Events & Issues

New Delhi, 14 June 2010

J&K Revisited

DANGEROUS ISLAMISATION OF VALLEY

By Prakash Nanda

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has just returned from Kashmir. He appealed for peace and requested the “separatists” to return to the negotiating table. He held a series of conferences with the officials and political leaders. And as expected, he announced over Rs. 1000 crore sops to the State. Importantly, to score some misplaced points, he threatened the Armed Forces to behave properly in Kashmir, forgetting the fact that but for these, he, or any Prime Minister, would not have been able to land in the Valley.

 
But one fails to understand what Singh achieved overall from his two-day Kashmir visit in concrete terms? Well, the media, both national and international, went overboard. The press in Pakistan, where our home minister and foreign secretary are heading later this month, too got enough material to comment on. But the separatists have not been impressed. Worse, the security forces have been greatly demoralized. Sadly, it has now become quite routine for the civilian regime and elites in Kashmir to effortlessly raise their fingers at the Armed Forces for all their troubles, thus providing fuel to the extremists and separatists. And on the flimsiest of pretexts, officials of the military and paramilitary forces are being framed and suspended.

 
Ironically, the PM has not deemed it fit to travel to other, and in a sense more turbulent parts of the country – the North East, particularly Manipur and Nagaland. People there have been facing a blockade for over two months now. Of late, the Centre has totally mishandled the Naga issue. If any part of the country needs the presence of the Prime Minister to assuage the feelings of the affected people and boost their morale, it is the North-East. But, Singh and his advisors do not think so. Perhaps this is due to the fact that a visit to the North East will not attract headlines as it would in Kashmir.   

 
One has no problem with the “news-worthiness” of Kashmir. But what is worrying is that the Centre and the dominant section within the strategic community in the country find it politically incorrect to reveal the real problem in the Valley from the viewpoint of  national interests. And that real problem is the growing Islamisation of the Valley, which, in turn, makes any negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue almost impossible. An “Islamic Kashmir” will have nothing to do with India. Let me explain this point.

Over the years, Kashmir has been witnessing what Bangladeshi scholar Abu Taher Salahuddin Ahmed says are three principal trends – Indianness, Kashmiriness and Muslimness. The Indianness has been propagated by the federal forces, be it the Central Government or national parties such as the Congress and the BJP. However, the problem in the State is due to the tussle between those believing in Kashmiriness and those loyal to Muslimness.

Kashmiriness is an offshoot of the much-talked about Kashmiriyat, which, while co-existing with Indianness, talks of inclusive or composite identity, binding all groups together and not offending any section. No wonder why despite being a Muslim-majority area, beef-eating, until recently, was virtually non-existent in the Valley.    

 
Of course, some scholars now point out that there were always differences between Muslims and Hindus (essentially Kashmiri Pundits) in their interpretation of the concept of Kashmiriyat. But undeniably, the concept did promote coexistence. Majority of the Kashmiri Muslims, therefore, had no problems with the Hindus or for that matter with the Buddhists. And, the key factor to the success of Kashmiriyat was the fact that the overwhelming majority of the Kashmiri Muslims believed in Sufism or what is said the “Rishi tradition” that believed in saint and shrine worships. Of course, it was greatly facilitated by the fact that as was the case in other parts of the subcontinent, Muslims were essentially converts from the fold of Hinduism.

 
In contrast, the Muslimness always advocated the exclusive concepts in the Valley. Promoted by the Wahhabi and Ahl-i-Hadith sects, this school relies more on the authority of the Quran and Hadith and is totally opposed to the concept saints and shrine worships. This tradition or school has always been in minority in Kashmir, but has been there always. It was behind organisations such as the Muslim Conference and the Kashmir Jamaat (KJ).

 
Needless to say that almost all the separatists and terrorists, including the so-called moderate elements like the Hurriyat Conference, belong to the school of Islamness. They have nothing to do with India. No amount of appeasement will ever impress them to stay with India. They believe in the theory of “Kashmir for Muslims” and their essential argument is they cannot co-exist in a Hindu-dominated India.

 
Interestingly, these elements became active in Kashmir only after the 1979 Iranian revolution. It was then that one heard more of the “liberation of Kashmir” and “Islamic revolution”. These elements became more vocal in politics also and formed many small political outfits. In September 1985, twelve such outfits came together to form the Muslim United Front (MUF). Soon the MUF claimed to provide an alternative to the National Conference of Farooq Abdullah on the ground that he “sold out” the Kashmiris’ interest in the Accord with the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Since then, political Islam has had firmer roots in the Valley. The Pakistani support and assistance to the cause has greatly facilitated the cause. But what has really helped  political Islam in the Valley is the virtual politics of appeasement on the part of the Central and State governments to the separatists. The likes of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh have wrongly believed that by pandering to the demands of the Hurriyat and civil right activists, the situation will improve. However, appeasement will never work with forces of “Muslimness”; rather it will embolden them and strengthen the cause of “Kashmir for Muslims”. Did not we hear the likes of Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah saying during the Amarnath yatra agitation last year that Kashmir must not compromise its Muslim character?

 
Fortunately, even today the majority of the people in the State would like to remain part of India, as evident by the recent opinion poll, conducted by Chatham House (UK) on either side of the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. The poll showed that only 2 per cent of the people of J&K want to be part of Pakistan. As many as 58 per cent of the 3,774 polled, in J&K and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), are ready to accept the LoC as a permanent “soft border” — an idea dating back to the famous “Simla Agreement” of 1972 between Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

That being the case, it is high time the Indian Prime Minister, whichever party he or she may belong to, stopped inviting the separatist leaders to the negotiating table. Because, no amount of concessions will satisfy them. They simply need to be ignored and their militant supporters be disciplined. Clearly, they do not represent the majority. If they are imposing the so-called bandhs and the locals are listening to them it is mainly because of the fear they have generated in the people’s hearts and the self-imposed helplessness of our security forces.

 
The Prime Minister and the Chief Minister need to appeal directly to the people through good governance. Importantly, our secular Muslim leaders from the mainstream must be encouraged to visit Kashmir more often to impart the message that Muslims are more secure in India than in Pakistan. Indeed, that is the best way to fight the Islamisastion of the Valley. ---INFA 

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)