Repurposing Kashmir outreach

Harish Khare

THERE can be no satisfaction — but only sadness — in observing that our collective obtuseness in Kashmir has burnt out yet another Kashmiri leader. Mehbooba Mufti, who not long ago had so courageously and so craftily taken on the separatist arguments, has been rendered hors de combat by Delhi’s narrow minds and their narrower calculations. Unless she quickly finds an honourable exit out of the Chief Minister’s office, she and her party, the People’s Democratic Party, both would stand consumed in the current cycle of violence and counter-violence. Her political future is important but what is even more critical is the future of New Delhi’s relationship with the troubled state. 

The death of more than 30 Kashmiri youths is both painful and inexcusable. Every Indian who believes in democratic values and our constitutional system must feel slightly diminished after the post-Burhan Wani bloodshed. It is no consolation that agents provocateurs may have been at work. After three decades of insurgency, militancy and organised confusion, we should have been wiser. 

Two fundamental, somewhat conflicting, propositions need to be reiterated. First, since Burhan had opted for “the gun”, it was inevitable that sooner or later he would be out-gunned. He had become a prisoner of his own myth. There could have been no peaceful “out” for him. Nor should the social media-induced solidarity his death has generated surprise anyone. This is the new tool of mobilisation, and it is being used extensively in the whole country. We tend to forget that five years ago, social media was used to “mobilise” crowds for the Anna Hazare “movement”. Then, we had celebrated “defiance” as the highest democratic entitlement and serenaded the “revolt” of the youth. Burhan Wani was using the same tools to fire up the imagination in the Valley. He made the error of supplementing his poetry of defiance with an AK-47. 

Those who defy the law, order, authority invite a response — often a disproportionate response — from the State. Recently the Jats in Haryana were so riotously on a “warpath” that the Army had to be deployed in town after town; and, people got killed. Last year, the Patels in Gujarat insisted on defying authority and were made to feel the heavy hand of the State. This happens everywhere, almost in every part of the world. No exception could be made in Burhan Wani’s case. He did not ask for any quarter. Nor was he given any. 

The second proposition: A democratic State such as India has an obligation to cajole, coax and convince the dissatisfied and the aggrieved citizen(s) to seek him out, hear him out, make him feel un-marginalised and bring him back to “mainstream”. In Kashmir, for three decades now we have been trying to create an alternative truth — the possibility of an India whose citizenship offers the Kashmiri a life of dignity, honour and equality. We have had very little success in convincing many Kashmiris of India’s agreeableness. The post-Wani violence has made the task even more difficult. 

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Perhaps, it is time to recognise and acknowledge that democratic India has fumbled in Kashmir because our own politics does not invoke respect, leave alone admiration, in Srinagar. If anything, we allow even our common sense — forget about any statesmanship — to get overwhelmed by very ordinary political calculations of ordinary politicians. But we do love to bemoan that the Valley has never purged itself of the “jamati” influence and ideology. We regularly and righteously berate Pakistan for fomenting separatist tendencies and “tanzeems”. Anti-Pakistanism, after all, may be a very paying proposition back in the “mainland” India, but it does not help much in the Valley. 

Irrespective of how quickly and efficiently the current turmoil and tension are defused in the Valley, the latest eruption has once again underlined the two-fold task before all those who wish to rule Kashmir from Delhi.

First, to ensure the security and safety of the citizens in Jammu and Kashmir, both against any intrusion from across the border and from those inside who choose to use the “gun” to insist on having their point of view prevailed. Geography and history provide Pakistan a slight edge in keeping the pot boiling, but Islamabad’s potential for mischief can be easily contained. It is the second task that taxes our democratic credentials. 

And that task is to summon the imagination and willingness to expand the mainstream, seduce the middle, and isolate the separatist. If the first task is the soldier’s responsibility, the second task becomes the politician’s obligation.

The trick has always been to find the right mix. And, most of the time, the optimal mix has eluded the wise and clever men who “run” Kashmir from Delhi. And in recent years, we have loaded the Kashmir matrix with demands and promises of “toughness.” This overloading of macho pretensions has complicated the current Kashmir scenario. 

Ideally, the Modi sarkar is best suited to “solve” the Kashmir issue “once and for all.” There is no dearth of domain knowledge. The Prime Minister is a Kashmir veteran. Not many remember his sterling role as a major domo in the then BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi’s march on Srinagar. There is the Finance Minister, who once played the interlocutor. Then, there is the National Security Adviser who has a reputation of knowing everything and everyone who matters in Kashmir. There is also the redoubtable “commissar” Ram Madhav, who has been trying his hand at playing the master puppeteer. Never before, perhaps, was such a formidable talent pool available for solving the Kashmir issue.  

At one level, there is a smug satisfaction that Kashmir has once again acquired a salience in the discourse back on the “mainland”. Anything which gets the “national” television channels excited and gets them screaming at Pakistan and against “terrorism” and “Islamic radicalisation” would be good for the electoral chances in Uttar Pradesh. Officially, the BJP would be spared the ungainly tactics of having to resurrect the overtly controversial issues like “beef” and “Hindu exodus”. Television channels can be relied upon to scare the Hindu voter. 

Anyway, the BJP believes it now has an obligation and a historic chance to achieve the old Jan Sangh’s old agenda. Many of its prima donnas remain mesmerised by the mythological mumbo-jumbo about Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and his “struggle” and “martyrdom”. Then, there are those Nagpur-headquartered nationalists who are breathing down on the decision-makers in Delhi and have a definite view of what the whole Kashmir issue was all about.  

We may not be back to the grim 2010 and certainly not to the dark days of 1990, but it does seem some of the nagging doubts remain unanswered. Can small men be entrusted with the task of repurposing our attitudes and actions in Kashmir? Who will produce statesmanship in Kashmir? Can the Indian State’s moral authority in Srinagar be redeemed by leaders who do not command any moral stature back in New Delhi? It is anybody’s call.