Book review: 'Until My Freedom Has Come: The New Intifada In Kashmir'

Book: Until My Freedom Has Come: The New Intifada In Kashmir
Edited by
Sanjay Kak
Penguin
304 pages
Rs299

Book: A Tangled Web: Jammu & Kashmir
Edited by
Ira Pande
HarperCollins/IIC
284 pages
Rs 699

Surprisingly, Kashmir this summer has been absent of youngsters throwing stones at India’s uniformed personnel (and getting killed in response), more so as 2011 has been characterised by an Arab Spring and the fall of authoritarian governments in the Muslim world. Perhaps three summers of downtown Srinagar having anticipated Tahrir Square, starting from the Amarnath Shrine Board land controversy in 2008 to last summer’s street battles, has taken its toll; and Kashmiris have taken a break to earn a living. Perhaps the government has clamped down with a vengeance, but carefully. Perhaps the tinderbox just awaits a spark. The uncertainty about what may happen and what simmers beneath the surface is due to the fact that unlike poverty, Kashmir is one problem India has rarely tried to sincerely sort out since independence. Like poverty, Kashmir generates many books, though general interest has waned because despite the establishment’s best efforts, it’s a problem that simply doesn’t go away.

Two recent publications, Until My Freedom Has Come: The New Intifada In Kashmir and A Tangled Web: Jammu And Kashmir, were provoked by 2010’s summer in which around 116 died; mostly kids, mostly shot. Intifada is by far the one worth reading even though many pieces have already appeared, scattered in cyber-space and in print. The book is like a collection of songs; each one sung from the heart. Collectively, they speak the truth to power. It is a necessary read; not least of all for the Indian media, which lately has lost credibility in Kashmir.

Tangled, on the other hand, is an India International Centre (IIC) quarterly’s collection of essays and is, with notable exceptions (authors of which, incidentally, have written in both volumes), a painful intellectual game of ‘Twister’. In it, many academics speak of matters such as competing nationalisms, ascriptive narratives and identity politics, but basically what they are trying is to justify India’s rule over Kashmir while appearing to be liberal. It is dishonest and tedious.

In Intifada, Suvir Kaul gives us a “Diary of a Summer”, in which a Kashmiri wonders why an eight-year-old armed with a cricket bat is clubbed to death by CRPF jawans (note the author’s religion). Basharat Peer, whose Curfewed Night made his voice recognisable around the world, writes “A Letter to an Unknown Indian”. In “Respected Shobha Rani”, Aijaz Hussain tells a story of four boys who fall in love with a CRPF official and refuse to throw stones at her; they instead send her a love letter. There is a rap number by MC Kash, “I Protest”, a big hit with Kashmiri youngsters on YouTube and Facebook. Malik Sajad chips in with a graphic short story, which won my heart immediately. Nawaz Gul Qanungo criticises the Indian media in “Languages of a Security State”. And Arif Ayaz Parrey writes a poignant parable, “A Victorious Campaign”, in which a hillside-village simpleton somehow makes a nearby Army camp go away.

These were my favourites, but the entirety of Intifada is worthwhile for its insights into what exactly is wrong in Kashmir. It’s quite simple. The people there don’t want to be a part of India, and never have been. Well, maybe they reluctantly sided with India in 1947 because of Pakistan’s high-handedness, but that goodwill evaporated in 1953. Today in India there is a lot of breast-beating about how Kashmir is an integral part of India and must remain in India and etc, etc ad nauseam. Perhaps the Indian state, rendered superfluous by most other parts of the country, uses Kashmir as a lab to flex its muscle, to test its evolving theories of modern warfare, and to generally burnish its self-image as a “not-soft” state. That sounds like it’s a bully, showing off how tough he is by beating up on the very weak in the neighbourhood. Perhaps Kashmir is merely a fetish for the Indian security state.

A bunch of political theorists and other academics try in Tangled to masquerade as independent solution-seekers, but are basically looking to dilute the intensity of the Kashmiri political demand. Pratap Bhanu Mehta speaks of “Kashmir as a Syndrome”, Ashutosh Varshney speaks of “Three Compromised Nationalisms”, Navnita Chadha Behera speaks of “Re-Framing the Conflict”; well, you get the idea. They are probably all sincere in pointing out how the various demands and discussions between Kashmir, India and Pakistan (though frankly Pakistan has made itself completely irrelevant) have led to not much other than a hardening of positions. Fair enough. But in each of these papers when you cut through the layers of argument and theory and terminology what you find at the core is the basic premise that Kashmir belongs in India and thus, India belongs in Kashmir.

Perhaps India will hold onto Kashmir for another 100 years; who knows? But the whole point of a genuine intellectual exercise is to question the assumptions which have given us this tangled web of the title. India ought to debate whether it should hold on to a people if those people do not want to be held on to. After all, the State is the sum of its people, and not some third-party presence to which we all submit. Perhaps India could not afford granting a right to secession in her early years; but surely the nation is now strong enough to grant that right?

This is why the parts of Tangled that work best are in the “Cries and Whispers” section, like Arif Ayaz Parrey’s “Two Faces of Janus”, in which he has a non-fictitious interview with a fictitious stone-pelter (Parrey is a writer to watch out for!), and Gowhar Fazili’s “Grieving as a Medium”. They only confirm the feeling that discussion of Kashmir has long passed the stage of intellectualisation and needs an appeal that is direct and emotional. These and the articles in Intifada prove that you cannot win the battle for minds if you’ve lost the war for hearts.