Khuda Hafiz, Kashmir?

Farooq Abdullah in his own league is a right royal pain. And ‘royal’ is the operative word. He is a raees-zada who thinks that by throwing ideological coins in the air, he can make the awaam happy. He has sung off-key for his supper and dined on crumbs with the devil. So, today

why does he want a full repast?

I am a militant. According to a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member, ‘‘Those who support the idea of greater autonomy (for Kashmir) are themselves militants.” I am tempted to ask how one would define somebody who talks about ‘Marathi maanus.’ Would the Shiv Sena garland a portrait of Sunil Gavaskar with chappals? Has anyone in Punjab or Haryana said a word against Kapil paaji? Has the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) called Mithun, Anil Kapoor, Mamta Kulkarni and scores of others, who were part of the Dubai/Sharjah circuit, ‘‘Dawood’s puppets”? Aren’t these too desperate versions of seeking autonomy and retaining ‘purity’?
Kashmir has been consistently treated shabbily. Which is why I support the move for its autonomy. We have no business to claim a ‘disputed’ territory as our own.
The only glory we get out of it is that we can pretend to ‘protect’ it, spending Rs 6 crore a day to guard the Siachen glacier, decorating our security forces and apportioning blame on various foreign hands. We, who do not even have the grace and faith to use locals to carry provisions for our jawans, preferring the outside Nepalis!
True, foreigners are helping terrorism in the state as they are elsewhere. (Incidentally, would the sex-abuse scandals at the ISKCON centers qualify or is that a holy cow?).
But 90 per cent of the people apprehended are Kashmiris. Last month, 90 people were killed in custody. And these are the figures given by a man who has been through lonely confinement and long prison terms.
I don’t care about Yasin Malik’s Gandhian face. His role as the leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front is of greater significance. He insists that in this brouhaha over outside involvement, people ignore local sentiment: ‘‘All freedom movements are supported by outside forces.
When Subhash Chandra Bose launched the Indian National Army (INA), he was supported by Germany, Japan and Burma.
Nehru defended this. He said the INA comprised of patriots who liberated their motherland. Why do you have different standards for the freedom fighters in Kashmir?”
The problem started with Papa Abdullah and Chacha Nehru; they were not dreamers, but impetuous men who remained brats due to the nature of their lineage. They assumed that with them in power nothing could go wrong.
Farooq Abdullah in his own league is a right royal pain. And ‘royal’ is the operative word. He is a raees-zada who thinks that by throwing ideological coins in the air, he can make the "awaam" happy. He has sung off-key for his supper and dined on crumbs with the devil. So, today why does he want a full repast? His reasons could be diverse: He’d be able to play golf more peacefully, his London trips would be more Harrods and less harrowing, and he would not have to worry too much about which side of the fence he is on.
But if we forget his motives, and the fact that it is probably still the fence he is choosing to sit on, this is the time to start talking. A return to the pre-1952 status for J&K would mean a complete and independent say in matters pertaining to the state, except for defence, external affairs, and communications.
The head of the state would be a sardar-e-riyasat (governor) and the chief minister would be the prime minister. Of course, the Opposition is angry: ‘‘How can we have two prime ministers?”
It is better than having one who follows his ineffectual predecessors. It is the government that deals with the enemy, Pakistan, the Prime Minister who goes on a bus ride and talks of resolving the issue.
As Yasin Malik rues, ‘‘He did not say Kashmir is an integral part of India. This is an imperialistic attitude, trying to solve a problem without involving the principal party involved…Kashmir is not an issue of borders but the future of people, their aspirations. We are not animals.”
The BJP has the guts to say that the discussion on autonomy is a way of diverting attention from the ‘‘real issues”. And what may they be? Militancy! Not poverty, education that has come to a standstill and a dwindling economy. My friend in Srinagar, a qualified engineer, was unemployed for years.
He suffered from clinical depression and has no family life to speak of, and even today when he has secured a small job, the future of which is uncertain, he spends hours looking into nothingness. And he is far more worried about the Pandits and other ethnic groups like Dogras and Buddhists than our fanatic parties whose concerns are temporary.
Cultural preservation does make people insecure. India has given refuge to the Tibetans, but early this week the Dalai Lama said, ‘‘Tibet cannot survive without being part of China. I am not seeking independence.”
And here we were always on tenterhooks about whether ‘Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai’ was a politically correct concept or not. We are fools if we think we are helping a peaceful group of people. Says the Dalai Lama, ‘‘There will be no violent struggle till I am alive. I cannot guarantee this in future though.”
Everyone is here to fend for themselves. Kashmir has been denied that right. It is very convenient to say that Article 370, which grants the state special status, has prevented it from being integrated.
What article has prevented the Nagas, the Mizos, the Khalistanis and the Dalits from being part of the mainstream? It isn’t anything on paper. It is the darned attitude. Which makes Farooq declare, ‘‘We are not enemies of the nation.’’
Why this justification, when a man in a metro can get away with implicating everyone — Marwaris, Gujaratis, South Indians, Christians and of course Muslims? Mohammed Azharuddin’s use of the ‘minority’ word exposed the hate that has always been simmering in some people. (Turncoats may change their opinion everyday to sound liberal but we know the truth, so, honey, cut out the nonsense of majority lip service).
Even before the messy match-fixing scandal’s immensity was revealed, Azhar’s name was the one that came up with certainty. I am ashamed to say that I had joined the brigade.
Ashamed, because somewhere down the line I am often made to feel guilty about my minority status, so I try to prove my broadmindedness when nobody from the majority community ever has to do so. They say that Azhar never raised the minority issue when he was the captain. Do you know of any people who fancy themselves as underdogs unless they are targeted?
On behalf of every self-respecting minority group — religious, economic, cultural — I take back the apology rendered by Azhar, or else we’ll have to spend the rest of our lives being forced to feel persecuted by impotent demagogues. And, yes, khuda hafiz, Kashmir. You were never mine.