Hindustan Times
Cashmere, if you can…
Down with this phony democracy then. Just download Sanjay Kak’s Kashmir documentary Jashn-e-Azadi
Polemic is the sweet prerogative of youth. If you’re not a polemicist at 21, you probably don’t have a heart. If you’re not more casual, half cynical by 32, you probably don’t have a head. Practically every Indian male grows up in India with his own unique viewpoint on Kashmir, cricket and Katrina Kaif (okay, the last one merely suited the alliteration: it could be Madhubala, Madhuri or Priyanka Chopra, depending on when you were growing up).
The year was 2000. Kashmir was still by and large a settled issue in the minds of the urban middle-class young. It’s simple enough to solve world’s problems when the arena’s an air-conditioned seminar room and the audience a bunch of students, supposedly trying to get an education, given to idle chats in the evenings.
The time was right, the setting and audience, perfect. I began vomiting my thoughts, “There is more to a community than a commonly accepted illusion of who they consider God. ‘Two majority religions, hence two separate nations’ was the founding principle of Pakistan alone. There was more to a uniquely secular Kashmir, in its moderate vision of Islam, a multi-religious and cultural heritage, and its complex, nearly 500-year-old history of different colonisers, to term it an Islamic state — merely for its Muslim-majority population. In fact Kashmiri Muslims had died fighting against Pakistanis and their surrogates who wished to free them in a supposedly holy war after Partition,” yeah, I’d just started.
“Sheikh Abdullah, the state’s most popular pre- and post-independence leader, or the ‘Lion of Kashmir’, had mentioned many times over, ‘He had a religion in common with Jinnah, but a dream in common with Nehru,’” I went on.
“The princely state Kashmir’s independent status, until 1947, was itself a generous gift from the British to subservient Hindu rulers of Jammu. Dogra kings had paid a paltry Rs 75 lakh for the entire real estate and the setting sun in 1846. Was there a referendum even today, the choice before Kashmir would have to be between a democratic India, and a Pakistan, perennially in a state of emergency. Division of India had never left any scope for the freedom of princely states,” I blabbered more.
“Pakistan’s open support to militants in the Valley seemed neither philanthropy nor a response to Kashmiris’ demand for Azadi. The logic was existential: If ‘Muslim’ Kashmir could prosper in secular India, there could be no better argument left against the theory and creation of Pakistan itself…” I could have gone on. There was nothing factually incorrect about my argument. But a gentle nudge from the adjoining seat urged me to stop.
Healthy youth demands positive aggression: any ‘ism’ (in this case, secularism, more than patriotism), could gain from this fresh fountain of zeal. A natural glare from Yasin Malik’s cold eyes that evening had already heated up the college conference room. He’d been hearing me all right. He didn’t think the diatribe befitted a reply, much less a discussion. He kept his gaze, walked up to us, shook my hand, and left.
Yasin chaired the separatist Jammu And Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), armed, like the most of the movement, by Pakistan. I saw him last in Sanjay Kak’s Jashn-e-Azadi (How We Celebrate Our Freedom), a daring documentary shot and edited between 2004 and 2006. In the film, Kak, the filmmaker, travels across Kashmir after the elections in the state, and before India celebrates its 60th year of independence. He debunks the claim of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Prime Minister then, that the Valley, through its massive turnout at the polls, had voted for an Indian Constitution. They evidently hadn’t.
I somewhat changed my own bookish opinion on Kashmir only a few months after that evening at the college seminar room. We were at a debating tournament in Glasgow, Scotland, miles away from both India and Pakistan. The two brightest ‘Indian’ students from a Malaysian university competing against us had chosen to register themselves as from the ‘Republic of Kashmir’: not India, not Pakistan. Rest didn’t matter. You sense the same in Kak’s film as he narrates the story of the domination of the Indian state. The problem before us isn’t Indo-Pak, or law-and-order. It’s personal.
Equally well known protagonists of Kashmir are ignored in Kak’s film: around 1.6 lakh Pandits who migrated in a religiously polarised J&K, or the fanatical forces at work from across the border. The omission is deliberate. Kak focuses instead on indigenous people, and their genuine, loud voices for freedom: 18,000 Indian soldiers who have perished, warring against an unknown enemy, and a popular sentiment; about a lakh martyrs, or terrorists, or militants, or freedom fighters (call them what you want, it will not change their deaths); youths lost in misfires misreported as cross-fires; and the psychological agony of locals, otherwise so used to the physical beauty of nature around them.
A closed-door discussion is at best academic claptrap, when public sentiment is already not with you. Indian government represents the Indian public. In a few decades, the ‘Partition generation’ will have gone: their wounds will matter less, history even lesser. For whatever nationalism’s worth, wouldn’t we rather buy a visa, than watch over a lakh people die? You think. A visa, that’s what a place or its nationality, means to most individuals (like me). ‘Domino theory’ be damned.
Azam Inquilabi, a 60-year-old ‘freedom fighter’ in Kak’s film who’s been imprisoned in both Indian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir says long stretches in jail (or torture) increase the resolve of an ideologue. If a man is harassed, he bows his head before Allah and fights a metaphysical war against the might of the enemy. This hardly suits a state that brags about its commitment to democracy and liberalism. If dissent is not accommodated within the system, the tussle can only lead to anarchy.
Arguments may be complex on all sides. I’m told Kashmir also has politically changed a lot since. Pakistan is in a further state of mess. The Valley should be the last of their concerns. Yet, you can have your own views, I can have mine. It’s scary that we’re not even allowed to debate.
Kak’s film screening was clamped down upon by an angry Mumbai police in 2007. This is when I first saw it. This week, Symbiosis College of Arts And Commerce in Pune had to cancel the show because ABVP, the collegiate wing of the Bhartiya Janata Party, wouldn’t like anyone to see the film. The police are quick with appeasing gangsters and aggressors on streets than protecting freedoms of speech in matters like these.
A complete blackout of their points of view in Pune is what we offer Kashmir in lieu of a democratic India. Good lord, their other option is Peshawar. This is the only reason we still think they’ll stick with us.
Download Jashn-e-Azadi here.
Follow the writer on twitter@mayankw14
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Give an internet search for “Rajouri remembers martyrs on Liberation Day”, “Mirpur massacre of 1947″, “Muzaffarabad-1947 How I lived under occupation forces” & also give a search on Youtube for “What Remains of the Sita Ram Mandir opposite Saheli Sarkar – Muzaffarabad ” & “Remains of old Mandir – Skardu” And you will know what type of atrocities were perpetuated by Pakistan in 1947 in J&K and how from 1947 till date POK became 100% Muslim & Indian State of J&K remained multi-ethnic.
Now why this background, it is precisely because the same planks of institution of orchestrated Violence & the institution of political separatism based on the basis of religion again being used again & again. In 1947 it was Jammu Region we bore the brunt of violence & it’s after effects, & from 1990 onwards it is mostly valley. Pakistan has picked it up in 1990 where it left it in 1947. Contrary to the belief gun was introduced in 1990 the fact is gun was introduced in J&K right since 1947,& not only after 1989-90. Those who want to cite violence as legitimate is ill-legitimate for Non-muslims in J&K.
Question is not only about the liberty alone. The point in analysis is that those who took a gun in hand & tried to enforce the will as was dictated by ISI are they going to be heard? ARE THEY POLITICALLY CORRECT & THOSE WITHOT GUN POLITICALLY INCORRECT.
Kaks is not the only film that has been made on Kashmir, there is also a documentary film “and the world remained silent” by Ashoke Pandit let them make it to screen that also.
Then if it is balanced opinion you call Mr. B.K.Gupta author of a book, “Forgotten Atrocities Memoirs of a survivor of the 1947 mirpur massacare now in POK at the time of invasion of J&K by Paksiatn partition of India by, Bal K Gupta which gives how Hindus and Sikhs were captured by Pakistani forces in POK and were taken to Alibeg Prison. The prisoners at Alibeg were in a situation that could only be described as a concentration camp. Relief came eventual y when the International Committee of the Red Cross liberated the Prison. The book is filled with stories the author collected during his time at Alibeg, through relatives, and by contacting fellow survivors.
This ethnic cleansing is not new; we Jammu people have seen it in 1947 which Kashmir has not seen. Post 1990 there were massacres in Jammu region in Doda, kistawar, Reasi & others. And for this people of the mind like yours are responsible. Let you also listen to it then?
There is an Arabian saying if you go shooting don’t complain when you are shot & that is precisely that is to be looked into it, has Press to give the view-point of
those who are responsible for making POK 100% muslim & are we to get
dictated by on that side of LOC. In that occupied part of Kashmir these
separatists have got training in gun., after all Kashmiri Hindus in valley were
killed by Kashmiri Muslims that is the tragedy in this case, where are their
human rights, the argument given by separatists is that muslims were killed in
hundreds & hindus in hundreds but that argument also does not stand correct
because Muslims were not killed by Hindus, that is the difference here.
Bigger Question are you going to make J&K on Indian side a state on 100% on religious basis or what, and more bigger question is how can a person with gun saying that politically he is 100% right and the person who is un-armed and raising political voice against it how can he be politically in-correct on whose behest ethnic cleansing has been done in valley & parts of Jammu.
A foot note about brand of Azadi in Valley will be good to give here. The character of Juan Marcos Troia, an Argentinian football coach of the film inshallah football , is credited with taking footbal in J & K to its greatest heights. But he is now suspecting, as he has been questioned by the state football association about
the funding for his clubs. Not just he, but his family too is now the target of a whisper campaign. Fundamentalists are ratcheting up religious mobilization His house vandalized, Marcos is now running around asking cops for help”We have to fend for ourselves,” says his dejected wife, Priscilla, writes the media of their plight.
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… Cont…) During invasion of tribal’s in 1947. Large scale massacres in J&K took place in which people from all communities were killed which include Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs Christians, Buddhists ( in gilgit ballista area) several thousand Muslims were massacred in Jammu in first week of Nov.1947, We know starting at Muzzafarbad on 22nd & 23rd Oct-1947, several thousand Hindus (three times than that of Muslims) were slaughtered at the hands of Pakistani Raiders, its army, their J&K civilian traitors in the border areas of Kashmir when they entered the Valley and then in Jammu Province at Deva vatala, Bhimber, Rajauri, Kotli, Mirpur, Poonch and at Gilgit, Askardu. In first week of Nov-1947 in Jammu several thousand Muslims were taken to forests in kathua & murdered in cold blood there.
In the event, on October 26, the tribals were still on the rampage in Baramula, killing, burning, looting. Of Baramula’s 14000 inhabitants, only 3,000 were alive the next day. The atrocities committed by these tribals are too well known to every person to need any rebuttal, even Barbarians will be ashamed.
Author can read in links , I stated above how at Muzzafabad on 22/10/1947 , “Raiders play deception. They asked males among Sikhs to come out, telling them, “We have nothing to do with Sikhs”. The latter felt relieved but as they ran back towards the bridge they found the gate on the other side of the bridge closed. The raiders began firing on them, and killed them mercilessly. Then they began pushing the dead bodies down the railing of the bridge with shoes into Kishenganga river. The bridge was clear again. The raiders then asked ladies to segregate themselves from the main crowd. All the ladies in the age group of 11-45 years were huddled into 30-35 buses, waiting on Kohala side and were taken to Waziristan etc. Small children in the lap of their mothers were thrown on to the road, where they fell victim to starvation or dogs. The children of once rich people were now at the mercy of dogs. Just to tell you Non Muslim women abducted from J&K by Tribal’s were sold on the streets of NWFP for Rs 15.00 & the children for Rs 5.00, I do not know you know this or not ? Members of the minority community had been put in jail in Muzzafarabad, Raiders were all the time looking for young ladies. The father-in-law of a lady had been shot dead when he tried to resist attempts of raiders to abduct his daughter-in-law. She never came back. Outside the jail groups of raiders would rape women in full public view. At times there would be gang-rape. Only few ladies returned to their families after abduction and rape. There were instances where ladies were killed after rape. You will read in link even dead were not buried, even uncivilized people like Huleghu Khan allowed to bury dead, but this was a strange islamic army of tribal looters did not.
During the tribal raids in Kashmir Andrew Whitehead the BBC journalist. had written sometime back how tribal raiders entered St. Joseph’s Convent and Mission hospital on the Jhelum Valley Road that links Srinagar with Muzaffarbad, and killed people including. a patient, Mrs Motia Devi Kapoor, Lt. Col D.O.T. Dykes and his wife Biddy, who had come to the hospital to give birth her Baby, the husband of the hospital doctor, Mr Baretto & after raping the 29-year-old Spanish nun Sister M. Teresalina Joaquina & a nurse Miss Philomena they killed them in its precincts.
I know many of people will not know this. Col. Habibur Rahman Khan who had fought with Subhash Chander Bose in INA became the murderer of Non Muslims at Bhimber along with tribal lashkars. He died in pain. Listen about brutal burning of Rajouri where 25000 people were burnt to death during Diwali of 1947 & I do not know you know it or not Hindus in rajouri today do not celebrate Diwali even today in memory of those massacred in 1947. Col. Rahamtullah Khan was one time in army of Hari Singh, his son Aslambeg Khan are called Rajouri butchers, & were instrumental in all this loot. they were arrested later by Indian army. Maharaja got them released as they were his old servants. what happened to them is another story. Mahraja thought that they will help him in getting his accounts in Lahore banks unfrozen. But nothing happened. Rahamtullah died of cancer and his son was killed by dacoits. I hope you have heard about the Alibeg Gurudwara in Mirpur, which was turned into a concentration camp for non-Muslims & scores of men were slaughtered, women raped & children sold. And for this those persons of Muslim conference that rule in POK now were responsible, and some of them claim to be now the Mujahid-i-awwal, but the fact is they should be tried for war crimes.
In the words of Pakistan they have made POK , Azad Kashmir which they say is free, but if we analyze it today as a citizen of J&K a complete exchange of Non-Muslim population has taken place from that so-called Azad Kashmir to Indian Part of Kashmir as a result of that bloodshed. If there were non-Muslim remnants in So-called Azad Kashmir, there that has been converted, it is 100% Muslim today. Does it indicate some thing? I hope you meet some day the persons who have settled in Jammu from Mirpur, from Muzzafarabad, from Poonch, Rajouri, & and listen to them how their and near ones were butchered in these areas and by whom and who connived with whom in this massacre? You will be more objective later. ARE WE TO ALSO SUPPORT THIS AZADI TODAY THEN?
Having said so but if we analyze the population ratio on both sides of LOC more ethnic diversity on Indian side & none on POK side, why? Did Indian soldiers kill all Muslims or All non-Muslims were killed or converted on POK side & by whom, by GOVT there along with army, else how can it happen that not a single soul of Non Muslims live there. The result was that POK is now 100% Muslim with not even a soul of Non-Muslims that in itself is an indicator. I have been asking this many writers from valley this question but they do not have any answer to it. I repeat once again not even a single soul of Non-Muslims that also after 1947, what happened to all of them? We know the answer but writers from valley do not like yet to answer it.
That is why I said Bigger Question are you going to make J&K on Indian side a state on 100% on religious basis or what, and more bigger question is how can a person with gun saying that politically he is 100% right and the person who is un-armed and raising political voice against it how can he be politically in-correct on whose behest ethnic cleansing has been done in valley & parts of Jammu.
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Aseem, I don’t know what are you talking about when you say that “Indian’s who live in Brampton are unfamiliar with downtown.” That is quite an assumption, and more specifically stereotyping. I am aware and in contact with many Indian senior citizens that travel all over Canada with their clubs. Many Bramptonians work downtown. It is a shame that you say you don’t like to visit Brampton, because too many indians live here. Ethnic enclaves are all over Canada like Indian populations who primarily reside in Brampton, Surrey, Montreal. However, it is not just Indians. Many other cultural groups decide to live in similar areas (i.e., Woodbridge is home to a large Italian-Canadian population). Seems like you are not proud to be an Indian feel sorry for you. WE love our Brampton.
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Guest Reply:
August 26th, 2012 at 2:05 am
I guess I’ll have to move to Brampton to prove my patriotic colours! Why not move back to India to show greater colours.
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