My new book on Kashmir

Kashmir and Indo-Pak Relations, Politics of Reconciliation offers a no-holds-barred account of the developments in Kashmir politics and India-Pakistan relations as they unfolded between 2008 and 2013.Culled out from the author’s popular Sunday column in the Srinagar-based Greater Kashmir newspaper “statecraft” and other Op-eds, the book promises to take the reader beyond the traditional narratives on Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations. Provocative and deeply engaging Politics of Reconciliation aims to challenge the commonsense wisdom on the Kashmir question and Indo-Pak relations. Section I of the book, divided into six chapters, deals with the fast-changing nuances of the conflict transformation processes in and on Kashmir. Section II of the book, divided into five chapters, deals with the intricacies of India-Pakistan relations and the potential pathways towards peaceful coexistence.

http://www.samskritibookshelf.com/bookshelf/international-affairs/kashmir-and-indo-pak-relations-politics-of-reconciliation/

Demythifying Article 370

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

The Bharatiya Janata Party has clearly changed, or at least nuanced, it’s traditional stand on Article 370 by arguing that there should be a debate on the controversial constitutional provision. While Mr. Narendra Modi’s statement has provided us with an occasion to think about it, there are other equally important reasons why we must reflect on the Article. The most important of those reasons is that there are far too many myths surrounding it. Let me try and demythify some of them.

 
The myth about “special status”
The most prominent myth surrounding Article 370 is that as a result of its existence the J&K state has been “enjoying and benefitting from” some kind of special treatment.  It is widely believed that the special provision, which mandates that the Central Government cannot makes legislation for J&K except with respect to Defense, Foreign Relations and Communication, discriminates against other states. Is this the correct interpretation of Article 370? First of all, the Article today is a poor shadow of given the fact that New Delhi, in collusion with various government in J&K, has managed to chip away most of the provisions of the Article. So, in reality, the special status exists mostly on paper. What if the Article were to exist in its original shape and form today? Would it then mean that other Indian states are discriminated against? To my mind, that is really the wrong question to ask. Different Indian states are endowed with different historical, cultural, political and material realities which are part of their very essence and existence. Likewise, J&K has a special history in which it decided to join the Indian union. Article 370 is the result of that special history. It’s ironical that those who argue that since Article 370 is supposed to be “temporary”, it should therefore be done away with tend to forget another historical reality – the promise of plebiscite made to J&K by India. Is it not hypocritical then to talk about Article 370 and maintain a stony silence about the Plebiscite question?

‘Special provisions are only for Kashmir’ 
The other myth about Article 370 is that J&K is the only state with special status/provisions. There are many Indian states that have been given special provisions by the Indian constitution even though J&K can be considered as ‘enjoying’ the most amount of special provisions. Indeed, special laws/provisions are applicable to a number of states in India. If someone from Delhi or Punjab has to travel to Nagaland, for instance, he/she will have to first obtain an “inner line permit” to do so or will be denied entry into the state. In some parts of India, people from other parts are not allowed to buy land. Hence to argue that J&K is the only state that has been given special constitutional provisions is a factually incorrect argument.  

This leads me to a related point about why it is perhaps necessary in a country like India to have special constitutional or legal provisions for different regions, states and peoples. Some of those arguing against special provisions also point out that such provisions are inherently divisive and will create long-lasting problems in the achievement of national unity. Again this is a misleading argument for it privileges uniformity over unity: national unity does not require “uniformising” the country. More so, it’s the attempts at formulating uniform rules that can lead to problems in the country since most supporters of uniformity would insist that cultural, religious and other differences should be done away with. 

Those who worry about India’s integrity and the impact of Article 370 on it should take a look at China. While there is only one Chinese state, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan continue to have their own distinct economic and political systems. To my mind, it has only contributed to the national integrity of China. 

'Article 370 fuels separatist tendencies'
The other myth about Article 370 is that it has led to an increase in Kashmir’s separatist tendencies. Is that really the case? Is it the existence of Article 370 or it’s watering down by the Indian state that has contributed to separatist tendencies in Kashmir? Anyone with some familiarity with the history of J&K would know that New Delhi’s dubious, and successful, attempts at watering down Article 370 has been a major cause of disillusionment among the Kashmiris. In any case, those making the argument that Article 370 fuels separatism are conveniently forgetting the rampant violation of Kashmiris’ human and political rights that have most definitely increased the separatist tendencies in the state. 

'Poor people do not benefit from Article 370'
I don’t think all benefits are economic or material in nature, some benefits are political too. However, let me just say that a lot of poor people in J&K state would have lost their land by now had it not been for Article 370. Let me come back to the earlier point. It is dishonest to argue that only what benefits you materially and economically is useful. The point I am making is that everyone, poor or rich, equally deserves self-respect and political rights. To say that Kashmir’s poor do not bother with special political/constitutional rights is equivalent to saying that poor people are politically inadequate.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, December 8, 2013. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Dec/8/demythifying-article-370-5.asp)

Questions from Kashmir

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

I was in Srinagar last week to attend the release function of my recently published book, Kashmir and Indo-Pak relations: Politics of Reconciliation, organized by this newspaper, and to participate in a book discussion at the Kashmir University. I faced a number of intellectual challenges and well-thought-out questions both at the Institute of Kashmir Studies and Hotel Grand Mumtaz, where the book was released. Questions and challenges can unsettle and, sometimes, frustrate us. But they can also help us reflect and introspect. I chose to reflect and introspect, rather than be frustrated. Here’re some of the important issues/questions that came up during my interaction in Srinagar. 

Indian narrative? 
More than once was I asked whether my book was yet another ‘Indian’ narrative on the Kashmir question and if yes what would be the utility of such an exercise. A related question was about my acknowledgement in the book about my own inherent biases. It was pointed out to me that academics and analysts should be neutral and not biased. I clarified that mine is an ‘Indian narrative’ in so far I am an Indian, but it stops there. Not only that my views do not reflect the Indian state’s view on Kashmir, but more importantly, my views often present a counter-narrative to the Indian state’s traditional discourse on Kashmir. And yes, I am biased both by necessity and as a conscious choice. It’s a necessity because I don’t think biases can be done away with (we can only recognize them); it’s a conscious choice because column-writing, to my mind, involves a certain level of political activism, and discussing Kashmir from a particular political and ideological standpoint is a conscious choice I have made. Just that in this case, I have strong pro-Kashmir biases, whatever that means. 

The problem with inherent biases that we are not conscious of is that they create deeply embedded redlines in our intellectual pursuits. For instance, many Indian writers on Kashmir tend not to cross certain redlines on the Kashmir issue, redlines that are informed by the powerful pulls of the state propaganda. Hence, even those self-proclaimed liberals do not go beyond a point in critiquing the Indian state’s Kashmir policy.  This is not to negate another view that I hold about the Indian media: that the Indian media has also acted as an agent of change in so far as India’s new approach to Kashmir is concerned by virtue of promoting a certain multi-vocality on the Kashmir question. At the least, they have managed to demolish certain certitudes Indians had about Kashmir. 

The centrality of Kashmir in Indo-Pak relations
One of my fellow columnists in Greater Kashmir, Mehmood ur Rashid, reaffirmed, during the book discussion at the Kashmir University, a view that I have held for a very long time: if you ignore the centrality of Kashmir in the Indo-Pak conflict, you would be looking in the wrong place for a resolution for the India-Pakistan standoff. Kashmir is central to Indo-Pak reconciliation: there is no other way of making sustainable peace between the two nuclear-armed rivals. India and Pakistan have tried to freeze the Kashmir issue, sidestep it, ignore it, and undermine it by talking only about CBMs: nothing seems to have worked. The simple fact is that the Kashmir issue continues to create problems on the highroad to bilateral reconciliation because the demands and aspirations of the Kashmiris have been relegated to the backburner. That is simply not the way make peace between India and Pakistan. 

The ‘democracy bias’
Another question posed to me was on the elections in Kashmir. While some pointed out that most of the elections were not ‘genuine elections’, others pointed out that New Delhi seems to promote elections as a symbol of normalcy in Kashmir. I agree. Whenever Kashmiris come out to vote in great numbers, which happens especially during elections to the local bodies, Indian commentators see it as a sign of normalcy in Kashmir. This ‘democracy bias’ not only distorts serious analysis of the problem but also prevents the potential resolution of the issue. This ‘democracy bias’ also stems from a deep-seated Indian misunderstanding of the Kashmir conundrum: that the Kashmir conflict is simply about the electoral frustrations of the Kashmir people. 

The ‘governance trap’
The Indian (mis)understanding of the Kashmir problem also puts disproportionate focus  on the importance of governance in addressing the conflict, some others pointed out. Clearly, governance is important to Kashmir as it is perhaps to every other state in India. But to insist that Kashmir conflict is all about malgovernance or that good governance will do away with the Kashmir conflict are both flawed arguments. Conflict in Kashmir cannot be explained by using the ‘governance variable’. More importantly, the governance argument is a trap because once you accept that logic, the Kashmir conflict gets ‘normalised’ in the sense that it becomes just like any other conflict in the country, and there are a large number of governance-related problems in the country. 

My contradictions
Some of my discussants pointed out that there are many contradictions in the book. I agree. The contradictions in the book come from the fact that this book is a compilation of my op-ed pieces in GK and The Hindu over the past 5-6 years. Clearly, my views on Kashmir and Indo-Pak relations have changed over the last half a dozen years. I have evolved as a political commentator and I have no hesitation in saying so. Besides, I am not a great fan of the virtue called political consistency across different historical periods. When milieus change, so should our politics, because politics, at a certain level, is our response to what happens in the wider society around us. Moreover, writers and political commentators should evolve in their views of the world and how they respond to it. 

(Source: Greater Kashmir, December 1, 2013. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Dec/1/questions-from-kashmir-5.asp)

Romancing Pakistan

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

Exactly a week ago, the separatist leadership from the Kashmir Valley met with Mr. Sartaj Aziz, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's foreign policy advisor, in New Delhi. The meeting, first condemned by the BJP and then by the Indian Government, and attended by the major factions of Kashmir’s dissident movement, was no more than a headline-grabbing exercise. However, I must clarify that don’t see anything wrong with such meetings. Politicians, like others, of a country are free to meet politicians and officials of another country. More so, what was the hoopla surrounding this meeting given the fact that such meetings have happened in the past as well? 

If the Kashmiri leadership had time to meet Mr. Aziz, why don’t they meet the Indian officials and leadership as well? Yes, I know the answer: ‘What’s the point of talking to New Delhi when we know that nothing concrete will come out of such meetings as has been the case every time they talked to New Delhi?’ I agree. Talking to New Delhi has not changed the lives or the political destiny of the Kashmiris in any significant manner. But tell me, how on earth is Islamabad different from New Delhi in helping Kashmiris achieve their political aspirations? Has Islamabad been sincere about its support for Kashmir’s azadi movement? In fact, the official Pakistani position on Kashmir continues to be the merger of Kashmir with the former. Now that might suit Mr. Ali Shah Geelani, but would the other dissident leaders be able to digest that?  I don’t think so. 

Of course New Delhi’s politicians have consistently usurped the political rights of Kashmiris and its forces have violated the human rights of Kashmiris, time and again. What about Pakistan? Does it have a better scorecard? Has Islamabad not violated the human rights of Kashmiris? Have they not vitiated the indigenous azadi movement of the Kashmiris? If the Kashmiri dissidents say that Pakistan has not killed Kashmiris but has only provided political and diplomatic support to the Kashmir cause, they would either be delusional or would be bluffing their people. The fact is that Pakistan has not done a better job in Kashmir than India. Both are guilty of violating the rights of Kashmiris (yes, I agree that it is New Delhi, not Islamabad, that has the power to change the lives of Kashmiris for the better if it decides to do so, that is) and it should be said so. Remember, enemy’s enemy is not necessarily your friend; he may as well be your enemy too. 

What came out of the meeting? 

Did something concrete come out of this meeting between the Kashmiri dissident leadership and Sartaj Aziz? The truth is that nothing really came out of this meeting except of course providing an opportunity to the dissidents to show that they continue to have some importance in Kashmir. Pakistan as usual stuck to its position that they would politically and diplomatically support the Kashmir cause, which, we know, doesn’t mean much at the end of the day. Or is anyone thinking of making good use of the strategic ambiguity that would present itself post-2014? The possibility that Pakistan could give some ‘material help’ to Kashmir militancy once the US-led coalition withdraws from Afghanistan certainly exists. But those awaiting such an opportunity should realize that today’s Kashmir is not that of late 1980s and early 1990s: Kashmiris are tired of violence of all varieties, state and non-state included.  

What does Pakistan’s support mean for Kashmir?

Ali Shah Geelani's spokesman issued a statement after the Hurriyat leader’s meeting with Aziz: “Geelani told Aziz that Pakistan should continue to support the Kashmir cause politically as well as diplomatically, besides through other means, and highlight human rights violations in J&K at the hands of the security force”. For sure, Islamabad recently raised the issue at the UN, Shariff told Obama to mediate on Kashmir and of course raised the issue with the Indian side. To what effect? At the UN, let us face it, no one was interested in the Pakistani arguments. Obama’s focus was on the Taliban and Afghanistan, and yes, the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear assets, not on Kashmir. Indian side, as is to be expected, was more keen on Pakistani action of countering terrorism than talking about Kashmir. 

The point I am trying to make is simple and straightforward: In today’s milieu, Pakistan’s support for the Kashmir cause would not lead to anything and won’t mean much not only because of the prevailing international environment but also because of the internal debates within Pakistan about Kashmir. If anything, support by Pakistan would only mean bad omen for the Kashmir cause given Islamabad’s standing in the international system today. A lot of people may not like what I am saying, but to me this is crystal clear.  

More importantly, let me say this at the risk of repeating myself all over again: Kashmir’s dissident leadership should ask themselves whether it is a good idea to premise their azadi struggle on Pakistan and its support for it. I am not suggesting that the Kashmir question has no Pakistan angle but rather that Kashmir’s azadi struggle need not be seen as fundamentally related to the Pakistani state. In other words, the ontological existence and defining characteristics of Kashmir’s azadi struggle should be seen as divorced from the idea of Pakistan.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, November 17, 2013. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Nov/17/romancing-pakistan-61.asp)

The politics of honoring Malala

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

Malala Yousafzai is undoubtedly a brave girl and for having the sheer courage to continue to speak of the need to educate girl children in a place like Swat in Pakistan after having been shot in the head by the Taliban, all at the young age of 15, she deserves praise. Like many of you, I also wish there were many more like her amongst us, that our girl children had the courage to speak out against gender discrimination and that we listened to their dreams and hopes more often than we normally do. And yet I am not deeply saddened by the Nobel Peace Committee’s decision not to award Malala the coveted price this year. Indeed, if the Nobel Committee were to award her the peace prize, it would have convincingly persuaded us to forget about the politics behind honoring the young girl from Swat. Let me explain.

Malala is not the first person to have braved the bullets of obscurantist forces or fought for equality or justice. Many men and women among us have done that, and continue to do so. Picking Malala out of those countless people shows the manner in which the Western media and governments have tried to portray the political situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa  (KPK) in a simplified, black and white manner – the bad Taliban Vs. the good saviors of the West.

The timing of honoring Malala is even more curious – about a year before the scheduled withdrawal of the US and NATO forces from Afghanistan. The truth is that the Western forces are facing the embarrassing situation of having to withdraw from Afghanistan without achieving much success. There is no way that the West’s Afghan campaign can be considered a success. But perceptions and interpretations of their countries’ military campaigns matter a lot in the Western drawing rooms. 

Western governments know they can’t sell the story of ‘Afghan victory’ to their people and yet there is a need to justify the humanitarian angle of their soon-to-end Afghan campaign. It is important to instill a sense of ‘mission accomplished’ belief among people. Human-interest stories sell. Honoring of Malala by the Western leadership and governments has done precisely that.  

Selective Amnesia
Western governments habitually engage in self-imposed selective amnesia. The ongoing discourse about the Taliban brand of religious extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas, for instance, is seriously ahistorical. The Western governments who would like to ‘rescue’ the native women from the clutches of obscurantism and inequality should remind themselves of the dirty role they played in creating the conditions for it. The simple question that the White man (and Woman), charged with high levels of missionary zeal, should ask himself/herself is whether their own governments had a role in bringing extremism to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1980s. Not only did the American and other governments fund the Mujahideen war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s with help from Pakistan but also did a great deal to create the necessary social, religious and intellectual conditions for the fight against the Soviets. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani academic, says that US grants were extensively used on the intellectual war front.  Large amounts of American money went in to publishing textbooks that blasted Marxism and instilled faith in and fervour for militant Islamism. He picks a crudely comic example from a fourth-grade mathematics textbook to illustrate the weird methods used to influence the mind of the Afghan child: “One group of mujahideen attacked 50 Russian soldiers. In that attack 20 Russians are killed.  How many Russians fled?”

A 2002-report published by the International Crisis Group says that these textbooks were published in Dari and Pushtun, designed by the Centre for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, under a USAID grant in the early 1980s.  While these books were printed in Pakistan, the university received $51 million for the work it did. They were then distributed in the Afghan refugee camps and Pakistani madrasas.  

Are the natives fundamentally uncivilized? 
The subtext of the Western discourse about the situation in Pakistan’s KPK and Afghanistan is that the people and societies therein are essentially uncivilized and the rest of the world would need to do a lot of work in civilizing them. While not many of us would have a problem in critiquing the kind of religious extremism and social obscurantism that is prevent in some parts of those societies, we would be doing a great intellectual disservice to ourselves if we forget to recall the progressive history of those places. There is enough literature out there providing ample evidence of how progressive Kabul and surrounding areas were in the 1960s and 1970s. There was a time when educating girls was a social norm in Kabul and it was not compulsory for women to wear a veil covering their heads. The CIA-directed Mujahideen war in the 1980s and the rise of the Taliban (helped by the ISI and unimpeded by the CIA) in the 1990s put an end to all of that. It is convenient for the Western governments today to talk about the need to bring about women’s liberation and girls’ education in KPK and Afghanistan and easy for the western media to publish heartwarming stories about Malala. But it would neither be easy nor convenient for them to recall how their own governments played a crucial role in the making of contemporary Afghanistan and KPK.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, October 20, 2013. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Oct/20/the-politics-of-honoring-malala-5.asp) 

Pakistan’s Kashmir Fatigue

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

I was in Pakistan last month for a conference on Kashmir. While the conference was attended by a number of highly placed Pakistanis, both from the ruling establishment and the opposition, Indian participation was limited to a very few people if one were to exclude the 11-member strong Kashmiri participation in it. Many Indians did not turn up simply because they didn’t want to discuss ‘Kashmir’ in Pakistan especially when a number of well-known and vocal Kashmiris are present in such a meeting. “Why get hammered by both Pakistanis and Kashmiris?”, am sure, was the reasoning of many Indians who refused to accept the invitation. Pakistanis couldn’t have asked for anything better. It was a wonderful opportunity for them to corner the Indians on the issue of plebiscite and India’s human rights record in Kashmir. But most of them simply did not choose to do so, barring a few who did raise these issues. On the contrary, a large number of senior Pakistanis, to the utter dislike of many Kashmiri participants, impressed upon their guests that there is a ‘Kashmir fatigue’ in Pakistan. Indeed, there was a visible lack of enthusiasm from the Pakistani side with regard to the Kashmir conflict throughout the three-day conference. 

The Kashmir fatigue, at least as I see it, comes not just from the multiple insurgencies and domestic problems that Pakistan is currently faced with but also, more importantly, from the complete absence of any dividends that Islamabad’s Kashmir policy has achieved so far. What, for instance, has Islamabad’s Kashmir policy achieved in the last two and a half decades? Well, successive governments in Islamabad have been able to ‘internationalise’ the Kashmir dispute for sure. But what has this internationalisation of the Kashmir conflict achieved for Pakistan? Nothing. Pakistan has indeed lost a great deal due to its involvement in Kashmir. It has wasted precious resources and more importantly created a situation within Pakistan where religious extremism has become a threat to the society itself. In other words, not only that it has not really gained anything with its Kashmir policy, it has lost a lot. 
It is in this context of a cost-benefit analysis that one needs to place the ‘Kashmir fatigue’ that we see in today’s Pakistan. It is not as if Pakistan does not invoke the ‘K’ word from time to time. It does so including during the recent speech by Nawaz Sharif at the UN General Assembly. Sharif said in New York last week: “As in the past, Pakistan calls upon the international community to give an opportunity to the Kashmiris to decide their future peacefully, in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions. The issue of Jammu and Kashmir was presented to the Security Council in January 1948; and yet the issue remains unresolved after nearly seven decades”. There was a time Pakistan meant what it said on Kashmir on such occasions, not anymore. Most of Pakistan’s pro-Kashmir pronouncements are mere lip service and most of the informed Pak-watchers would agree with me. 

This clearly seems to be the sentiment of the Pakistani political class. What about the Pakistani people in general? How concerned are they about what happens in Kashmir? Most of them, in my experience, are unconcerned and those who traditionally used to argue that Pakistan should actively involve itself in Kashmir are now on the decline for a variety of reasons most important of which would be contemporary Pakistan’s existential problems. That leaves out the Pakistan army (and its subset the ISI) which has actively engaged in Kashmir for the last two and a half decades. Sure, the Pakistani army has not yet fully given up the Kashmir cause. Sections of the Pak army continue to believe that Kashmir can be wrested from the Indian control. But how long can the Pak army afford to toe a drastically different line on Kashmir from that of Pakistan’s civilian government and the people in general? It’s a matter of time, at least to my mind, before ‘the Kashmir fatigue’ hits the Pak army. 

So what does the ‘Kashmir fatigue’ mean for the Kashmiris? In the immediate term, this is clearly bad news for Kashmiris. Realizing that the ‘Kashmir fatigue’ is setting in Pakistan, New Delhi will stop addressing the Kashmir issue in any meaningful manner. History of New Delhi’s negotiations with Kashmir shows that when it is not under pressure, New Delhi is not inclined to make any progress in resolving the Kashmir issue. For New Delhi, the Kashmir conflict is fundamentally a bilateral issue with Pakistan, not one that exists between New Delhi and Kashmiris. Therefore when Pakistan takes a backseat, it will give New Delhi an opportunity to forget about Kashmir and worry about other things. Clearly, the bilateral dispute on Kashmir is merely one part of the problem but that’s not how New Delhi would like to see it. 

On the other hand, when Kashmiris are agitated by Pakistan’s U-turn on the Kashmir question, they are indirectly – again, in my opinion- buying New Delhi’s argument that it is fundamentally a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.  If Pakistan has taken a backseat on Kashmir, that is a result of the dire political circumstances that contemporary Pakistan faces and that should be seen as such. Moreover, when Pakistan stops its interference in Kashmir, it will also lead to less bloodshed in Kashmir: there is absolutely no denying of that. Kashmiris, therefore, should focus on the ‘resolvable’ part of the conflict, the one between themselves and New Delhi.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, October 6, 2013. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Oct/6/pakistan-s-kashmir-fatigue-5.asp )

In the Name of National Security

Kashmir is one place in India where the country’s ‘covert agencies’ have engaged in a no-holds-barred display of buying and selling people and their loyalties

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

The controversy generated by the former Army Chief Gen. V. K Singh’s claim that he had given money to J&K minister Ghulam Hassan Mir from the Indian Army’s secret funds needs to be critically examined. Denial and hypocrisy lay at the heart of the many narratives surrounding Gen. Singh’s claim. Former chiefs of the Indian army, retried from office since 1990, have come out with a statement that Gen. Singh’s claims are untrue. Politicians, both in Kashmir and New Delhi, have uniformly argued that the claim is false except those Congress leaders who say that if Gen. V. K Singh has done so, he has done it without the permission of the government. 

Senior BJP leaders and a number of right wing analysts in New Delhi are trying to impress upon us that we should not discuss this matter any further as such discussions will disclose India’s secret ‘counter-terror strategies’ to the public domain. Pushing the matter under the carpet is the best way to deal with the issue since it has ‘grave implications’ for the country’s national security, they argue. Some have gone even further arguing that not only are such measures (such as the army funding politicians) necessary in order to deal with delicate national security issues in a covert manner, but we should not even discuss such matters in public. For one, I am flabbergasted by the extent of our collective love for hypocrisy. Let me broaden this debate a bit further in order to tell you how hypocritical this whole affair is. 

What’s the truth? 
Unlike most other things about Kashmir, the truth about ‘interested parties’ funding people, political parties, NGOs etc. in Kashmir is not complicated. Kashmir is one place in India where the country’s ‘ covert agencies’ have engaged in a no-holds-barred display of buying and selling people and their loyalties: political parties being set up by secret funds, informers thriving under state patronage, governments put together and demolished at New Delhi’s behest, pro-India ‘dissident’ parties created out of thin air, election results manipulated to ensure the victory of ‘pro-India’ parties etc. etc. Are we to believe that none of this involved money? Indeed, Indian ‘agencies’ were not the only ones to have been involved in this buying and selling of political loyalties.  Pakistan’s ISI did match up in this game, often beating the Indians. It is well known today that the ISI has consistently funded not only the militants operating in the valley but also some of Kashmir’s political leaders. What’s even more interesting is that some Kashmiri leaders have been funded by both sides! Most Kashmiris, I am sure, know what I am talking about.

New Delhi has historically played a crucial, and often dirty, role in manipulating the government in Kashmir and it has managed to do so using money, lure of political office and brute force. It is this ‘managing’ of politics in Kashmir that finally led to the uprising in Kashmir in the late 1980s. Once the Kashmir insurgency broke out, New Delhi started pumping even more money in the valley apart from, of course, sending trucks full of gun-wielding soldiers. Pakistan’s ISI, as pointed out above, also began to pump money, men and guns into the Valley. They also gave an ideological color to the whole operation, which occasionally gave them an edge over the Indians. Over the years, the number of beneficiaries of this state-sponsored ‘money for loyalty’ scheme has only increased. Hence, for anyone to say today that ‘no, we don’t do that’ is a blatant lie. 

What about the ‘good work’ done by the army? 
Some people have argued that when talking about secret funds given to the Kashmiri leaders for x,y,z purposes, we should not include 'Operation Sadbhavana' in its ambit because the latter is a transparent humanitarian mission which has done a lot of good to the Indian army’s overall involvement in Kashmir. That the funds earmarked for 'Operation Sadbhavana' should not be mistaken for the secret funds used by the army or other agencies is a justifiable argument just because they belong to two different heads. However, if Gen. V K Singh has used the Army’s secret funds to fund political leaders claiming that it was all part of 'Operation Sadbhavana', then facts should be established. But more importantly, we need to understand 'Operation Sadbhavana' for what it really is. The fact is that Kashmiris are clearly unhappy about the manner in which the Indian army has gone about dealing with insurgency in Kashmir. 'Operation Sadbhavana' therefore is an attempt to cover up the umpteen sins committed by the army in Kashmir. 

In any case, what the army does in the name of Op. Sadbhavana, i.e. ‘running schools and orphanages, improving the living standard of the Kashmiris by constructing roads and bridges, installing hand pumps and electrifying villages, giving them free medical services’ etc.  is really not their job. It is precisely to do these things that there is an elected government in J&K. The army must simply vacate the civilian areas in Kashmir.

While the use of secret funds to buy off loyalties in Kashmir is not a new phenomenon, the ‘national security’ discourse around the issue is appalling. When officials want to hide away dirty secrets, they label it national security and that is often good enough to scare the weak-hearted amongst us.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, September 29, 2013. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Sep/29/in-the-name-of-national-security-5.asp).

Syrian Dilemmas

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

Will there be a US-led military campaign to disarm and topple the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria or will the Syrian dictator have the last laugh? The upcoming United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York will prove to be crucial in determining the US-led international community’s course of action against the Syrian government. While the internal civil war in Syria has been going on since mid 2011, as a direct outcome of the Arab Spring, the US and allies were hesitant to directly involve themselves in Syria till, of course, the Syrian government, allegedly, used Chemical weapons in rebel held areas killing over a thousand civilians.  The UN appointed a commission to inquire into the Chemical weapon use on the 21st of last month and the commission has already submitted its report. 

The UN inquiry report has concluded that Chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict on a very large scale but has stopped short of putting the blame on the Syrian government. The American government, using various inferences from the UN report, has argued that the report contains enough indirect evidence to put the blame on the Assad regime. But why is the use of Chemical weapons significant given that it has killed only over a thousand people whereas the fighting over the last two years have killed over a hundred thousand people, mostly civilians? The 1993 Chemical weapons Convention (CWC) outlawed the production and use of Chemical weapons given that they are weapon of mass destruction. Use of Chemical weapons, therefore, is widely considered to be a taboo and, as the argument goes, steps should be taken when this taboo is violated. 

Syria is now at the center of the geopolitical storm in West Asia replacing Iran especially since the June 2013 election of the moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani who has reached out to the US paving the way for potential reconciliation between the two sides. Accommodating Iran, despite resistance from Israel, will enable the Obama administration to focus all its energies on Syria and gain the much-needed support for a military campaign against Syria. The US has not only been facing opposition from within the country, but also from its partners in Europe (Germany has said no to the use of force and the British Parliament has prevented its government from going ahead with a military campaign against Syria).

However, what is bothering the US is not really the lack of European partners but the stiff resistance from China and Russia who has effectively blocked any possibility of US getting the go-ahead from the UN Security Council. Clearly China and Russia would like to, for balance of power and other purposes, make sure that the Americans do not get to do what they would like to on the world stage. But more importantly, both the challengers have deep economic links with Syria. Not only do both Russia and China have considerable trade links with Syria but have also been selling great mounts of weapons to Syria.  According to some reports “Russian defense industry contracts with Syria exceed $4 billion with an added $162 million per year in Russian arms sales to Syria in 2009 and 2010.”

India’s dilemma New Delhi, at least in the initial period, was unsure whom to support vis-à-vis Syria. It has now made up its mind clarifying that it would not support any military action that is not endorsed by the UNSC. India’s no-war position is clearly influenced by a number of factors: instability in West Asia will create problems for India given the fact that it has millions of its citizens working in that region, and a war in Syria will continue to hike the already sky-high fuel prices. New Delhi also believes that UNSC mandate is necessary for the use of force. However, New Delhi’s dilemma comes from the fact that arguing against the use of force against Syria will clearly frustrate its strategic partnership with the US and its allies.

The black or white positions The current debate on whether or not to use military force to stop the Syrian government from killing its own citizens suffers from an “either or against” conceptualization which primarily stems from a “problem-solving” approach to political issues. One appreciates the need to have solutions but such a need should not blind us from deconstructing the narratives constructed by the opposing sides.
Those resisting the proposed American military action against Syria (especially China and Russia) tend to justify the Syrian government’s crimes against its own people, or at the least ignore them. The simple fact is that Bashar al-Assad is not a democratically elected leader but a dictator who continues in power thanks to the support of the Syrian military. The popular uprising that begun in 2011 was, at least for the most part of it, a genuine political movement by the people for better governance, democracy, transparency and accountability. This needs to be recognized by those opposing the proposed American action in Syria.

However, on the other hand, those supporting the American intervention overlook a number of realities. One, an external military intervention in Syria will surely result in more casualties and untold miseries, slide the country into more anarchy, and violate international law if undertaken without UNSC sanction. More so, the Syrian opposition has also been supplied arms and other resources by the Western countries and hence they are not a 100% locally bred genuine opposition.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, September 22, 2013. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Sep/22/syrian-dilemmas-52.asp) 

Let Them Sing

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

Misplaced opposition to the concert

There is no harm in letting Zubin Mehta and his troop perform in Kashmir. I take this principled, context-neutral, position on the issue of cultural and musical shows whosoever may be organizing them. My position comes from my conviction that while culture may indeed be deeply political and hence often misused, like the Indian rightwing has always abused various cultural aspects of Hinduism, the fault is really with how culture is expressed and for what purposes. I have consistently held this position when movie halls were proposed to be opened in Kashmir, when ‘Pragaash’, the all-girl Kashmiri rock band, performed in Srinagar, and when Pakistani Junoon rock band performed by the Dal Lake in Srinagar. On all these occasions, there were people in Kashmir who either argued that such things are un-Islamic or that such celebrations hide the real situation in Kashmir. Indeed, mine may be a minority opinion among the very distinguished columnists in Kashmir today most of whom seem to have expressed negative opinions with regard to the Zubin Mehta concert. And yet, I am persuaded by the argument that there can be no true azadi without the freedom of expression. 

Arguments against the Zubin Mehta concert fundamentally boil down to saying that it is a politically motivated attempt to tell the world that all is well in Kashmir. And that the government is erroneously focusing on things such as music concerts when the real concerns of the people of Kashmir like human rights protection and the abolition of draconian laws are not addressed with any level of sincerity. In other words, by organizing programmes such as this, the governments, both state and central, hope to push the real concerns of the Kashmiris to the back burner. I think this is a fundamentally flawed argument. This argument is as flawed as saying that since the people of Kashmir sing and dance and seem happy and normal, everything is hunky-dory in Kashmir (see Manu Joseph, “Sorry, Kashmir Is Happy”, Open Magazine, 21 April 2012). Both these extreme views seem to assume that political resistance has a severely self-limiting effect on human emancipation. Differently put, they assume that cultural celebrations and such other normal human activities are to be seen in sharp contradiction with the pursuit of political aspirations. Why should that be the case? Is the struggle in Kashmir so fragile that a concert or music show can negate the political basis of the azadi struggle? Those making such arguments are indeed demeaning the political importance and meaning of the azadi movement. 

But is it an attempt by the governments and other interested parties to portray Kashmir as having politically normalized? Perhaps. But so what? Even if that were true, would that make a difference to the political aspirations of the Kashmiris? No. But does it not lead to a reduction in the international focus on Kashmir? But where, for god’s sake, is the international focus on Kashmir today? Let’s not kid ourselves: Kashmir has absolutely no presence in the geopolitical radar screen of the international community. If the azadi seekers in Kashmir think that the international community will give them some kind of deliverance, they are living in a state of political delusion.  

I think the parallel concert ‘Haqeeqat-e-Kashmir’ organized by Khurram Pervez and others is how civilized societies should protest against what they don’t like. Every society should be able to tolerate differing perceptions and ideas about its destiny. 

Whose concert? 
But there is a different, and enlightened, concern raised by a number of Kashmiri activists and columnists: “Who is this concert organized for anyway”? Certainly not for the Kashmiris. This looks like a music festival for those who matter in Kashmir, and Kashmiris have traditionally come last in such a pecking order. While the ‘high, mighty and connected’ of Kashmir will enjoy the Zubin Mehta concert, ordinary Kashmiris will be stopped, frisked, barricaded, shooed away, whisked away, and humiliated by the J&K police and security forces. But then this is a daily routine for most Kashmiris. Dissident leaders are kept under house arrest so that they don’t come out to create trouble. 

The state government is free to organize cultural and musical shows but if the ordinary Kashmiris are deprived of enjoying them and more so if such programmes create inconveniences for people, the government would clearly be engaging in ‘anti-people’ activities. The people of J&K have not elected the NC government to engage in event management. 

If the ordinary people of Kashmir are not the beneficiaries of such cultural shows and music concerts, the government can be accused of engaging in wasteful expenditure. More importantly, the mindless restrictions imposed on the rival concert ‘Haqeeqat-e-Kashmir’ are ridiculous. One of the conditions imposed on the organisers is that the organisers will be responsible if any untoward incident happens during the concert. Would that mean that the administration would take responsibility if anything goes wrong during “Ehsaas-e-Kashmir”? And what does it mean to take responsibility anyway? If the J&K government can spend taxpayers’ money to make security and other arrangements for a German Embassy-sponsored musical concert in Kashmir, why on earth cant they extend the same courtesy when the people of Kashmir are themselves organizing a parallel concert?

(Source: Greater Kashmir, September 8, 2013. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Sep/8/let-them-sing-17.asp)