Excelsior Special Correspondent
JAMMU, July 19: Despite being politically aware much more than many nations and states in the world, many of the Kashmiris have their own style of viewing and interpreting political developments. Some call it innocence, some ignorance and others naïveté but the fact goes that much more than their inner strength and resilience, they have been pinning hopes on distant outsiders in realizing their romantically weaved dreams and aspirations. The problem for the world has been the exclusive approach that has been adopted by all hues of politicians in the Valley—mainstream, separatist, pseudo separatist. Telling them falsely that the world had been spending much of its time in thinking about Kashmir, politicians, as well as leaders in other institutions, have led generations of the Kashmiris to a trap of narcissism. It takes them years, sometimes decades, to realize that, like people of hundreds of nations and states on the globe, they were but creatures of a forgotten corner of the planet.
It was perhaps because of this mindset of building expectations on the mirage of romanticism that in 2008-09, there was more stress on Hussain than his first name, Barack, and the surname, Obama, when the “anti-Muslim” George Bush’s successor walked into the White House. Passions touched skies when the news followed that a Kashmiri-American, Farah Pandit, had assumed high office in the US Department of State. In months, the balloon began deflating as the Netizens in Srinagar discovered that Hussain was nothing but the name of an African immigrant who developed physical relationship with an unmarried American girl student at College. Barack was the result of their cohabiting that stands categorically proscribed in Islam and invokes the punishment of a hundred lashes on the partners, if unmarried, and stoning to death, if married.
In the following months, unsuspecting newspaper readers learned through the devil of Internet and media that Ms Pandit too was far away from their mirage of faith and thus unlikely to subscribe to the separatist struggle in her homeland. Perhaps more ‘bizarre’ realities would have unfolded and exploded many more myths in the year 2010. But sudden eruption of a ‘Ragda’ and death of 111 youth in street turbulence in 111 days came to the rescue of a many merchants of dreams in Srinagar.
As the mayhem progressed for weeks of that eventful summer and the Kashmir shutdowns crossed the figure of 1600 days in 21 years, people associated with trade and education began asking the big question: How long to continue this shutdown? Leaders did beseech them with an assurance: ‘This is your last sacrifice for the movement and it will bear fruit soon”. They were convinced that during his November 2010 visit, President Obama would publicly ask the Indians to grant ‘right of self-determination’ to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. That would be the final ‘accomplishment of the mission’, they were told.
Even before Obama’s arrival in New Delhi, the agitation had mellowed down—first with the arrest of its architect, Massarat Aalam, and later with the death of 18 demonstrators on the streets during protests on desecration of holy Quran in USA on September 13th. National media too turned its back on the agitation as it shifted to the flash floods in Ladakh and later to the all-imposing Common Wealth Games. And, when Obama addressed the Indian Parliament, he made no reference to Kashmir. Not even one of diplomacy and equivocation. He talked of potential of 50,000 jobs for the recession-hit Americans in India. He also hinted at helping India in becoming a permanent member of UN Security Council. Millions of the Kashmiris, glued to transistor sets and listening to him with rapt attention on TV, realized that Obama was more concerned about Cashmere than Kashmir.
Viewed analytically, Obama’s Sunday statement—‘no outside solution to Kashmir’—signifies little change in the archaic American policy. From day one of Kashmir’s armed strife, Washington D.C. has been stressing on resolving ‘all disputes, including Kashmir’ in a bilateral diplomatic process, making it clear that there was no scope of a third party ‘facilitation’ or intervention. That is precisely what Obama said last week. That was and is in sync with the Indian position and contrary to what Pakistan has been demanding day in and day out.
What, in fact, was significant was the fact that he opened up on Kashmir after two years of sustained silence. It only carried refreshment to those who had again begun to read too much in America’s silence. That muteness prompted a few of the “leaders” and “intellectuals” to suggest that America was “still on our side”. Obviously, their reaction is that of rage, disappointment, despondency.
Reactions of the key separatist leaders make it transparently clear that even after 23 years of armed strife, Pakistan is the only nation State on the globe that is recognizing J&K as a ‘disputed territory’ and supporting implementation of the UN resolution of 1948 and 1949. By admissions of the Valley’s separatist leaders, 52-nation Muslim Block has remained either cool or acted as an “American puppet” with regard to the Kashmir problem. Champions of the lip service, like Saddam Hussain, and Muamar Gaddafi, who once emerged as ‘heroes’ on front pages of newspapers in Srinagar, have met a horribly end. After the end of Cold War, all nuclear powers have tilted towards the more populous, more growing India. And, 9/11 has made all non-Muslim nations “natural allies of New Delhi”.
This nascent scenario is radically different from the days when the Americans used to lecture the Indians on human rights and right to freedom and self-determination; when the babus in Washington D.C. used to view Al-Qaeda as an international terror group, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba as a semi-terror outfit and Hizbul Mujahideen and JKLF as “freedom fighter guerrillas”. Ambassador of the Kashmiri “freedom fighters”, in America and Europe, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, is today languishing in jail under the label of an “ISI agent”. Until recently, he used to address the world events at UN headquarters and the Capitol Hill. So, who, in July 2012, was waiting Obama to talk of the third-party intervention, implementation of the UN resolutions and imposition of economic sanctions on the “unrelenting, inflexible, occupational India”?
One has reasons to believe that the new generation in Kashmir is mature enough to understand the tactics of projecting Kashmir as a “nuclear flashpoint” and “internationally-recognized dispute”. It knows that the world has its own way of viewing nations and states and the market-driven nation states of have their own standards of freedom and democracy—more so in bipolar era and post 9/11. For example, USA , that calls itself a champion of freedom and democracy, has been pretty comfortable with its obsequious monarchy in all the Muslim countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. So, where’s the scope of courtroom argument, jurisprudence and an objective political and diplomatic discourse?
Because of this, those berating USA and rest of the world for having “double standards” on East Timor, South Sudan and Kashmir are correct in their complaint but wrong if they expect the world to change under the force of their courtroom argument. Their continued labouring under myths and miscalculated expectations could only lead to their own frustration and more harm to economic, industrial and intellectual growth of the “nation” they claim to be leading. Expecting ‘Azadi’ on a platter, simultaneously from America and Iran, would be dismissed only as a clinical case of political myopia, if not a recurring manifestation of the split personality syndrome.
In his reaction, the tallest of the separatist leaders, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, dismissed Obama’s statement as “discriminatory”. He observed that the international community was “looking at Kashmir through a dual perspective”. “It amounts to murder of justice”, Geelani has said. According to him, Obama’s statement was only “exposing America’s dual nature”. Geelani is meticulously right.
“Obama’s statement gives birth to a many questions and mysteries and exposes their stance on Kashmir which has a Muslims majority. If there is no petrol in Kashmir, it is not our fault. Why is the issue of Kashmir hanging in balance for over 64 years?”, a visibly desperate Geelani has asked in his reaction that serves as a sad commentary on the world indifference to the Kashmir issue as well as Hurriyat’s and Pakistan’s achievements on the diplomatic front in the last over two decades.
In his typical feel-good style, head of another faction of Hurriyat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has observed that that Obama’s statement was “not discouraging”, though he too has noticed that there was no mention of involving the Kashmiris with the Indo-Pakistan crisis resolution process.
Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Mohammad Yasin Malik, who pioneered the gun culture in 1988, has termed Obama’s statement as “distressing, unfortunate and unwise”. “Statements like Obama’s don’t help. They are in a way like rubbing salt to the wounds of subjugated people. This statement is actually against the policy and interests of United States of America over Kashmir,” he has said in statement. He has not been contested by the Americans on who was a better judge of the US interest on Kashmir.
Malik added that the US had been continually seeking solution to the vexed Kashmir issue “as per wishes and aspirations of people”. Says he: “It was the US and other world powers which persuaded Kashmiris to change their struggle from violent to non-violent. Kashmiris, in turn, respected their say and from 2008 they changed the mode of struggle from violent to non-violent. But they too should have advocated for a speedy solution to this issue, but instead efforts are made to push us to the wall”.
Notwithstanding a counter-argument that the “mode of Kashmiri resistance” changed from guns and grenades to arson and stones only after security forces killed over 20,000 militants, Malik has claimed that it was only due to the US persuasion that the separatist movement turned “non-violent”. He too has desperately urged Obama to assert as an “intermediary”.
Malik also sounded perturbed over Dalai Lama’s statement on sustenance of peace in Kashmir that came during the course of his being a state guest and paying tributes to the National Conference founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and his wife, Begum Akbar Jehan, at their tombs in Hazratbal. One wonders how the political postal addresses of a violent, armed struggle could advise the Tibetan spiritual leader on how to talk about peace.
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