I am ashamed and feel a deep sense of guilt
Statecraft
Killing Afzal Guru was a political act, one that clearly fails the scrutiny of modern jurisprudence. As an Indian, empathiser of the Kashmiri cause for self-respect and azadi and a staunch believer in the fundamental rights of fellow humans and a teacher whose job it is to teach my students that human rights should supersede petty, parochial political interests, I apologise to the family of Afzal Guru who has been put to death by the medieval mindset of the Indian state. I am ashamed and feel a deep sense of guilt for the manner in which the Indian state has gone about hanging Afzal Guru, in flagrant violation of all norms of natural justice and due process laid down in law.
I am not a Kashmiri, as my readers have known for long, nor do I live in Kashmir. But my relationship with Kashmir is based on my conviction that Kashmir is symbolic of everything that is wrong with the Indian state. In other words, to see what is wrong with the idea of India, one only needs to look at the predicament of Kashmir and Kashmiris. Kashmiris have been accused of being terrorists, supporters of an ‘enemy state’, killed and buried in ‘unmarked graves’, and denied the right to freely move around in the rest of the country, among many other things. And successive governments of India have had a role to play in creating this predicament for the people of Kashmir.
I also apologise to the people of Kashmir whose normal lives are shut down by the state and central governments at the slightest whiff of trouble even whenthe troubles themselves are a creation of those in power. You have had to suffer the consequences of the numerous misdeeds and lack of political wisdom of the governments. I simply can’t fathom how killing one of you (Afzal Guru) in such a hastyand irresponsible manner can ‘satisfy the collective conscience of the Indian nation’! The UPA government seems to assume that the Indian citizens are thirsting for the blood of Kashmiris in order to achieve a sense of collective wellbeing: no, we are not. We are better than that. The fact is, like you all, we also wish that our government focused on the need to put in place systems and mechanisms so that we are not randomly killed, looted, raped, falsely arrested etc. rather than go about accusing people of being terrorists on flimsy grounds and then kill them on even flimsier ones. Please don’t blame us for our government’s lack of political imagination though you can blame us for electing governments such as this.
Afzal Guru’s death is unlikely to help the Sonia-led Congress regain power in 2014, but it will surely help increase the psychological distance between New Delhi and the Kashmir valley. Even as I think that a system built around collective responsibility and checks and balances is healthy for a modern Republic, the manner in which the various arms of the Indian stateplayed ‘musical chairs’ with the life of a Kashmiri is appalling. The President of India put the ball in the court of the Home Minister who shifted the blame back to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court blamed the collective conscience of people for its judgment. And the Prime Minister simply feigned complete ignorance of any of it. In Kashmir, the Chief Minister, having clearly been informed of the killing at least ten days in advance did nothing at all till,of course, he knew that this could be his undoing in the next Assembly elections. Even more interesting was the age-old ‘good cop-bad cop’ game played by the father-son duo of Kashmir’s first family. Mind you, its not just the government in New Delhi that takes you for a ride, even your own local government does it so royally every now and then.
What the Congress party had in mind when it decided to do what it did was merely gaining political mileage by putting the BJP on the defensive with regard to the terror question. Sadly, this is not a party that has learned to respect human rights of the people of India and they proved that beyond any doubts in Punjab, Northeast, Kashmir and in Delhi itself in 1984. I am sorry that our government formed by the Congress-led UPA does not understand the meaning of an inclusive India. Politics and governance, for this government, is of mere instrumental value. It simply doesn’tunderstand the emotional and sentimental basis of good governance. Nationalism or patriotism, they don’t understand, is not something that can be constructed by the state and given down to the people at large. Any brand of nationalism that is not premised on justice and equality will not survive for too long.
I am sorry that the government in New Delhi considers Kashmir to be nothing but a law and order problem. Hence, in order to cater to the safety, security and welfare of the rest of India Kashmiris have to be muzzled, bullied and pushed around from time to time, and even killed in some cases. Often, it so looks that we as a nation, and I dare including some sections of the Kashmiri society as well in this categorisation, seem to believe that the lives of individuals can be sacrificed for the good of communities (read: larger political gains). There is an awful tendency in us to prioritise the so-called ‘group rights’ over individual rights without understanding that you can never achieve group rights by sacrificing individual rights. Our Khappanchayats who impose medieval penalties on young couples in order to safeguard the honour of their castes, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots led by the Congress leaders, 2002 Anti-Muslim riots in Gujrat overseen by the state machinery and now the Killing of Afzal Guru are all, in a sense, carried out to satisfy the collective conscience of the society by killing/penalising others.
As an Indian, I apologise to Afzal Guru’s son, Ghalib, who, I am convinced, has deeply been wronged by this reckless political killing by the state. I sincerely hope that he will not grow up thinking that we are all responsible for his father’s death. Ghalib, I am sorry for your loss and Iassure you that your father was a victim of unfortunate political circumstances that currently prevail in this country which we hope will not exist for too long.
(SOurce: Greater Kashmir, February 17, 2013. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Feb/17/apology-from-an-indian-5.asp )
