Parties move, Kashmir remains

inam ul rehman 

 

If Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires Kashmir is the graveyard of reputations. The latest example of this is the Jamaat-i-Islami. From violently taking on the Indian state from 1990 to 2019 to its final meltdown, or the National Conference challenging the rule of the Indian state on Kashmir to finally acceding to it, Kashmir has seen many others crumbling under their own inflated weight. 

 

As the present “panel head” of the banned Jamaat-i-Islami finally said publicly his party is ready to contest elections, adding it never issued boycott calls. One wonders why this politico-religious party lies so much? Officially the party endorsed election boycott calls throughout the 90s well upto 2014 (https://kashmirlife.net/jamaat-e-islami-supports-geelanis-poll-boycott-call-48486/). (If the Jamaat hadn’t pulled out its website one could have easily show them their past statements. But there is still a vast digital repository where one can find its statements.) It is another matter that from 2002 its cadres mobilised votes for the People’s Democratic Party, a party that in Kashmir is alleged to be a brain child of the present NSA chief.  

 

But, in 2015, chief of Jamaat-i-Islami, Muhammad Abdullah Wani, in an interview to a weekly English newspaper said that his party is ready to join the electoral process provided AFSPA is removed. This was said at a time when the PDP had won the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir and formed a coalition government with Hindu fundamentalist party, the Bharatiya Janta Party.

 

The JeI is a parochial party. Its cadres have been brought up in such a way where they believe there is no religious person like theirs, no political analyst like theirs, no intellect like theirs, no humans besides them have any knowledge, or worldly wisdom. No party or organisation on the earth, according to their belief system, can solve Muslim conundrums or bring prosperity to the world.  They seldom read books outside what their party prescribes. The RSS cadre are also brought up in a similar way. They fall prey to their own agitprop and as a result are used by everyone for agitational purposes.

 

What prompted the Jamaat to join the electoral fray.

 

Nine years later, the Jamaat is now openly campaigning for elections. It may have surprised most of the people in Kashmir given that it was the party which claimed to be running the secessionist movement and always “standing in the way of the oppression”. It was the party whose cadres and supporters would brag of being inheritors of the secessionist movement from 1990s onwards, which according to them, Sheikh Abdullah discarded in 1975. A decade and half later it was this party that took over the mantle of the secessionist movement from the JKLF in the early 90s on the pretext of Islam and declared everyone a traitor who didn’t adhere to its pro-Pakistan viewpoint.   In Kashmir from 1991 to 2019, only the party of the Jamaat-i-Islami grew while the rest receded. 

 

Now facing a 5-year ban in succession the Jamaat has realised it is facing an existential threat. It wants to join the mainstream Indian bandwagon. The party members claim no one has the right to question its decision since it is only they who are facing the music. Rightly said. No. 

 

The National Conference refused to bow down for 22 years before the government of India. Much more hardships were faced by other parties and persons in the 90s. Everyone who give up the secessionist fight before or in the 90s has its own reason and compulsions, but the Jamaat didn’t spare them, labelled them traitors, sell outs and  collaborators, and their armed wing, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, had no compunction in killing them to clear the field for the Jamaat. 

 

How come the National Conference becomes a “stooge” after Pakistan was defeated by India, and told by the former to negotiate on whatever it can save! How come the JKLF became a sell out when it was caught between the guns of HM and the army? In spite of that the JKLF never ever entered the election fray. How come Sajad Lone became a deserter when a pro-Pakistan militant killed his father? Not everyone can become Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in spite of knowing that the Jamaat’s armed wing killed his father, never uttered a word, or never used this compulsion to justify his position. How come their compulsions were “sell out” and yours is not?      

 

There are lots of questions which the Jamaat has to answer. But the important one is that since it accused the National Conference of abandoning the Plebiscite Movement in 1975, what is the Jamaat abandoning? The Plebiscite Movement didn’t kill thousands of Kashmir. It didn’t endorse violent movement for its cause. The Jamaat killed and endorsed the violent movement in Kashmir from 1990 to 2019. Since the Jamaat always takes a moral high stand will it apologise to Kashmiris for the death and destruction it wrecked on Kashmiris? Will it apologise and accept defeat in front of the mighty Indian state? Will it apologise to those families whom it killed for not adhering to its pro-Pakistan stand? 

 

The history of the Jamaat in the subcontinent, or its prototype, Muslim Brotherhood, in other parts of the world, reveals a telling truth: whenever states wring its ears it surrenders. The other historical truth about the Jamaat is: power and dominance are its motto.  The state of India only flexed its muscles and the whole edifice of the Jamaat came crumbling down on expected lines.

  

A welcome step

 

At present some youngsters of the Jamaat are showing a feeble resentment within, but they will yield to the “wisdom” of the elder ones.  The youngsters of the Jamaat are not going to revolt anyway, and the Jamaat will label this period from here on as the Treaty of al-Hudaybiya. 

 

The Jamaat entering the election fray will discover to its utter dismay that it will get votes but won’t get any seats in the coming assembly elections. At best if it is allowed to contest elections it may win a single seat in the 2029 assembly elections. Unlike the NC which had a wide base the Jamaat is a shallow and restricted party. It holds no appeal for the voters. 

 

The Jamaat should now open its doors for everyone and take a cue from the RSS. While the BJP as a political party is open for all, the RSS is a restricted organisation. It would serve Jamaat a great deal if it distinguishes the Jamaat-i-Islami as a religious organisation, and forms a new separate political entity open for everyone irrespective of what religion and ideology s/he holds. The primary control for this political party would remain with the Jamaat cadres. The Jamaat could then manage the political party while keeping the two entities distinct. 

 

This way the Jamaat as a socio religious party will be free from many malaises while simultaneously allowing its cadres the option of joining its political wing, or staying with the parent body. 

 

 

What does the Jamaat’s re-entry into the Indian mainstream politics means for disgruntled Kashmiris? 

 

Kashmiris espousing the cause of secessionism should pause, think, and ponder why the parties whom they chose to represent as their representatives fail to deliver their promises. If only Kashmiris would have thought what went wrong with the Plebiscite Front in 1975 it would have saved thousands of lives from 1989-2019. Instead of that Kashmiris developed a narrative that the Plebiscite Movement of 1953-75 was a sell out and all those who worked for it are traitors. Result you had a 30-year period where killing was normalised in the name of “azadi”, “sell out” and “traitors”. 

 

For the Kashmiri people, parties espousing the Kashmir cause come and go, Kashmir remains. 

                          

 

 

 Pic courtesy: Rising Kashmir, Indian Express

 

Our neighbours whom we don’t know

   inam ul rehman

                                     Book: Those who stayed: the Sikhs of Kashmir 

Author: Bupinder Singh Bali

Publisher: Manjul India  

Pages: 285

 

While reading Siddharth Gigoo’s latest book “A long season of Ashes” it came to my mind: why haven’t Kashmiri Sikhs written a book on their survival? Kashmiri Muslims have written on the conflict, so have Pandits. But Kashmiri Sikhs? No way. 

 

As I finished Siddharth’s engaging book, I surfed the net to explore my curiosity, and fortunately “Those who stayed: the Sikhs of Kashmir” came up. Written by a 35-year-old Sikh youth, who returned to Kashmir as a PM package employee in 2011, this candid book is a part memoir, and part historical. It is almost written in the same vein as Siddharth Gigoo’s.

 

Bupinder Singh Bali starts the book from a phone call he receives on October 7, 2021, the day when a Sikhni and a Pandit were killed. The author along with his family delves into the impact of these killings, examining how these types of killings shake their outlook, confidence, and the toll it takes on their daily life. Surprisingly he does not view these killings as communal. “More than a communal killing,” writes he, “it was an ideological killing, sending a message to those who side with India.”    

 

“When a Muslim is killed,” writes the Sikh author, “he becomes a martyr for the Kashmiris. But when a Sikh was killed,” he questions, “(He) did not want azaadi, the cause was not his to die for. So, what could we call his killing? A sacrifice or payment for living in Kashmir.”

 

Interestingly, the author is quizzed about the killings by a female friend, the former reveals details of the killed Sikhni, but is blank about the others. Unlike others the author does not justify this lack of information. “As human beings,” he writes, “we have an ‘our’ and ‘other’. We associate more with ‘our’, empathise and sympathise more with ‘our’ than we do with the ‘other’. This duality has been defining us always.” How much we know about the Sikhs of Kashmir? They are our neighbours but we are mostly ignorant about them.  

 

For Kashmiri Muslims, Sikhs come across as a friendly community who have always stood for them. No one can forget their help in 2014 floods, or post Pulwama attack in 2019, when Kashmiri students were threatened in many northern states of India. 

 

The author wants to correct the narrative around 1947 tribal raids. In popular discourse the credit for stopping the tribals is given to Abdullah Sherwani or the India army. However, the author writes it were the Sikhs of Kashmir that thwarted 1947 tribal invaders for many days. No one talks about the battle of Ichachma where the Sikhs heroically fought for two days. During this battle with Pathans the Sikhs were given choice to convert to Islam, but as proud Sikhs they refused and were put to the sword. 

 

For standing up against this aggression, and providing the Indian army with a safe passage the Sikh community was ostracised, and cursed for many years by the Kashmiri Muslims. At some places majority of Muslims supported tribal invaders which resulted massacre of Sikhs. Sikh survivors were rehabilitated to many places including Delhi, and returned to Kashmir in 1956! As a result, Sikhs remained at the bottom of the pyramid. Their education was hit, jobs were scarce, and forced by circumstances and discrimination Sikhs migrated to many places of India.   

 

What strikes me in the book is the social commentary on many topics and issues which we in Kashmir do not realise. His wife, a Hindu from Kerala, sums up her husband’s abode: “Kashmir is a retirement place, not for young people who want to live freely.” At another place she says that Kashmiris are a very laidback people, and interfere too much in others’ lives and decision making. For author’s father Kashmir is a negative and mentally stifling place, and he beseeches his son to leave Kashmir for ever, which the author himself is keen to do.  For this micro minority, “Kashmir is not a place for Sikhs, for education, for business, for jobs, or living.”

 

Through his wife, parents, and friends, Bupinder beautifully and subtly informs and introduces us to the socio-political, cultural, educational, economical, religious, and emotional worldview of the Kashmiri Sikhs dismantling many stereotypes in the process. One among them is particularly ingrained in all Kashmiri Muslims: Sikhs of Kashmir come from Punjab! Unlike other authors from Kashmir, he does not hide his love life.  

 

Importantly the author talks about the situation in Kashmir before and after the reading down of Articles 370, and 35(A) of the Indian constitution, and how the Sikhs of Kashmir perceived it. Then there is one aspect which every majority forgets or wilfully ignores in south Asia: educational institutions being not secular. As a Sikh, the author says that he too had to recite verses of the Quran during the morning assembly!  

 

Mind you every community in Kashmir presents itself as the victim. Majority community authors here present themselves as the victim of the Hindu majority, while Pandits focus on Muslim violence, and Kashmiri Sikhs also feel the same.  

 

Factual errors

 

There are few typos, and factual errors in the book. In 2010 it was not the killing of Pakistani infiltrators, but the alleged encounter of 3 local porters that sparked a protest movement against the Indian army. Zar means wealth not women, its Qamarwari not Kambarwari; Rangreth not Rangratte; similarly, we write trami not trambi, and Kashmiri Muslims’ household do not eat in trami daily, only during special occasions do the latter eat together in copper plates.     

 

Our perennial jokes on Sikhs are in bad taste. We need to respect minority communities no matter which faith, view, they adhere before we ask others to respect us.  

 

This book fills a long gap of our missing narratives. Hope many more Sikhs pen down their experience of living in Kashmir. 

We are yet to hear Buddhist perspective, though.

Pic courtesy: Author's X account