Kashmir.Diary

I came across this article on Times of India site. Thought of sharing it.

TIMES OF INDIA - October 28, 2008


THE PEACE SERIES

Injustice can produce a Gandhi, a Mandela or a terrorist

By Yogendra Yadav,

Co-director of Lokniti and senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, reminds us that a terrorist is someone who at one point believed in the system.
Terrorism is politics by other means. More often that not, a terrorist is a failed or disappointed reformist, someone who at one point believed in the system. Almost every act of mad terrorist violence is shaped by deep passion, not very different from the emotion that shapes any form of creativity. The wounds that a terrorist inflicts on scores of innocent victims are rationalized in the name of justice.
There are no doubt many a mercenaries among the ranks of terrorists, but those who we call terrorists often see themselves as nothing less than heroes, as persons who refuse to take it lying down or follow the conventional and ineffective ways of responding to a perceived injustice. Theirs is often the determination that produces a Gandhi, the quest for justice that creates a Mandela. When this kind of a person takes to terrorism, we lose a vital energy that could have shaped the idea of India.

If we agree that terror is failed politics, then the solution lies in firmly closing the back door of politics of terror and making sure that the front door of democratic negotiation, protest and contestation is kept open.

We have to think, in other words, about what the terrorists wish to say, about how they could have said it without taking this route. The trouble with so much talk about terrorism and ways of eliminating it is that it discusses only one half of the solution. Security experts talk only about how to close the back door of terror. But you cannot close all the doors for someone. You have to think equally hard about how to keep the front door of democratic politics firmly open for those who see no hope in the system.

This is not as simple as it looks. Following this simple formula requires complex negotiation with the orthodoxies that we have surrounded ourselves with. It requires not just confronting the bundle of lies perpetrated by communal politics, we also need to face some of the orthodoxies, silences and half-truths of the secular discourse.

How, for instance, do you firmly close the door of terror? This is not just a question for security agencies and terror experts, but also a question for human rights activists and secular politics. Left to themselves, the security experts will come up with solutions that are worse than the problem itself. Laws like POTA or AFSPA may occasionally succeed in nabbing a terrorist who escapes the net of ordinary laws, but the real-life implementation of such laws is bound to create many more terrorists than it nabs. Encounters like Jamia Nagar strike at the public trust in the police force. Reports like the Nanawati Report on Gujarat strike at the public confidence in judges as custodians of truth. The recent violence in Orissa strikes at the idea of rule of law. But those of us who rightly oppose these have a positive duty too. We must come up with an alternative, democratic way of dealing with the terrorists – Jehadis, Bajrang Dalis or whatever variety – that is at once effective and can respect the rights of every citizen.

The more important question in the long run is how do you keep open the doors for democratic negotiations? This brings us face to face with the delicate question of the involvement of some Indian Muslims in the recent acts of terror. Unfortunately one section of opinion in our country does not wish to acknowledge this fact while the other section does not want to look at the reasons why they may have taken to terror. It is only when we acknowledge that a tiny section of the Indian Muslim youth may be involved in it that we can begin to address some of the underlying reasons.

The way to keep doors for democratic politics open for this section of the Muslim youth is to create a space for open discussion about the condition of the Indian Muslims. The Sachar Committee report has done a great service to the country by making it possible to talk about some of these questions. Now we need to take the next step by debating the ways of addressing the disadvantage and discrimination that the Muslims face in every walk of life. We need to discuss modalities of affirmative action for the Muslims. We need to find ways of improving the political representation of the Muslims. Above all, the public arena needs to open itself to hear the voice of the Indian Muslims, their aspiration for dignity, identity and justice.

Secular politics has to evolve a language to speak about these issues to the public at large. In order to do so, it has to begin to address some difficult questions: How do we address some of the legitimate fears of the Hindus about large-scale institutionalized conversions? What are the rights of the Hindu minorities in J&K or in the North East? How do we react to the patently anti-democratic edicts of the Sikh Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee? Politics of secularism must not be seen to be weak on minority communalism.

If terror is politics in a distorted mirror, it follows that peace has to be politically crafted. This requires nothing short of renewing the idea of India for a new generation. This requires steadfast commitment to truth and the courage to question our own orthodoxies. We could do worse on a day to remember the maryadapurushottam.

Sanjay Kak, a Kashmiri "Pandit" film maker recently made a movie called Jashn-e-Azadi: How we celebrate freedom. The movie is about the freedom struggle of Kashmiries, who have sacrificed 70,000 of their brother in the movement.

Click here to Know more about the movie.

Click here to read an interview of Sanjay Kak with Kashmir Observer.

Greater Kashmir today reported that, government imposed an undeclared curfew to prevent people from staging protests against the landing of Indian troops on this day in 1947.

Read Here

A very well know Columnists, Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar who writes for The Times of India, penned down an article titled "Independence Day for Kashmir" on 15th of August this year. The author is also Consulting Editor, Economic Times. I wanted to share his with everyone so here is the link.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Columnists/S_A_Aiyar_I-Day_for_Kashmir/articleshow/3372132.cms

By Shayesta Lone
M.sc Psycholoygy

After more than four decades of a peaceful struggle against repression, Kashmiris got convinced that India would never honour its commitments to resolve the long standing dispute. The struggle was, and remains, largely peaceful. India sought to suppress the movement with massive use of force, killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children. This led some of the Kashmiri youth to take up arms. Since 1989, more than100,000 Kashmiri people have been killed in a reign of terror unleashed by over 6000,000 Indian troops. Many more languish in Indian jails where they are subjected to torture and custodial killings. There have been numerous cases of gang rapes of Kashmiri women by Indian forces and the deliberate burning down of entire localities and villages. These brutalities have been documented by international and even Indian Human Rights Organizations. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as Indian Human Rights NGOs have extensively documented the gross violation of human rights of the Kashmiri people by Indian military and para military forces. Extra-judicial killings, involuntary disappearances, arbitrary detentions, rapes and torture continue to be reported on a large scale. The Kashmiri leaders have been repeatedly harassed and physically intimidated. They have also been denied travel permission to prevent them from exposing the naked truth about Kashmir. The massive suppression by India is clearly designed to silence the people of Jammu and Kashmir through sheer force. India refuses to acknowledge that the people of the state have become totally alienated and there is complete rejection of Indian presence in Kashmir. The recent mammoth gathering at Eid Gah was a standing testimony to the fact. Unfortunately UNO has turned a deaf ear to this burning problem. Why does not it persuade India and Pakistan to resolve the long standing issue of Jammu and Kashmir the way it held referendum in East Timor and Indonesia had to comply. But at the moment it doesn’t seem to be so because India even rejects the role of United Nations military observer in Kashmir. In fact they have not registered any ceasefire violation with UNMO so far since 1947 what actually their presence is meant for. India is taking full advantage of the UN ignorance with respect to Kashmir and has been constantly trying to suppress the freedom moment of Kashmir with force.
Right from 1947 after the partition, scores of Kashmiri people fled to other side of Pakistan held Kashmir. Since their departures they have been waiting for such an opportunity to get back their ancestral place viz a viz this part of Kashmir but unfortunately there is no room for them to get settled here because of sheer hatred between India and Pakistan. In the middle of the situation, a common Kashmiri gets crushed. In fact a few of them mustered such courage to cross over here to their motherland and paid the price.
The another forced migration took place in 1989 which left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and were forced to flee their native place for being charged of religious,social and political coordination and got dispersed throughout world ,who are also being deserted by few vested elements ignoring their sacrifice ,but those elemntents will have to face the people and will be made accountable for their sins.
Similarly, students, business people, labourers staying in other states of India for their respective jobs have always been under scanner by various agencies and they keep searching for pretexts to frame them. They are being punished for the ‘sin’ of being Kashmiris.

KASHMIRIS ARE SAFER IN KASHMIR THAN IN INDIA