The tryst with myopia

K.N. Pandita
On 12 July His Holiness the Dalai Lama arrived in Srinagar on a six day visit on the invitation of the Chief Minister. Naturally, he was treated as state guest. Apart from the protocol covering the visit of a state guest, the Dalai Lama is widely respected as an international figure in his right.
In Kashmir he met with the state leadership and, may be, a few high ups in the administration. He had no public engagement nor did he address any public rally though, of course, he did convey the message and desire for peace in Jammu and Kashmir State that has gone through two decades of turmoil. He also had a word of appreciation for the State Government especially the Chief Minister for his good work.
Among his public engagements was his interaction with the Tibetan Muslims who have migrated to Kashmir long back and he also visited the Tibetan School where the kids of migrated Tibetan Muslims are receiving education. Some of these Tibetan Muslim refugees are said to have been given state subject status.
These two interactions of the Dalai Lama had strong justification. He wanted to meet with his compatriots who are also asylum seekers as other Tibetan nationals are in different parts of the country as well as abroad. In India, the Tibetan refugees are concentrated in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh.
His visit to the Tibetan School was undertaken to show goodwill and patronage to the inmates as part of Tibetan society in exile.
It is very strange that Hurriyat leaders from both factions have raised eyebrow on the Dalai Lama’s wish for peace in Kashmir and expression of hope for non-violence in finding solutions to differences or problems.
The Hurriyat leaders have accused the Dalai Lama of carrying forward the agenda of New Delhi in Kashmir. Their argument is that he did not speak about the so-called human rights violation by the Indian security forces in Kashmir and the death or disappearance of Kashmiri youth.
They have said that as a champion of human rights, he should have assuaged the hurt sentiments of Kashmiris and spoken out without reservations that human rights of Kashmiris have been violated by the Indians. Since he did not say anything like that, he is castigated for carrying on “India’s mission” in Kashmir.
The Dalai Lama is a globe trotter. He carries the message of peace and good will and amity among nations and peoples of the world. He does not travel from shore to shore to describe where human rights violations have taken place, by whom and in what circumstances. This is not his mission. Anything of that sort is the mission of an accredited representative of the UN Human Rights Council or any accredited organization or delegation from any sovereign state of the world.
Therefore to infer that the Dalai Lama travelled to Kashmir with any specific political mission assigned to him by the Indian State is totally baseless and vicious. Is Kashmir the only place he visited? Is he an ombudsman of any state or organization commissioned to find fault with governments and managements here, there or elsewhere?
Only early this year he visited Akhnoor where a Buddhist vihara and shrine were excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India and he had come to consecrate it. He did not speak politics then and only exhorted the people who had assembled at the function to be peaceful and learn that peace of mind leads to spirituality.
The Dalai Lama is not a political but a social figure that has grown much bigger than his size for the status he has achieved. He is the Nobel Prize winner not for any political contribution but for his role for the spiritual emancipation of mankind. How did the Hurriyat leaders, especially the chairman of Hurriyat (M), expect him to abandon his life’s mission and dabble in cheap politics of Kashmir?
In regard to the question of human rights violation in J&K, the problem with the Hurriyatis and the separatists is that they have fallen victim to myopic vision; they cannot look beyond or sideways to understand the causes and course of the emergence of human rights violation syndrome.
Why has not Maulvi Umar Farooq ever demanded enquiry into the killing of his illustrious father in the context of human rights violations in Kashmir? Why has he not publicly condemned cannibalism of terrorist who committed that and other heinous crimes against humanity? Did he expect the Dalai Lama to tell Kashmiris that terrorists had killed hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris and left their bereaved families to cry for justice at all international platforms?
A State is expected to protect life and property of its citizens. That is the first requirement of the constitution. When innocent citizens of all faiths were made the target of the bullets of terrorists trained, indoctrinated, abetted and infiltrated by a neighbouring country to wreck havoc in J&K, the might of the state had to be invoked and law and order restored so that vast majority of peaceful people lived normal life.
At no time did these separatists give a call to the militants to lay down arms and come forward for talks. They always demanded the Government talk to the stakeholders but never exhorted the militants to create atmosphere conducive to peaceful talks. They always wanted the Government to put ointment on the wound of those who killed their own brethren in Kashmir.
This means that these separatists believe they will achieve their goal through muscle power and not through abandoning the gun. Why do they then raise hue and cry about “violation of human rights.” Not asking the militants, who obey only their diktat, to abandon the gun, is blatant violation of human rights of millions of peace-loving Kashmiris? Under UN Human Rights Charter abetting violence overtly or covertly is cognizable as violation of human rights.
Thus when the Hurriyat leaders themselves want their youth to get killed while fighting the state with the clear intention of perpetuating their false popularity, how do they expect a spiritualist like the Dalai Lama to share their feigned grief? Let the Hurriyatis give a call to the militants to lay down their arms and come to talk peace, this will mean an end to the so-called human rights violations there and then.
By now the world has fully understood the antics of the sponsors of jihadi movement in Kashmir and of the mentors of Hurriyatis. The recent report of the US State Department on the role of Pakistan-based jihadi organizations in fomenting militancy in Kashmir should be an eye opener to the Hurriyatis.
To have expected the spiritual leader of Tibet to take the lid off this box of worms is sheer myopia. The Hurriyatis are in a dreamland thinking that the world still believes what they feign. We beseech them to please come out of a tryst with myopia.

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