and graffiti are not the only components of an intifada.
To summarise, Kashmir is not Palestine, India is not Israel. Intifada is a localised concept that answers to the typical politics of West Asia and any juxtaposition of Kashmiri aspirations, borne out of political disillusionment, with the Palestinians struggle for a free land is misplaced and intended to mislead.
MODS, Please move this to the Kashmir section, as i do not have any permissions in posting there.
