Author and so­cial me­dia ac­tivist Ajay­pal Singh Brar traces the ori­gin of the Kash­mir po­lit­i­cal con­flict and pro­vides a global per­spec­tive, cau­tion­ing In­dia for its mis­cal­cu­lated, ma­li­cious and may­hem-rid­den mis­ad­ven­ture in In­dian-ad­min­is­tered Kash­mir. The au­thor com­pli­ments Sikh re­sponse to the evolv­ing cri­sis and ad­mon­ishes those who use in­tem­per­ate and un­civil lan­guage against the Kash­miris, es­pe­cially Kash­miri women.

FIFTY-THREE YEARS AGO, while re­ject­ing the Pun­jabi Suba Bill, then Mem­ber of the In­dian Par­lia­ment -Sikh scholar-leader Sir­dar Ka­pur Singh stated, “I op­pose this Bill, on be­half of my con­stituents and re­ject it on be­half of my par­ent party -Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal. I do so for three rea­sons. Firstly, it is con­ceived in sin, sec­ondly, it has been de­liv­ered by an in­com­pe­tent and un­trained mid­wife and thirdly, it is op­posed to the best in­ter­ests of the na­tion, as it will al­most cer­tainly lead to a weak­en­ing of na­tional in­te­gra­tion and loss of faith in the in­tegrity of those who ex­er­cise po­lit­i­cal power in the coun­try.” He was in­ter­vened by Shri Tyagi who re­torted, “It is not an il­licit child.”

This Au­gust, the same In­dian Par­lia­ment, once again de­liv­ered a Bill, not only con­ceived in sin but il­licit too. In­dian Home Min­is­ter Amit Shah de­liv­ered a fa­tal blow to the In­dian con­sti­tu­tion on the floor of the Par­lia­ment with his gov­ern­ment uni­lat­er­ally re­vok­ing the spe­cial sta­tus of Jammu and Kash­mir and split­ting the state into two cen­trally-ad­min­is­tered union ter­ri­to­ries.  In a mat­ter of min­utes, Kash­mir was down­graded from a semi-au­tonomous state to a colony of In­dia, with a size­able chunk sliced away from its core body.

Since the time of Par­ti­tion, 72 years ago, In­dia and Pak­istan have been re­spec­tively call­ing each other -oc­cu­pier and op­pres­sor of the Kash­miris, while the Kash­miris have al­ways main­tained that more than any spe­cial sta­tus or merg­ing with In­dia or Pak­istan, they would like to be left alone.  Azaadi -full in­de­pen­dence, is what they yearn for.

Azaadi -full in­de­pen­dence, is what the Kash­miris yearn for.

Oc­ca­sion­ally, there have been half-hearted pledges that Kash­miri peo­ple should prob­a­bly get to do what they want with their par­adise. In 1948, the United Na­tions Se­cu­rity Coun­cil called for a plebiscite so that Kash­miris could de­cide their own fate. This has not hap­pened as In­dia has re­neged on its promise to the Kash­miris, to the in­ter­na­tional fo­rum and has im­morally side-stepped the is­sue as an in­ter­na­tional one.

What­ever the Kash­miris may want, one thing is cer­tain. They did not want what they got this Au­gust.  Kash­mir’s spe­cial sta­tus and rel­a­tive au­ton­omy re­voked un­der In­di­a’s Con­sti­tu­tion, some seven hun­dred thou­sand mil­i­tary and para-mil­i­tary per­son­nel in the world’s most mil­i­ta­rized re­gion, schools shut, of­fices shut, the in­ter­net snatched away, land­lines dead, Kash­miri po­lit­i­cal lead­ers — even those who have ad­vo­cated a pro-In­dia pol­icy, be­hind bars. This is Kash­mir to­day and much more still un­known and locked to the world.

Not sur­pris­ingly, be­fore be­ing de­tained, a for­mer Chief Min­is­ter of the state of Jammu and Kash­mir re­gret­ted the de­ci­sion to align with In­dia at the time of par­ti­tion of the sub-con­ti­nent in 1947.

Though the re­vo­ca­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370 was first ar­tic­u­lated by a Ben­gali politi­cian -Shyama Prasad Mukher­jee, the founder of a right-wing Hindu po­lit­i­cal out­fit -Jan Sangh, but its seeds lay in In­dian na­tion­al­ism that arose in Ben­gal in the late 19th  cen­tury, which was Brah­man­i­cal in tex­ture and  char­ac­ter, with an ob­jec­tive  to con­front and dec­i­mate the Is­lamic mi­nor­ity.

The ide­o­log­i­cal suc­ces­sor of the Jan Sangh, -the Bhar­tiya Janata Party -BJP, adopted a sim­i­lar stance on Kash­mir and in­cluded re­vo­ca­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370 in its Elec­tion Man­i­festo of the just-con­cluded 2019 gen­eral elec­tions in the coun­try.

Un­ques­tion­ably, the de­ci­sion when it was taken on 5 Au­gust, it was wel­comed by a large swath of In­di­ans in gen­eral but it was es­pe­cially cel­e­brated by the Hindu na­tion­al­ist right-wing party and its fol­low­ers as the party had al­ways felt that the Kash­miri peo­ple have en­joyed too many priv­i­leges and has been con­sis­tently ques­tion­ing their at­tach­ment with In­dia and In­di­ans.  Hindu na­tion­al­ists danced in the streets and set-off fire­crack­ers, wav­ing the In­dian flag, hug­ging and kiss­ing each other as a vic­tor and a con­queror.

Shame­lessly, Hindu na­tion­al­ists danced in the streets and set-off fire­crack­ers, wav­ing the In­dian flag, hug­ging and kiss­ing each other as a vic­tor and a con­queror.

Ramesh Shinde, a spokesper­son for the Hindu Jana Ja­gruti Samiti -a Hindu na­tion­al­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion, called the elim­i­na­tion of Kash­mir’s au­ton­omy a “his­toric step to­ward es­tab­lish­ing the Hindu Rash­tra.”

Be­fore Ar­ti­cle 370 was scrapped, suc­ces­sive regimes of the Con­gress party had turned the spe­cial sta­tus into a tooth­less piece of pa­per. It was noth­ing more than a hol­low ed­i­fice from the past. Kash­miris had the no­tional priv­i­lege of mak­ing their own laws and fly­ing their own flag. Even this no­tional priv­i­lege came with huge hu­man and fi­nan­cial costs. They were pun­ished for it for decades. Thou­sands of Kash­miris have been made to in­vol­un­tary dis­ap­pear or be il­le­gally de­tained. Kash­mir has seen the largest mass-blind­ing with pel­let guns in hu­man his­tory. Lock­downs are al­most daily rit­u­als.

And what an op­por­tune tim­ing it was!  As the “You ex­tri­cate me in Afghanistan and, I me­di­ate in Kash­mir” nar­ra­tive, swung the dy­nam­ics of the US-Pak­istan re­la­tion­ship in the re­gion, In­dia pre-empted it and struck the first blow, tak­ing its arch-ri­val Pak­istan by sur­prise.

Though such moves that whip up Hindu frenzy is ex­pected when elec­tions are around, this time the move prob­a­bly stemmed from global geopol­i­tics in the re­gion, with China bat­tling an econ­omy-crip­pling trade war, is em­broiled al­ready on two fronts -the Uighur Mus­lims and the pro-democ­racy un­rest in Hong Kong. Pak­istan too is in an eco­nomic quag­mire, sink­ing deeper and deeper. The Modi-Shah duo blitzkrieg has put Pak­istani plan­ners on the horns of a dilemma -whether to com­mit its mea­gre war-time and mil­i­tary re­sources on the Afghan front which is crit­i­cal to its strate­gic depth or to get fur­ther em­broiled in Kash­mir.

“The elim­i­na­tion of Kash­mir’s au­ton­omy a “his­toric step to­ward es­tab­lish­ing the Hindu Rash­tra.”

Ramesh Shinde, spokesper­son, Hindu Jana Ja­gruti Samiti

The Pak­istan Prime Min­is­ter Im­ran Khan is un­der pres­sure to act and avenge what in the words of Na­tional Se­cu­rity Ad­viser and for­mer In­dian In­tel­li­gence Agency RAW chief A S Daulat has amounted to “noth­ing less than rub­bing the Kash­miri nose on the ground.”

The Kash­mir sub­con­ti­nent has its own ver­sion of Pales­tine. Re­ports in­di­cate that the In­dian gov­ern­ment may have in­formed the United States well in ad­vance of its move for sta­tus change, and hoped that Amer­ica will re­main silent on the is­sue. The US has de­nied any such com­plic­ity and the in­ter­na­tional arena is grad­u­ally let­ting out muted voices. Is­rael’s suc­cess in nor­mal­iz­ing its re­la­tion­ship with the Arab world even while con­tin­u­ing to an­nex the West Bank and Chi­na’s mass in­tern­ment of Uighurs with the sup­port of most Mus­lim gov­ern­ments al­most cer­tainly re­in­force the views of In­dian na­tion­al­ists who be­lieve that tight me­dia con­trols, de­mo­graphic en­gi­neer­ing and harsh pun­ish­ment will fix the Kash­miri prob­lem.

This is the gross mis­take In­dia is com­mit­ting. In­dia is not Is­rael, nor is it China. It can­not em­brace the il­le­gal meth­ods used in the West Bank, Ti­bet and Xin­jiang with­out dam­ag­ing it­self in un­pre­dictable ways.

With close to a mil­lion jack­boots on Kash­miri soil, In­dian im­pe­ri­al­ism in its ma­li­cious glory has sent shiv­ers down the spine of mi­nori­ties and sub­al­terns.  Like in June 1984, the sheer scale and in­ten­sity of the force used to thrust this ret­ro­gres­sive de­ci­sion down the throats of ‘re­cal­ci­trant Kash­miris’ and the nasty and hate­ful nar­ra­tive do­ing rounds in the coun­try must ring alarm bells in the minds of mi­nori­ties, re­gional iden­ti­ties and de­prived com­mu­ni­ties. All such de­nom­i­na­tions who are re­sist­ing the ef­forts of the Hin­dutva forces to re­set the re­la­tion­ship with them and ef­forts to place them into the Hindu Varna-ashram hi­er­ar­chy, clearly face an up­hill task.

It is the gross mis­take In­dia is com­mit­ting. In­dia is not Is­rael, nor is it China. It can­not em­brace the il­le­gal meth­ods used in the West Bank, Ti­bet and Xin­jiang with­out dam­ag­ing it­self in un­pre­dictable ways.

While In­dian im­pe­ri­al­ism is try­ing to lure the gullible sec­tion of Kash­miris by  dan­gling a car­rot  of in­creased  in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ment and em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties,  the saf­fron-clad brigade is work­ing over­time to sanc­tify the neo-colo­nial loot, as the Hindi cow-belt crowds ap­plaud and cheer the idea of plun­der and rap­ine, eye­ing the Kash­miri land and  women, with greed and lust.

Re­sist­ing tyranny and op­pres­sion is the core Sikh tra­di­tion fol­low­ing the teach­ings of the Gu­rus. Stand­ing sen­tinel to this, Sikhs have not only raised their voice against the op­pres­sion in Kash­mir on var­i­ous plat­forms glob­ally but have also come to res­cue the op­pressed.  Sikhs have come for­ward to the res­cue of Kash­miri stu­dents pan-In­dia. In­stances of Sikh bod­ies help­ing Kash­miri girl stu­dents reach home safely from the lech­er­ous eyes of the likes of Haryana CM ML Khat­tar re­in­forces the hu­man­i­tar­ian strain of Sikhism.

In an ine­bri­ated state of ab­solute power, those in au­thor­ity seem to have for­got­ten that em­pires and na­tions have lasted not be­cause they had vast re­sources and large armies, nor be­cause they could in­flict fa­tal dam­age on their sub­jects, but be­cause they could give them jus­tice, peace and pros­per­ity.

This week, whilst Mus­lims world­wide were cel­e­brat­ing Eid, Kash­miri brethren stood caged in their houses, while some moth­ers lined up for hours at makeshift tele­phone booths set-up by the ad­min­is­tra­tion for them to gain ac­cess to their beloveds far and wide. These moth­ers were ei­ther telling them to stay away from Kash­mir or were rush­ing their pel­leted kin to hos­pi­tals, amidst a to­tally de­nial-mode ad­min­is­tra­tion and a com­plicit and silent In­dian me­dia.

In an ine­bri­ated state of ab­solute power, those in au­thor­ity seem to have for­got­ten that em­pires and na­tions have lasted not be­cause they had vast re­sources and large armies, nor be­cause they could in­flict fa­tal dam­age on their sub­jects, but be­cause they could give them jus­tice, peace and pros­per­ity.

The pow­ers-that-be, the fol­low­ers of mass jin­go­ism and hate in In­dia will do well to re­call the Shanti Parva of the epic Ma­hab­harata, wherein, ly­ing on a bed of ar­rows, Bhishma had ad­vised Yud­his­tra:

दण्डनीत्यां यदा राजा सम्यक् कात्स्न्येन वर्तते।
तदा कृतयुगं नाम कालसृष्टं प्रवर्तते।। शान्ति ६९.८० ।।

When the king uses with ho­n­our, truth, and care -the in­stru­ment of gov­er­nance,
he cre­ates the times called Krita-Yuga.

दण्डनीतिं परित्यज्य यदा कात्स्येन भमिपः।
प्रजा: क्लिश्नात्ययोगेन प्रवर्तेत तदा कलि: ।। शान्ति ६९.९१ ।।

When the king aban­dons ho­n­our, truth, and care in the acts of gov­er­nance
and, by in­de­fen­si­ble means op­presses the peo­ple, then arise the times called Kali.