July-August 2006 
Year 12    No.117

Neighbours


Where do we go from here?

The glue of tolerance that has held society together is drying up

BY KULDIP NAYAR

I once asked Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, Sher-e-Kashmir, why he had preferred the Indian union to
Pakistan. I knew that Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, had offered Jammu & Kashmir special status within Pakistan. His reply was unambiguous: he wanted his state to be part of a country that was pluralistic unlike Pakistan which had declared itself Islamic. "I like to live in the midst of different communities, not one," were the Sheikh’s words, words that I still recall. Developments in his lifetime disappointed him. Yet he was not a pessimist.

I think Kashmir’s basic problem remains the same: how pluralistic is it or, even more pertinent, how long can it stay pluralistic? But this is not dependent on Kashmir alone. Part of the Indian union as Jammu & Kashmir is, the character of the union is equally important.

This is where I see reason for concern. Both the state and the union are being contaminated. Kashmiriyat’s secular ethos has been diluted as pluralism has been diluted across the country. The glue of tolerance that has held society together is drying up. I could never have envisaged this resurgence of religious fervour after the innumerable killings I once witnessed during the journey from my hometown, Sialkot city, to the Indian border in August 1947. One million died on both sides and 20 million were uprooted from their homes.

Kashmir weakened in its secular convictions when General Zia-ul-Haq, the then Pakistan martial law administrator, sent jihadis across the border to appeal in the name of Islam and foment trouble in the state. The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley – thanks also to the then Kashmiri governor, Jagmohan, who wanted to deal exclusively with Muslims – affected the liberal temperament of the Indian union as a whole. It was a god-sent opportunity for those elements, particularly the sangh parivar, which had been trying to saffronise the country. It was a similar atmosphere that robbed us of Mahatma Gandhi’s life. Now they are bent on effacing his heritage of peace and brotherhood. The demolition of the Babri Masjid, or the Gujarat pogrom, it is all their doing and provides them with more grist to the mill of hatred against Muslims.

Though not necessarily to the liking of the majority yet the persistent and pernicious propaganda of the sangh parivar and its ilk have created an environment where Muslims are generally regarded with suspicion. The fact that some Indian Muslims have joined the terrorists’ ranks has only made things worse. Their number may be small and the community may be trying to isolate them but the Hindu middle class is so shell-shocked after the Mumbai blasts that the entire Muslim community has been put in the dock. Hordes of people at hordes of places will have to work hard to nip this mischief in the bud. But this work will have little meaning if the reasons why some Muslims have turned so desperate are not analysed and redressed. Over the years several reports on communal riots have identified the community’s various grievances but the government is yet to implement a single recommendation in this regard.

Relations between India and Pakistan have always been a key to communal harmony in our country. Whenever there is tension between New Delhi and Islamabad it is Indian Muslims who bear the brunt of it. The oft-repeated remark one hears is that Muslims are ‘pro-Pakistan’. In fact, even 59 years after independence Indian Muslims are still paying the price for India’s partition which the majority in the country holds responsible for all of its ills.

However, there are no two opinions about Pakistan’s intentions. Pakistan is not concerned about Indian Muslims; it only wants the Muslim majority in Kashmir to be a part of Pakistan. I recall when I accompanied Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on his bus journey to Lahore I had the opportunity to talk to Mian Shahbaz Sharif, then Pakistan’s Punjab chief minister, at a breakfast hosted in honour of Prakash Singh Badal, then chief minister of Indian Punjab. Shahbaz said that the Kashmir dispute could be resolved in a jiffy, suggesting that India could keep Jammu and Ladakh and give Pakistan the valley.

The conversation would have ended there, as Badal said he was "too small" to solve the Kashmir problem, but I picked up the thread. I told Shahbaz that he could have the entire state of Jammu & Kashmir but the solution this time would not be one made on the basis of religion. I told him how while migrating from Pakistan to India I saw non-Muslims under attack on the Pakistan side and Muslims under attack on the Indian side, deliberately and consciously. "We cannot afford to reopen partition," I said.

I believe this realisation is now beginning to seep into the Pakistani establishment. Not long ago when I told Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad that India could not accept any settlement on the basis of religion, he proposed territorial adjustments without accepting the Line of Control as the international border. It was an understandable stand from a country which had propagated that Kashmir would be a part of it one day. But what I failed to get across was that any formulation that proposed to cut off the valley from the rest of the state would be separating Muslims and Hindus who had been living together for centuries and creating, in the rest of India, misgivings similar to those that had arisen after partition.

And this is precisely what the All Party Hurriyat Conference in Srinagar does not appreciate. It has allowed its movement to meander into communalism and become a plaything in the hands of hardliners. The secular ethos of Kashmiriyat has taken a back seat and some of its leaders too have been swept off their feet and indulged in parochial talk. I recall that when I asked Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Prof Abdul Ghani Butt about the return of Pandits to the valley, the two said that this would be decided along with a settlement of the Kashmir question. It was only many years later that they realised the ridiculous position they had taken and took steps to correct it. The Hurriyat never developed a base either in Jammu or Ladakh. It also went dreadfully wrong when it allowed Kashmiri youth to cross into Pakistan, receive weapons and training and ignite insurgency in the valley.

On the other hand, New Delhi does not treat Jammu & Kashmir on par with other Indian states: democratic, open and in charge of its own affairs. The most draconian laws are in place here, available to both the administration as well as security forces. Human rights violations are numberless and there is no redress. Though unhappy because they have been denied participation in affairs of governance, Kashmiris do not want Pakistan’s physical interference. Hundreds of boys who crossed over to Pakistan initially now want to come back. But the problem is how do they do this? Meanwhile, their parents on this side of the border resent New Delhi’s decision denying them permission to return.

I recently told Benazir Bhutto in London that Pakistan can strengthen secularism in our country by not playing the Islamic card. She agreed with me. Nawaz Sharif went even further, favouring a tough stand against fundamentalists in Pakistan. He believed in a borderless subcontinent. With such sentiments being expressed by the leaders of two major political parties across the border, the lighting of candles on the night of August 14-15 assumes more than mere symbolic importance. It was heavenly to be on the Wagah border this year, the 12th such occasion in a row. Four or five lakh people had gathered here, singing and raising only one slogan: ‘Hind-Pakistan Dosti Zindabad’. People-to-people contact is the only way relations can normalise between the two countries. We should therefore seek friendship and comradeship wherever we can find it and cooperate with one another in common tasks.

My generation has been a troubled one. We may carry on for a little longer but our day will soon be over as we make way for others. They will live their lives and carry their burdens to the next stage of the journey – the burden of normalising relations not only between India and Pakistan but among all South Asian countries. How we have played our part I do not know. Others of a later age will judge. In spite of the many frustrations and rebuffs that littered the path to peace we have lighted a candle to dispel the darkness of enmity and hatred. This flame must keep burning in the face of efforts by fanatics and fundamentalists to snuff it out. We have no other option.

(Kuldip Nayar, former diplomat and Rajya Sabha MP, is a well known author and commentator on current affairs.)


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