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A peace movement for Kashmir
By Dr. Karuna Thakur
They are
active players on the streets of the valley, less insidious than the gun
wielding variety and available for a price. Indeed the agitational front of
politics in Kashmir may not be sufficiently defined without a reference to this
class of stone pelters. There is no doubt that the political groups provide the
necessary funds and motivation to them, yet, a more serious concern is one of
the context in which a society routinely plays host to such activities.
Realistically, this feature is an expression of a deeper sociological disorder
that has afflicted the Kashmiri society during the last two decades of
militancy. Increasing incidence of suicides, depressions and other psychiatric
disorders are significantly attributed to the conflict situation in the valley.
The violent upsurge of 1989 aimed at changing the course of people's lives
through a redefinition of their identity and status .However, what was
presented as the project of empowerment has done just the opposite,
disempowered the people by making them hostage to a situation where realistic
freedoms have been surrendered in favour of a metaphoric Azaadi. Sustained
political discourses like nationalism, autonomy, self rule and separatism have
politicized the society to an extent where the boundaries between private and
the public have blurred .Conflicting visions of identity have confounded the
imagination of ordinary people who are at a loss to comprehend how the legality
of article 370 is different from the fluid, undefined concept of autonomy or
self rule .This, coupled with a pervasive culture of violence has eclipsed
concern for the very simple, basic values of human existence. For instance, the
right to a secure and peaceful environment where a child walks his way to
school without the fear of getting killed by a stone pelting mob, bomb blast or
crossfire is no big claim, yet the society suffers in denial of the same.
Right to life and Peace
What was by definition a movement of the people, in its onward march turned
into one where the leaders entrenched themselves against each other as also the
people they were entrusted to lead. Two decades later, the grand project of
transformation lies in shambles, ideologically fractured, internally fragmented
and confronted by a serious existential crisis. After decades of manipulation
of popular impulses by leaders and what can rightly be termed as a failed
attempt at engineering change through a violent movement, the people of Kashmir
can try yet again, this time for a movement of peace. There is a need, on the
inverse, for a humanistic movement for peace to be mobilized. More
appropriately, a movement for the right to life must precede the one on
identity, autonomy or self rule as any such assertion in abstraction of life
itself would be fallacious
Neither the state nor the political agencies can be trusted to restore durable
peace as the vested interests compromise and become spoilers in the process.
Therefore, the peace movement must be led by the conscience keepers of the
society who are rational, objective, apolitical and stakeholders in nothing but
a peaceful and stable society. After 1975, emergency became the most
discredited word in the Indian democratic history and was never to be repeated
only because a segment of rational thinkers ensured it became so. Kashmir needs
its conscience keepers to step in and assume that role. Power of this thinking
segment must diffuse so as to become an instrument to help and salvage the
society , it would be simply unfair on their part not to do so.
Social Healing
There is a difference between healing and building, therefore, the rebuilding
of societies ravaged by conflict must effectively combine the two. The modern
state system is organically structured to build and distribute resources
through its various instruments Similarly political acts of voting, contesting
and lobbying are also calibrated in the nature of issuing commands and
eliciting the desired responses in a mechanical way. By sending the stone
pelters for an All India tour, who would possibly return with a changed vision
though not the heart, the state has done what it is most competent to do, taken
an instrumental measure to address the problem. It can not heal, which requires
human approach ,compassion and communication at personal, verbal and social
levels. Increasingly, societies faced with conflict and crisis of the state
structures are taking recourse to healing instruments in their pristine and
simple forms closer to people's hearts and surroundings.
In Kashmir, violence was an importation which had the disruptive effect of
alienating people from themselves, their environment and its co inhabitants of
several centuries,. Therefore, the project of peace must be driven by the
people and mediated through their time tested, deep rooted and reliable
instruments which have functionally informed their lived experiences for
centuries and brought them solace. Folk music, social, cultural and religious
festivals visiting musicians, streets plays have since early times been social
stress busters and bonded societies in spontaneous relationships, these can be
revived as regenerative tools of social healing.
Kashmir is heir to a treasure. The currents of Sufi tradition run deep in the
history and cultural ethos of the valley. Its numerous sanctuaries dotting the
landscape are a silent reminder to Soothsayers, Peers and Fakirs to reinvent
the timeless healing power of this tradition and its message of peace to
humanity that hate consumes life while love nourishes it. They can spread the
universal prescription of communion with the Supreme which demands the right
intent not its pretence, devotion without demonstration and focus on prayer
rather than the ritual. A soulful combination of music, prayer and devotion can
generate the spirit of rediscovering what had been for centuries a way of life
for Kashmir, full of peace, harmony and realistically in consonance with the
serenity of its landscape, and cultural ethos.
Democratic Intervention
A movement driven by people, led by the conscience keepers and interpreted in
terms of a call for the right to life and fundamental freedoms of human
existence in itself may not be sufficient. It must be reinforced and
legitimated through the democratic channels. The movement for peace must run
parallel and in concurrence with the democratic process to constitute a
democratic and social peace. Democratic tools can in due course be reinvented,
refashioned and reworked to make them compatible with a social landscape that
has recovered its order and stability .It is then that the people of Kashmir
can make their rightful assertions, define the course of their lives and become
the arbiters of their destiny in the real sense of the term.
A time to reflect and resolve
By Jagmohan
Throughout
the night, again and again, the images of the journey haunted me. Like an
injured bird, fluttering in the cage of its own making, I levered my aching
body from side to side, trying to sleep. But my feverish imagination took me to
the bench-marks of my journey and brought me face to face with the host of
people I had met and the questions which their beliefs and attitudes had raised
in my mind.
Why had the yatris forgotten the rationale of the Yatra and its significance
for both inner and outer cleanliness? Why did they consider it merely a
ritualistic obligation to secure redemption from a sin or to fulfil a vow? How
is it that most of them were so indifferent to their own plight and confined
themselves to grumbling only?
Mata Vaishno Devi essentially fought for justice. Why did Her followers then
put up with so much of injustice? The Mata ended the tyranny of Bhairon. How
was it that Her devotees submitted to the tyranny of the so-called managers?
The Mata stood for purity. Then why did the yatris blink over so much of filth,
corruption and thuggery.
Even amidst this phantasmagoria, it was clear to me that I could do nothing
about the attitude of the pilgrims. I could not clean up their minds; I could
not make them more rational; I could not tell them how to become more pure,
more truthful, more god-like, and how to elevate themselves spiritually. Nor
could I explain to them the need for taking a positive, humanitarian,
service-oriented, view of Hinduism.
But, I asked myself, could I do something else? Could I humanize the journey
and make it pleasant for millions of yatris. And could I provide them an
environment of peace, tranquility and contemplation? I could certainly do that.
But where were the powers? Where were the tools? And who would listen? Even
otherwise, I thought, the power-structure in our country was so timid, so badly
enslaved by the shallow politics of the vote-banks, so hungry for power for the
sake of power, so insensitive to any idea of reform and so notorious for its
implementational incapacity that nothing tangible and lasting was likely to be
achieved.
I sulked over the weak position of the Governor and made another attempt to
calm my mind and go to sleep. But the state of being half-asleep, half-wakeful,
continued. For the first time, I realised, what a conspiracy of physical
fatigue and mental burden could do, and what was meant by 'sleeping on a
stuffed pillow' with a broken back, stretched over a wrinkled surface.
The sound of distant music told me that it was already morning. I got up from
my bed and opened the huge French window of what was once the Palace of a
powerful Maharaja, but now the residence of a ceremonial head, a mere sign, a
symbol. Before me stood the side view of Jammu city, lined by the expansive and
elegant curve of river Tawi, its bare sand looking so soft and serene in the
emerging sun behind the 'Shivalik'. It was a glorious sight. The gentle, cool,
breeze from the hills, scented by the touch of Tawi, drove away the dust and
haze of my depression. The rustling music of mango-groves, beneath the window,
further smoothened my rattled nerves. The murmur of the leaves added its own
cheerful note. It was a beautiful and buoyant morning which brought a beautiful
and elevating sunshine within.
I stood at the centre of a castle-cum-palace, designed by a foreign architect
and built by a Maharaja with an extravagant use of land and other resources, listening
to the devotional music that rose, crescendo-like, from the narrow lanes of an
old, congested and neglected city. Some sort of earthy holiness seemed to be
descending, along with the dawn, upon the city, appropriately called the city
of temples.
So engrossed was I with my thoughts that it was after a moment that I realised
that the sun had risen fully and the room had become warm. I closed the
windows, switched on the air-conditioner, and went back to bed again. It looked
so different from the bed on which I had struggled all night to sleep. It was
so straight, having lost all its nasty wrinkles wrought by my worked-up
imagination. Its pillow was no longer stuffed. Though my body still ached, my
injured wings no longer fluttered against the cage which had vanished on the
impact of a fresh dawn. A new day had created a new mind.
I slept well past noon after I had created an artificial, an 'air-conditioned',
world around me - an unreal world which was so different, so far away, from the
world that I had seen during the journey. The sense of revulsion had dissipated
itself in sleep. The nightmarish agony had gone. A few hot cups of tea further
enlivened me. With a new urge surging within, I moved swiftly to the bathroom,
took a thorough wash and cleansed myself of the layers and layers of
perspiration that had congealed on my body. Strangely, feverish frenzy had
finally resulted in strengthening my nerves and toning up my mind.
I went down to my office, collected my thoughts and recorded a note in my personal
diary. This note continued to remind me about the deplorable state of affairs
then prevailing and, in days to come, served as a main springboard for my
action. It is, inter alia, said: "If one were to see the moral and
material degeneration of the present-day India, all that one has to do is to
walk from Katra to the Mata Vaishno Devi Bhavan. The entire area looks like one
'grand abomination'. Here, despiritualisation of India seems to be total. Sheer
anarchy seemed to have been let loose. The signals that the outrageous
conditions transmitted were not those of a bleeding civilisation whose wounds
could be stitched but of one which had been stricken simultaneously with a
number of near fatal diseases."
The visit had also confirmed my belief that the post-1947 Indian State was
making a cardinal error by leaving religion alone. Because what was being left
alone was not the true religion, but all the dirt and dross, all the material
and mental garbage and all the superstitions and perversities that passed under
its name.
If ever I got an opportunity, I said to myself, I would do something creative,
constructive and courageous. I would show how a spiritual wasteland could be
regenerated, how new channels could be cut to bring in pure water, how an
elevating tradition of the ancient yatra could be recreated, how the journey to
the shrine could act as a tonic both to body and soul, how the tyranny of the
upstarts of religion could be replaced by a benign, responsive and dynamic set
up and how true face of Hinduism could be seen through the mirror of service to
the poor, the sick, and the needy.
But would such an opportunity be forthcoming? Or would I have to sleep over the
stuffed and nasty pillows and merely fret and fume about the crown on my head
and fetters on my feet? The answer to these questions lay in the lap of future.
And I let it lie there, hoping it was not unoften that whenever "Faith
willed Fate fulfilled."
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