Animal Farm plays out in the Valley

Zafar Iqbal Manhas
former secretary, J&K cultural academy and civil society & political activist

SO much is happening in J&K these days that it is virtually impossible to focus on any single issue. What is worse is that talking ‘dispassionately’ and ‘objectively’ about anything is fraught with danger. On the one side is the arrogance springing from power while on the other are heartless machinations of raw passion propelled by decades of suffering and frustration. There is a dull sense of asphyxiation, not only in politics, but also society — its fallout staring darkly everybody in the face. 

The Government of India and its policymakers must set aside preconceived notions to realise that all ‘traditional’ tools employed in the name of statecraft have not really worked in the Valley. Even as some irreparable damage has been inflicted on the Kashmiri psyche, it has also not yielded the desired results for New Delhi. 

When it comes to principled politics on the basis of pronounced promises and agreements in the state, right from 1953, New Delhi has been caught on a sticky wicket. It may have been able to employ the carrot-and-stick policy with deft managerial skills, but largely it has not been successful.

It was not only a popular leader who was ousted on the night of August 9, 1953, but on that day, New Delhi had itself put out the ray of hope that Gandhi had seen in Kashmir during the Partition. The geography of the borders may not have changed much since, but it seems that New Delhi has lost a chance at building faith. 

The irony is that New Delhi is not ready to accept that the leadership of the Kashmiri people had actually entered into a ‘conditional’ relationship with India, which had acknowledged and accepted the state’s special position and uniqueness. There was no such thing as a complete assimilation or merger with India. 

So, instead of wasting time in legerdemain, the Indian leadership must rise above partisan politics and treat Kashmir as a ‘national responsibility’. It must understand the ‘idea of Kashmir’ and then strive to take it forward with the ‘idea of India’. This is what Kashmiriyat is all about.

Had the then narrow-minded leadership of Pakistan, riding the wave of the two-nation theory in 1947, realised and appreciated the idea of Kashmir, today the map of Jammu and Kashmir would have been different. No one would have been incinerated in the fire of violence and instability. There were no Indian soldiers then, nor commission agents of hateful politics of ‘one nation, one Constitution, one symbol’et al. 

The anger and alienation of Kashmiri people needs to be seen and understood within this context. It is no wonder, as things now stand, that right from mosques and seminaries to the lanes of culture and society, every place in the Valley appears to lend itself to Orwell’s Animal Farm, with people — much like the sheep, goat and monkeys in the novel — engaged in an unending struggle. Those gifted with the faculty to ‘think’ are also helpless, or have succumbed to petty interests. This tragedy was not born of its own within a night or two. It has been shaped through the years. To break this imbroglio, the stakeholders must heed to the logic of history.

This is what insaniyat is all about. This is what Bapu stood for. The way out lies in understanding and acknowledging these realities and not in trying to suppress them using force and coercion. 

If this does not happen, the Kashmir issue will remain unresolved — live and ticking, in one or the other form.

Deceitful politics, at best, can only create ‘agents’ and not visionaries with conviction of thought and commitment of resolve. The solution lies in realising this — the sooner the better.