Kashmir needs freedom from violence

Wallowing in idealistic romance can lead us to bizarre presumptions. Nothing illustrates this better than Malavika Sangghvi’s column, ‘Please, set Kashmir Free’, which appeared in the Sunday edition of DNA. Usually, such a piece would be ignored but given the current climate, the message that has been given out needs to be put in perspective.

Childhood reminiscences apart, one is forced to ask what the writer is trying to convey. If it is the fact that an ordinary Mumbaikar or an ordinary Indian is ignorant or jingoistic about Kashmir or the genesis of the crisis prevalent in Kashmir, the writer is no less guilty on the same count. Sans rhetoric, what historical, political or analytical perspective has she given to us? Merely stating that the Indian state is an occupying force in Kashmir does not cut much ice with either the naïve or the informed reader.

Her use of the word “genocide” is also unfortunate. This is not a term that can be used to describe the way India has treated Kashmiri Muslims. Could she care to tell us about the shrill cries of “azaadi” emanating at the onset of Pakistan-sponsored insurgency, when the loudspeakers of the mosques would blare: “We want Kashmir without Kashmiri Pandit men but with their women”?

It is worth knowing that the “proponents of the noble azaadi”, raped, killed and kidnapped and have been caught in money-laundering operations. Yet, as a healing touch measure, these very initiators of the mayhem in Valley have been set free by the very India who she accuses of genocide. Several of those who have killed are today free on the streets of Kashmir. What more compassion and catholicity does she expect of the Indian state?

I am myself a Kashmiri, a Kashmiri who has been forced out of his home, a man whose house was burnt. As a minority Hindu living in Kashmir, I have felt fear first-hand. I have heard the deafening noises of those processions which said, “Aiy zalemo aiy kafiro Kashmir hamara chod do”. My father was almost killed by the bullets of the “soldiers of God”.

There is a perception about the Indian Army’s large, unfair and unpopular presence in Kashmir. Yet, as a child, I did not even see policemen in my native village leave alone any CRPF or Indian army personnel. Before the onset of insurgency, the Kashmir valley did not have even one bunker of either the paramilitary or the armed forces. While I agree that there might have been some cases of excesses at the hands of the forces, the fact that the separatists have changed gear towards peaceful protests brings home the point that the Indian armed forces broke the back of groups like JKLF, Allah Tigers, Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Tayiba and others.

It is thanks to the army’s efforts that the earthquake victims on our side of Kashmir are resettled while those in POK still live in tents provided by foreign agencies. While it may be fashionable to slander the armed forces, one must not forget that the army even looks after the education and upkeep of children of the erstwhile militants.

But that’s not the moot point. The moot point is whether we should set Kashmir free. Yes, we should. Yes, we should set Kashmir free from the obscurantist ideology that the separatists seem to be following. Yes, we should set Kashmir free from the endless cycle of violence set forth by religious fanaticism that the protagonists of the conversion of Dar-ul Harb to Dar-ul Islam have put it in to. Yes we should set Kashmir free from the heroes of hate who brought guns to Kashmir from Pakistan and are now portraying themselves as Gandhis and Nelson Mandelas, forgetting that both never killed anyone and both believed in peaceful co-existence and pluralism. Yes, we should set Kashmir free from the grip of people who forced half a million Hindus and Sikhs to live as refugees.

The writer is a filmmaker and activist.