India's Muslims can only keep silent

Syed Shahabuddin

A.N. Dar's article "Kashmir and Muslims a lost opportunity (HT.. March 2) constitutes an impeachment of the Muslims in the rest of the country on the specious assumption that they constitute a for the good behaviour of Muslims in Kashmir Dar himself appears to be diffident about the point he has raised though he would have liked Muslims in other parts of India "to tell and prove to the Muslims of Kashmir that they are safe in India, play a major role in countering the communal propaganda, to teach the Muslims in the State that they are happier being a part of India than if they had been in Pakistan, to tell the common Muslims of Kashmir that they were being misled by the Pakistani propaganda, to go to Kashmir in big numbers from various parts of the country, to tell the Muslims of Kashmir that they were being led astray by the separatists, to take out processions, to hold meetings and denounce separatist propaganda."

Dar is disappointed that Muslims in other parts of the country did not act as he would have liked them to.

In making the above suggestions, Dar shows total ignorance about the structure of the Muslim community in the country and of the reasons behind the mass alienation of Kashmiris. Firstly, it is totally fallacious to treat the Muslim community of India as a monolithic structure. Perhaps Dar shares the mindset which holds Muslim Indians responsible for any act of omission or commission by any Muslim Government, organisation or individual and in any part of the world.

There is no organic linkage between Muslims of Kashmir and Muslims in the rest of the country. In fact, Muslims in Kashmir do not miss an opportunity to articulate their unhappiness and disappointment that Muslim Indians did not even raise a finger against the repression to which they have been subjected.

Perhaps, they do not understand the Muslim situation in the country. In any case, the Muslims in the rest of the country cannot presume to advise, far less pressurise, the Kashmiris in deciding their own options.

While the Pakistani propaganda and assistance to Kashmir militancy have played their part, the alienation of Kashmiris arises from 40 years of mal- administration, denial of democracy, slow development and gradual erosion of the autonomy promised in 1950.

Undoubtedly, the simultaneous erosion of the secular order in the country has also caused re- thinking among the Kashmiri masses. But the real issue has always been their own experience.

If the Central Government and the political order had come to terms with the aspirations of the people of Kashmir, intervention or instigation by Pakistan could not have affected their solidarity with the rest of the country. Had elections in Kashmir not been rigged, had the autonomy promised not been eroded, had the country developed a truly secular order in which the religious minorities would have felt secure, the Kashmiri masses-non-communal by ethos and temperament-would not have turned their face away from the country which they preferred to Pakistan in 1947.

In the face of such major developments, any efforts by the Muslims in the other parts of the country to remould Kashmiri thinking would have been in-effective and infructuous.

Secondly, the demand of the people of Kashmir for self-determination is political and not religious. The Kashmiri masses well understand that Pakistan's claim on Kashmir, which may be presented in terms of religious solidarity, is basically territorial.

The overwhelming public opinion in Kashmir today does not favour accession to Pakistan. The cry for independence cannot be silenced by guns but only by the restoration of autonomy.

Muslims also understand that in the Kashmir Valley itself, the entire Muslim population has been treated since 1990 as a hostile element, a fair game for humiliation, detention, torture, killing and arson. Indeed, the Kashmiris have been treated as foreign mercenaries on their own soil.

Not only Muslim Indians but all secular and forces should have condemned the state

repression let loose in Kashmir. This, in many instances, had a communal motivation.

Muslim Indians would have been effective in persuading Muslim Kashmiris only if they were in a position to criticise the state repression and promise a new order in Kashmir. But one can well visualise what would have happened to Muslims in the rest of the country, had they expressed sympathy for Kashmiris.

The only option available to Muslims in the rest of the country was to maintain an air of ignorance about what was happening in Kashmir and let the Kashmiri people and the Government wrangle with each other.

(Our readers would in this context recollect that Maulana Ahmed Ali Qasmi of All India Muslim Majlis Mushawarat told Kashmiri Muslims, in an open letter, that "20 crore Indian Muslims are hostages in relation to Muslims of Kashmir KS (3/95-Page 29) Editor)

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Courtesy:- Syed Shahabuddin and June 1995 Kosher Samachar