Holy wrath: Hindu Intifada in Jammu

When Islamic extremists in Kashmir spilled out onto the streets, desecrating Indian flags and calling for death to the Indian state, the overwhelming feeling was that of déjà vu. Then, a strange thing happened; ordinary Hindus, bitter and betrayed, wrested themselves from the drudgery of everyday life, and demanded, with reckless bravado, that the oneness and integrity of India, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, be proclaimed with pride and without fear.

The sense was surreal. With no real prodding from the RSS or any other branch of the Sangh Parivaar, the Hindu movement sprung up from the grassroots and took on a life of its own. In fact, so far reaching was the movement that the fundamentalist organizations were almost taken by surprise. Congress politicians from the Jammu region, fearful of their electoral future, openly broke with their party’s position and tried to mend fences with the Hindu majority by running a series of highly pathetic advertisements in local newspapers. The BJP suffered once again due to a lack of political reflexes. The party tried to make up for lost time by calling for a nationwide bandh, but it failed to make an impact outside of BJP ruled states and, of course, Jammu. The Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti openly rebuffed the BJP’s offer of “help”, while the major embarrassment came on August 20, when the Samiti announced that it had no plans at all to hold a rally on August 25, which was supposed to have been addressed by both Advani and Rajnath Singh.

No one could have foreseen the perfect storm. For several years now, the state of J&K had been largely peaceful; tourism and resumed and there was even a trickle of industry, investments; some talk of building universities and renewing hope. With a hi-tech electric fence marking the Line of Control and Pakistan finally facing the brunt of its homegrown monsters, Kashmir could breathe easy. Ghulam Nabi Azad’s government cleared a decision to handover some land to the Amarnath Shrine Board, so that it could be used to facilitate the hundreds of thousands who travel to Amarnath each year. In a rational universe, this would have been viewed as a regular administrative decision, a stride on the natural path of progress. In response, the people of Kashmir threw a violent fit of rage, protesting vehemently over the “Indian conspiracy to change the demographics of the Kashmir valley”. We all know that the mind sees what it chooses to see.

Ghulam Nabi Azad is a dedicated Congressman; he swears by the ideology of appeasement expounded by his party in general and the Gandhi family in particular. By revoking the land transfer, he placed himself in the august company of party luminaries such as Rajiv Gandhi. The people of Jammu would not hear of it any more. Kashmir has always had the bulk of government largesse, the lion’s share of seats in the Legislative Assembly and larger representation in Parliament, notwithstanding the fact that Jammu has a larger population. The people of Jammu do not like Schedule 21; they do not want to be part foreigners in their own country. Although the scale of Hindu protests in Jammu was unprecedented, it was certainly not unwarranted.

In this fiasco, the PDP has won the distinction of being the single most hypocritical political party in the country. The initial proposal to transfer the land to the shrine board passed the State Cabinet in sight of all, including the PDP affiliated Forest Minister, whose office cleared the decision as well as several other senior PDP ministers. In spite of that, the party pulled down the Government over this decision and joined in the Kashmiri movement against it. To enforce its separatist credentials, the party joined in a provocative march to Muzzaffarabad with moderate leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz, determined to cause bloodshed. In what followed, the Army performed its task of mowing down the enemies of the state and the PDP got its wish as well. There are at least three reasons why the march to Muzzaffarabad was an overreaction at best and a conspiracy against peace at worst. First, the so called “economic blockade” of the Kashmir region was nowhere as effective as alleged, as can easily be confirmed from Govt. figures on trucks entering and leaving the region. Second, a demand from the Fruit Growers’ Association, no matter how pressing, is not sufficient grounds for attempting to forcibly cross an international border, much less an India-Pakistan border. And third, it would have been only too easy to give the tense border bridge a miss and head for Jammu instead, if the real purpose of the mission was to sell apples.

The role of the National Conference has been dubious. Ever since the Amarnath controversy broke upon the scene, there has been a somewhat deliberate attempt on behalf of both father and son to obfuscate. Omar Abdullah made an inspired speech in Parliament on the day of the confidence vote, expressing pride in being both Indian and Muslim. The senior Abdullah has also made similar noises about a settlement to the Amarnath dispute that is acceptable to all. But this did not prevent both leaders from toeing the separatist line at countless other media appearances. Quite possibly, the National Conference believes that, being the opposition party, its role is restricted to backing every possible argument in turns, thus leading to an overall escalation of the political mayhem.

We have always had a sense of the fact that the Muslims of Kashmir want to part ways with India. The events of the last few months have left no doubt as to what is the will of the people of the valley. As such, the question arises as to what is the duty of democratic India to the people of Kashmir. A closer investigation is required: first, the plight of the Kashmiri pandits cannot be ignored. Due to ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri pandits, popular opinion in the Kashmir valley no longer enjoys the moral authority of a democratic majority. The separatist majority in Kashmir is built not upon consensus, but upon coercion. In particular, when the perpetrators of genocide accused India of “trying to alter the demographics of Kashmir”, the hypocrisy could not have been more damning. Secondly, we must investigate the grounds for the separatist demands. The separatist demand is not based on a desire to acquire the right to vote or to enjoy civil liberties, but on communal hatred. Is it fair to admit a demand for liberty that is based on communal hatred? And thirdly, there is a practical concern. An independent Kashmir would be turned, almost immediately, into a radical Islamic state, obsessed with jihad against India. It is better to retain administrative control of the territory than not.