From my very young days, I was aware that there was something hidden about Kashmir. I mean, there did seem to be some preoccupancy among the government babus to hide something. This was because, I did know that there was a place called Azad Kashmir, and that this place was in Pakistan. This much I deciphered from the various bits of writings that I did read. For, I started reading at a very young age.
It later transpired that the very map of India had something to hide. When I came across maps from Oxford University, (printed abroad) and such other places, I found Indias map to have to a very strange head part. Azad Kashmir was very clearly visible in them. However in the maps printed in India, there was no such thing. However, it is clear from history that on the very occasion that the Indian army marched towards Kashmir, the Pakistanis had also sent their army there. So much so, to any intelligent person it was sure that Kashmir had been divided.
Now that made me think of the other frills. What right had both Pakistan as well as India over Kashmir? Well, Kashmir had been under the British-Indian suzerainty. But as in the case with most other places in India where the British had formal suzerainty, there were formal treaties under which British power was accepted.
Gifting others property
Did the British hand over the whole of the lands under their direct and indirect rule to be divided by India and Pakistan? Well, if they did do so, did they really have the right and power to do so? For instance, there were an immensity of tribal and other groups living in various levels of independence all over the British-Indian colonial areas. How could they be simply handed over to either Indian or Pakistani control.
Self-righteous patriotism
I do remember one old South Indian film, wherein the government public works department goes inside a forest and start ousting the native tribal population inside. The hero, the engineer (Prem Nazir was the actor) is seen doing a very patriotic action in clearing the forest areas and constructing a dam. When the tribal leader asks of him as to how he can lay claim to their hereditary land, he makes a very candid answer in a very powerful stance: This is not your land. The land belongs to the Government of India. We are going to clear the forest and build a dam. You are to vacate the place immediately. Otherwise we will be compelled to use force.
Then he takes a rifle and displays the firepower in his possession. It was a very powerful scene, and Prem Nazir did a nice acting.
Even though I did enjoy the film, the actor and the songs therein, I was a bit troubled by the dubious stance of extreme self-righteousness shown by the government babus. Did the British really have any idea as to what they were doing in the first instance of handing over a huge mass of land to which they themselves had no clear-cut right or control over.
The English idiocy
In the height of idiocy of Clement Atlee and his thick skulled coterie, many territories were simply handed over to the Indian officialdom and to a politician who is famous for a huge piece of historical plagiarism. For example, see the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. What right had the British to hand over these islands to the newly formed cluster-nation called India? In the coming years, if the natives there are to take up arms to get their sovereignty back in their own hands, wouldnt they be crushed by the aid of senseless firepower? And the armed men given the right over their persons?
Nations of evil-dom
Well, my ponderings may seem quite inappropriate. However, there is the question of how good a nation is India and Pakistan? It is a very simple understanding that both of them are nations with corrupt-to-the-core bureaucracies who are also fabulously paid. In both these nations, after what the officialdom loots as pay and pension, there is not much for the common man. Moreover, the native languages are also feudal. The question is who wants to remain under them, and be a part of their fiefdom.
It is a very well-known thing that the fabulously rich bureaucrat here is desperately trying to send his or her children to some English nation. At the same time, he or she wants to see that others do remain struck in India (and Pakistan). That is the way patriotism is understood by them. See that their own children escape Indias clutches, yet see that others remain stuck here, under their thumbs!
What do they want
Now this reaches me to ponder on Kashmir. What do the majority people want over there? There is an immensity of communalism there now. However, what was the original situation at the time when the British left India? I understand that at that time, the claim was for an independent Kashmir.
Sending an occupying army to a place and confining it forcefully inside a dubious border is not an elegant means of making a nation powerful and big. I did hear from a Political Science professor many years ago that when the Indian occupation created a big hue and cry, Nehru did promise in the UN that a plebiscite or referendum would be conducted in India-occupied-Kashmir. I do not know what was the peoples reaction over there in Pak-occupied-Kashmir was. The professor told me that when Nehru came back to India, his foreign affairs minister Krishna Menon simply told him not to do any such nonsense!
Realities of Indian social communication
Well, there are social realities. In Indian languages, social communication moves along certain fixed paths and channels. Superimposing unacceptable entities to dominate certain higher positions of the communication system will create only pain. Maybe if the language is English, or if the occupying entities use only English, to a limited extent this pain may be not there. However, if such feudal languages like Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam etc. come to such dominate the communication systems, there can be real trauma for the native population/s.
It is possible that the Indian leaders may have hoped that over time, and endurance, the native population would accept the newer realities. Well, it can be done. It depends. But again, such dubious aims may not work also.
A solution
Now who wants Kashmir to be within India? Do the people of Kashmir want to be with India? Well, if they do want to be with India, well no minority rebellion is going to make Kashmir break away from India. Since there are a lot of claims and counter claims in this regard, the best thing to do would be to go in for a referendum. To settle the issue for once and for all.
Actually there might be need for a second referendum also, depending on what the results are. The first referendum should be on whether the people want to be with India or not. If majority support is for India, well, the issue is settled. All protest marches would be of no more avail.
However, if the majority support is for freedom from India, then there is need for a second referendum. This can be done under the aegis of the UN or some other international agency. This should be the question on whether Kashmir would want to be with Pakistan or exist as an independent nation.
This is a very sensible thing to do. For, see how the situation has deteriorated. In the last years of the 1940s, the issue was only about a independent Kashmir. Then the communal feelings enflamed by the politicians in British-India led to the communal carnages in both India and Pakistan. Naturally the boiling emotions would have crept into Kashmir also, and soiled the communal harmony there.
The despoiling communalism
In many senses, it is clear that the communal feelings that run riot all over India has despoiled Kashmiri also. Beyond that, how has India enforced its rule there? It is claimed that Kashmir has a special status. Well, this is something that can disturb the people in other states. However, what is the reality? The reality is that Kashmir has something more than that. It is the blanket freedom given to the Indian armed forces in Kashmir. Well, only a very satanic person can give such powers to the Indian armed forces over any people.
The real face of Indian uniformed forces
Anyone knows what can happen to a helpless Indian in any Indian police station. If that be the reality, only a superbly madman would give such draconian powers to the Indian armed forces. They can enter houses at any time, and do what they want.
There are many stories heard about them and their handiwork there. I dare not mention them. For one thing they are just hearsay. Yet, I have heard them directly from the very lips of army personnel who return from postings in Kashmir. I did sense a very disturbing nonchalance in their words. The same manner a butcher would mention a group of buffaloes or chicken meant for slaughter. As if the people there are of no consequence.
Maybe armed forces misdemeanours are rare and isolated. At least I do hope so. Yet, the armed personnel in India are not the quality people of this land. They belong to a lower mental standard group. I did not necessarily mean their social level. They come from or at least belong to lower levels of their command hierarchy. The issue is in the feudal language. The lower armed personnel belong to the lower words, and usages in the language they are spoken to and about, by their official superiors. It is an issue that English speakers cannot understand or fathom.
Well, when such lowly kept personnel come inside the house or stop people for questioning, and use lower level words to the people, it can be a severely traumatising experience. The feeling would be that of being under the control of dirty, stinking levels of people. When they lay hands on ones body and soul, no man with dignity would be able to bear it with equanimity.
Actually this issue is not something that only Kashmiris alone bear in this geographical area. Even the people in other states also suffer from this. When Kashmiris are made to shudder at this experience, they naturally would get angry with the rest of India. Naturally the pointed emotions are then directed at Hindu India. Yet, Hindus are not to blame. For it is not Hindus despoiling the Kashmiris, but the repulsive government personnel of this land who do it. It is really an issue of Indian government personnels interest verses the people who are under their thraldom.
Agent Provocateurs
Now there is something that has troubled me over the years, actually some twenty years and more. It is the issue of Agent Provocateurs. It is something that is used in many Asian and other diabolical nations. The idea is to use agents who function along with the members of the rebel groups, and indulge in acts of senseless violence. They are also used to set up parallel rebel movements, that try to create confusion in the people, and dissipate the energy of the rebellion. Moreover the movement gets splintered into various groups, who then are made to fight with each other. A lot of unsupportable criminal acts of sabotage are done by them, and the rest of the revolutionaries get to share the blame. The reputation of the whole movement is tarnished.
Well, there were times when the Kashmir issue used to be confounding with a lot of unheard-of-before names coming to the fore. Did any of the national agencies of both India and Pakistan indulge in these types of diabolical acts? If they did, did they have the necessary licence and authorisation to do so? If they did, who gave them such powers?
In these days of Right to Information, would the perpetrators of such crimes try to hide behind the screen of secrets ofnational interests? The question is what national interest and whose national interests are they protecting. When nations do crimes that the gods may not forgive, to condone them might also invite divine retribution.
If Indian army or any other forces have committed atrocities over there, then its rightful divine retribution need not be shared by the unknowing people of this place. It needs to be directed on to the heads of the perpetuators.
Crimes of war
The Jallianwala incident was said to have killed around 370 persons (Indian account of those times) and 150 (as per British account). It does seem that in Kashmir these numbers are quite insignificant. Who is to be held responsible? The fact is that no one is responsible. In later years, when the killings come up for judicial scrutiny, which Indian officials can be named? The Indian Presidents who are jokingly said to be the head of the Indian army cannot be. For they are stringed puppets.
As to the others, they are all simply men of straw who shall vanish fast from popular memory.
A tomfoolery as a national secret
As to the Map and boundary of India, who is that who decided that the people here are nitwits and need to be fooled? Or is this piece of tomfoolery also to be kept hidden under the cloak of national security interests?
A right to ones own address
As to Kashmir, the sooner the claims are taken up for scrutiny and settled, the better. It would be a criminal act to place a million curses of a befooled, brutalised and manhandled souls on the heads of an innocent posterity. Why should any intellectual buffoon or a physical midget be allowed to bring in simmering animosity in the minds of a people who live in a paradise-like area?
Who has the right to decide ones allegiance or address? I believe it is a congenital right that every human being has, that should not be usurped upon. It is not for the Delhi man, the Maharashtrian, the Punjabi, the Tamilian, the Kannadiga, the Telugu, the Malayalee or the Goan to decide how the Kashmiri wants his or her address to be like. This right remains the same for everyone.
Freeing this land from the Satans
As to free Kashmirs future connection with India, let India first become an ideal nation, with no corruption, high living standards and a dignified citizenry. Then, maybe the Kashmiri would love to come back. Till then, an evil nation run by a fleecing bureaucracy and clownish politicians has no right over anyone or anything.
The essential tenet of Islam and a quality Kashmir
As to the future of free Kashmir, let there be prudence and long sight among the modern generation there. Let there be a concerted programme for bringing in good quality English, the language of mutual dignity. It can assuage the hierarchical communication issues between the Hindus and Muslims over there. For, pristine Islam lies sullied by its long-age connection with feudal language social systems. An English Islam would be much better than an Hindi, Urdu, Tamil or Malayalam Islam. For Islam essentially lays stress on its much forgotten social tenet of Universal Brotherhood.
I am sure if the Kashmiris strive for quality, then a better place than both India and Pakistan can be created and maintained.
