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."

Afghan strategy of the US

by Rajendra Abhyankar

There are many commonalities between the tragic terror strike of 26/11 in Mumbai and the German Bakery attack in Pune, but, apart from scale, there are stark differences as well. Two are noteworthy. First, the Mumbai attack galvanised the people across the country to determinedly fight cross-border sponsored terror, but we did not notice a similar outburst of public sentiment this time. Second, after 26/11 there was a clear voice both from the people and the government that there would be no talks with Pakistan till it dismantled the terrorist infrastructure and brought its perpetrators to book, but this time public opinion is divided while the government has decided to break the link. It is going ahead with talks on February 25.

Does the change in public attitude demonstrate an apathy and resignation with the government’s inability to stem the terror waves and bring about any kind of pressure on Pakistan? The 87 per cent of those who participated in a polling on February 17 in Maharashtra held by a major TV channel were still against any talks with Pakistan; this could be the sentiment nation-wide. The government’s decision was presumably dictated not only by the commitment in the Sharm-al-Sheikh statement, although Pakistan is sure to raise Balochistan at the February 25 meeting. This is the crux of the matter and the way India has found itself out-manoeuvred.

India had to acquiesce in the London Conference’s decision to talk to and re-integrate the so-called “good” Taliban notwithstanding our experience when they were last in power. Obviously, India’s reiteration of its position that there was no good and bad Taliban had no effect on the US and NATO. It was championed by none other than President Karzai whom we have supported since he took office. India was also excluded, at Pakistan’s behest, from the preliminary Istanbul conference of Afghanistan’s neighbours which charted the future political course for Afghanistan. Once again Pakistan has become the fulcrum for the US strategy in Afghanistan and in Pakistan itself.

Senator Johan Kerry, the powerful Chair of US Foreign Relations Committee, on his February 16 New Delhi visit, made no bones that the resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan was critical to the overall US strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has even given up the Af-Pak nomenclature. We can expect to see all US efforts geared towards securing Pakistan’s compliance and cooperation in its on-going military operation in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, the nerve-centre of the Taliban. Its border with Pakistan makes such cooperation indispensable to the US strategy. This is where India comes in.

The 30,000 troop surge ordered by President Obama did not prevent the Afghan Taliban from laying siege to parts of Kabul, exposing the vulnerability of the government and ineffectiveness of the military operation to stem the Taliban tide. With the time-line being dictated by the forthcoming US state elections and the withdrawal date in early 2011 announced by President Obama, the US Administration saw no alternative to scaling down the goal of securing a military victory to a limited one of getting the “amenable” or “purchasable” Taliban inside an Afghan government. Considerable funds have been allocated at the London conference for this purpose.

Given the strong and negative Taliban reaction to the new US strategy, it was also realised that the Taliban would have to be softened to secure their compliance. This is what the major on-going military operation in Marjah intended to achieve. For the operation to succeed, Pakistan’s cooperation in sealing its border with Helmand becomes crucial. The US cannot afford a repeat of General Musharraf’s action in withdrawing his troops allowing for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to escape the US Tora Bora operation in the early days of the Afghan war. It still remains uncertain whether the Marjah operation will bring the Taliban to the table, and if so, the price that would have to be paid. Pakistan’s cooperation and, more importantly, India’s presumed role in making it possible now dictate US policy.

It was not long ago when the US and its allies were singing India’s praises for the way in which we had committed large resources to successfully building up Afghanistan. The change of US strategy on dealing with the Afghan Taliban puts pressure on India and its role in Afghanistan:

Accepting Pakistan’s contention that it needs a lessening of tensions on its eastern border (with India) for it to effectively seal its border with Helmand (Afghanistan) it has put us under pressure to resume the India-Pakistan dialogue regardless of repeated terror attacks in locations in India. On February 5 in Muzaffarabad the LeT had already mentioned Kanpur and New Delhi apart from Pune. And Ilyas Kashmiri has openly threatened attacks at the World Hockey Games and the Commonwealth Games later in the year.

By accepting that sections of the Afghan Taliban can be brought into the government, it opens the possibility for an eventual Taliban takeover which has always been an anathema, given its implacable hostility to India. The Kandahar IA hijack case cannot be forgotten so easily.

By making Pakistan again the fulcrum of this strategy, ignoring that it is the epi-centre of terror world-wide and committing billions of dollars to beefing up Pakistan’s military capacity, it provides the unquestioned possibility for that country to guard its strategic interests in Afghanistan and launch proxy attacks on India’s interests there, and on India itself.

It is time we faced up to the challenge of making our cooperation with the US in the successful outcome of its strategy count. As its global strategic partner, India must negotiate the “deliverables” if it decides to go ahead with the India-Pakistan dialogue in the present circumstances. Recognising and bargaining with the US on our core interests is unavoidable now.

We need our interests in Afghanistan safeguarded, Pakistan to hand over the perpetrators of the Mumbai and Pune attacks and disband the terror groups it nurtures, and secure the LoC and the international boundary and get US support for our permanent membership of the UN Security Council. That is what a strategic partnership means and as an emerging global player, it behoves us to put our cards on the table and not hedge as is our wont. Furthermore, there is an equal need to inform the Indian public by holding an all-party conference of the political formations represented in Parliament. India needs to speak with one voice now.n

The writer, a former diplomat, is Chairman, Kunzru Centre for Defence Studies and Research, Pune.