Kashmir needs healing and politics of construction

Since the inception of the insurgency and anti-insurgency in 1989, more than 50,000 Kashmiris have been killed, 100,000 Pandits have migrated to Jammu and other parts of India for fear of persecution, a large number of women have been violated, and innumerable people have been incarcerated and held incommunicado.

By: Nyla Ali Khan

In January 1948, India referred the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations. Subsequent to the declaration of the ceasefire between India and Pakistan on 1 January 1949, the state of Jammu and Kashmir was divided into two portions. Currently, a large part of Jammu and Kashmir is administered by India and a portion by Pakistan. China annexed a section of the land in 1962, through which it has built a road that links Tibet to Xiajiang.

The strategic location of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir (J & K) underscores its importance for both India and Pakistan. The state of J & K borders on China and Afghanistan. Senior officials in the first Clinton administration recognized Kashmir’s disputed status and questioned India’s claim that Kashmir was an integral part of the Indian Union.

 



Pakistan made every attempt to draw in the United States by making the argument that nuclear disarmament in South Asia can be achieved only if the Kashmir crisis is resolved.

In order to make their borders impregnable, it was essential for both India and Pakistan to control the state of Jammu and Kashmir politically and militarily. The insurgency in J & K, which has extracted an enormous price from the people of the state, was generated by the systemic erosion of democratic and human rights, discrimination against the Muslims of the Valley, socioeconomic marginalization, relegation of the right to self-determination to the background, etc.

While the rebellion may have been incited by India’s political, social and economic tactlessness, it has been sustained by military, political, and economic support from Pakistan. Proponents of the independence of the state of J & K are just as stridently opposed to Pakistan’s administration of “Azad” Kashmir as they are to India’s administration of J & K. During the ongoing insurgency, the Indian military has been granted a carte blanche without an iota of accountability.

 



 

Since the inception of the insurgency and anti-insurgency in 1989, more than 50,000 Kashmiris have been killed, 100,000 Pandits have migrated to Jammu and other parts of India for fear of persecution, a large number of women (over 5,000, according to a conservative estimate) have been violated, and innumerable people have been incarcerated and held incommunicado.

United Nations experts on extra-judicial, summary and arbitrary executions have not been invited to Kashmir, and international human rights monitoring organizations have been prevented from entering the state (Amnesty International, ‘India Must Prevent Torture’).

In such a conflict situation, the law and order machinery is rendered dysfunctional, increasing the vulnerability of women and children. The counter-insurgency operations in J & K have been brutal – not just militarily, but politically and economically as well. Has J & K now been reduced to a garrison state?

The unpleasant reality in which J & K lives – one of Indian and Pakistani dominance – is marked by the overwhelming presence of paramilitary troops, barbed wire and invasive searches; dispossessed youths trained in Pakistani training camps to unleash a reign of misguided terror; custodial killings in detention centers, and mothers whose faces tell tales of woe waiting outside those gloomy centers to catch a glimpse of their unfortunate sons (an exercise in futility); and burqa-clad women living in fear of the wrath of fundamentalist groups as well as paramilitary forces bent on undercutting their self-respect.

 



 

The military has carte blanche under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978 and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities [Prevention] Act of 1987. The anarchy that pervades the cultural and political fabric of J & K has been stoked by government-sponsored militants and foreign mercenaries. Such an unwieldy situation has rendered women psychologically incarcerated, and does not enable an autonomous life, devoid of the pressures that people of the state have been subjected to since 1947.

The brutalization of the culture has been rendered more lethal by the socialization of Kashmiri boys and men into a military culture. Within such a masculinist discourse and praxis, the rigidly entrenched hierarchical relationship between men and women is inextricably linked with sexualized violence.

 



This is where we need to bridge the divide between the civil society of India and that of Pakistan in order to pave the way for the education of the younger generation. Civil society and political institutions are closely interconnected. In order to create democracy, there must be a minimum of participation and adequate pluralism in a society. A consolidated democracy has to be open to diverse opinions; dissent and differences of opinion on policies is an important element of every democracy. There must, however, be some shared consent on fundamental principles.

Democratic, social, and educational institutions cannot function in a country without participation by citizens. Nurturing a civil society that bridges regional and communal divides is a prerequisite for the effective and legitimate functioning of educational institutions. The truth is that it is time to summon up the courage to initiate a politics of construction.

A fragmented society cannot accomplish anything, either politically or socioeconomically. As Abraham Lincoln said in 1858, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”