noksss
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- Apr 17, 2010
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There is an obvious disconnect between the tehreek on the streets of Srinagar, Baramullah and Sopore and the leaderspeak in the havelis of the Geelanis, Farooqs and Andrabis.
Geelani has said Kashmiris want independence (i am sure many of them do) but that is not practicable. And then he gives a strange logic India, Pakistan, China and Russia will accept an independent Kashmir,
so it is better Kashmir should join Pakistan. This is a subtle attempt to fulfil the Pakistani and not the Kashmiri agenda of annexation.
Geelani may have a problem with "Hindu India" (as he often says)
and his own reasons (financial and ideological) to conspire to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan, but what can Kashmiris expect from Pakistan? Pakistan is a failed state. Sindh and Baluchistan are seething with discontent and what about Kashmiris in Pakistani Kashmir? Do they enjoy any democracy, any voice in a Punjabi (and military) run regime? Bengali Muslims were 65 per cent of the population of undivided Pakistan. But they didn't have any share of political power and their resources were exploited with no ploughback
into the East Pakistan economy. Even after winning the majority of seats in the Pakistani National Assembly in 1970,
'Bangabandhu' Sheikh Mujibur Rahman never got to be the prime minister of Pakistan.
When the Awami League asked for power, the Pakistani army killed 2.5 million Bengalis Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians and even gypsies and raped and molested halfa million women of all ages in a mere eight months. There is no parallelof such brutality anywhere in South Asia's history, Nadir Shah's plunder of Delhi included.
If Bengali Muslims, being the demographic majority in undivided Pakistan, got nothing but blood and bullets,
what can Kashmiri Muslims expect?
India has been ruthless in dealing with the tehreek in Kashmir.
There is a serious problem if this is the way the world'slargestdemocracy deals with its own people.
More than 100 Kashmiris have died in as many days of the tehreek. Why can't Indian security forces use rubber bullets, water cannons, stun grenades, pepper guns and so many other crowd control options? Why is it that the CRPF has to fire to kill every time it is confronted with stone-pelters? There are many more questions on Kashmir that will confront India's collective conscience in days to come.
The most important being why Delhi did not take the political initiative to resolve the Kashmir question when the militancy graph was at its lowest. How long will the country pay for the indecisiveness of
its political leaders?
But just to remind Kashmiris, Indian crowd-control methods were equally harsh in Assam during the 1979-85 agitation when 130 people died in police firings in January-February 1983 in the rundown
to state assembly elections. And is there a comparison between India's handling of the Kashmir tehreek and Pakistan's handling of the agitation in East Pakistan?
There are two other things Kashmiris will have to give India credit for, much as they have every right to complain that they have usually been denied democracy. India has not tried tochange the demography of the Kashmir valley as China did in Tibet and Chinese Turkestan. Bangladesh did this in the Chittagong Hill Tracts under a military dispensation by sending Muslim settlers to the
tribal homeland. Indonesia did this in Aceh. The list goes on. India is perhaps the only post-colonial Third World state which did not seek a "demographic answer" to separatist challenges. Secondly, Indian intelligence, regardless of its endless conspiracies to divide the movements, has fought shy of physically attacking leaders; it has never driven the local Kashmiri leaders to a
stage they have to seek exile. Contrast this to Pakistan. Altaf Hussain and his MQM leaders are in London,
as are many of the Baloch and Sindhi nationalists. The ISI has perhaps used its Taliban surrogates to hit
at MQM leader Imran Farooq outside his house in the heart of London.
As a Bengali who has seen the 1971 Bangladesh liberation struggle at close quarters, i can appreciate the spirit of azadi in the Kashmir valley. It is the Bengalis who buried Jinnah's two-nation theory in the low-lying marshes and river islands of East Bengal.
But Jinnah's ghost will return to haunt Kashmiris in the midst of their tehreek. Bengaland Punjab were partitioned, Kashmir was not. Now, at the peak of the tehreek, two of its
non-Muslim regions, Jammu and Ladakh, will surely demand their own right of self-determination and exercise it to stay with India. And unless Pakistan accepts Azad Kashmir, how can Geelani ever
expect India to do so?
The answer to the tehreek is the "special federal relationship" that India has been trying to develop for the Nagas during its long negotiations with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland. Properly formulated and articulated, this package may be the answer
for India's "million mutinies", especially the separatist movements, not just in Nagaland but also in Assam, Manipur and Kashmir. That would fall short of Azadi for the youth of Kashmir, but they
will soon realise Pakistan is no option for them. Some of
should visit the Mukti Juddho Jadughor (Liberation War Museum) in Dhaka to understand that.
link :Kashmir's Difficult Choice - The Times of India
Geelani has said Kashmiris want independence (i am sure many of them do) but that is not practicable. And then he gives a strange logic India, Pakistan, China and Russia will accept an independent Kashmir,
so it is better Kashmir should join Pakistan. This is a subtle attempt to fulfil the Pakistani and not the Kashmiri agenda of annexation.
Geelani may have a problem with "Hindu India" (as he often says)
and his own reasons (financial and ideological) to conspire to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan, but what can Kashmiris expect from Pakistan? Pakistan is a failed state. Sindh and Baluchistan are seething with discontent and what about Kashmiris in Pakistani Kashmir? Do they enjoy any democracy, any voice in a Punjabi (and military) run regime? Bengali Muslims were 65 per cent of the population of undivided Pakistan. But they didn't have any share of political power and their resources were exploited with no ploughback
into the East Pakistan economy. Even after winning the majority of seats in the Pakistani National Assembly in 1970,
'Bangabandhu' Sheikh Mujibur Rahman never got to be the prime minister of Pakistan.
When the Awami League asked for power, the Pakistani army killed 2.5 million Bengalis Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians and even gypsies and raped and molested halfa million women of all ages in a mere eight months. There is no parallelof such brutality anywhere in South Asia's history, Nadir Shah's plunder of Delhi included.
If Bengali Muslims, being the demographic majority in undivided Pakistan, got nothing but blood and bullets,
what can Kashmiri Muslims expect?
India has been ruthless in dealing with the tehreek in Kashmir.
There is a serious problem if this is the way the world'slargestdemocracy deals with its own people.
More than 100 Kashmiris have died in as many days of the tehreek. Why can't Indian security forces use rubber bullets, water cannons, stun grenades, pepper guns and so many other crowd control options? Why is it that the CRPF has to fire to kill every time it is confronted with stone-pelters? There are many more questions on Kashmir that will confront India's collective conscience in days to come.
The most important being why Delhi did not take the political initiative to resolve the Kashmir question when the militancy graph was at its lowest. How long will the country pay for the indecisiveness of
its political leaders?
But just to remind Kashmiris, Indian crowd-control methods were equally harsh in Assam during the 1979-85 agitation when 130 people died in police firings in January-February 1983 in the rundown
to state assembly elections. And is there a comparison between India's handling of the Kashmir tehreek and Pakistan's handling of the agitation in East Pakistan?
There are two other things Kashmiris will have to give India credit for, much as they have every right to complain that they have usually been denied democracy. India has not tried tochange the demography of the Kashmir valley as China did in Tibet and Chinese Turkestan. Bangladesh did this in the Chittagong Hill Tracts under a military dispensation by sending Muslim settlers to the
tribal homeland. Indonesia did this in Aceh. The list goes on. India is perhaps the only post-colonial Third World state which did not seek a "demographic answer" to separatist challenges. Secondly, Indian intelligence, regardless of its endless conspiracies to divide the movements, has fought shy of physically attacking leaders; it has never driven the local Kashmiri leaders to a
stage they have to seek exile. Contrast this to Pakistan. Altaf Hussain and his MQM leaders are in London,
as are many of the Baloch and Sindhi nationalists. The ISI has perhaps used its Taliban surrogates to hit
at MQM leader Imran Farooq outside his house in the heart of London.
As a Bengali who has seen the 1971 Bangladesh liberation struggle at close quarters, i can appreciate the spirit of azadi in the Kashmir valley. It is the Bengalis who buried Jinnah's two-nation theory in the low-lying marshes and river islands of East Bengal.
But Jinnah's ghost will return to haunt Kashmiris in the midst of their tehreek. Bengaland Punjab were partitioned, Kashmir was not. Now, at the peak of the tehreek, two of its
non-Muslim regions, Jammu and Ladakh, will surely demand their own right of self-determination and exercise it to stay with India. And unless Pakistan accepts Azad Kashmir, how can Geelani ever
expect India to do so?
The answer to the tehreek is the "special federal relationship" that India has been trying to develop for the Nagas during its long negotiations with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland. Properly formulated and articulated, this package may be the answer
for India's "million mutinies", especially the separatist movements, not just in Nagaland but also in Assam, Manipur and Kashmir. That would fall short of Azadi for the youth of Kashmir, but they
will soon realise Pakistan is no option for them. Some of
should visit the Mukti Juddho Jadughor (Liberation War Museum) in Dhaka to understand that.
link :Kashmir's Difficult Choice - The Times of India
