Story of Our Agony and Their Ecstasy

Punchline

Our Pain, Their Pleasure  

Z. G. Muhammad

I am in mourning. So is our whole nation. On Saturday morning when I started writing my weekly column, my hands trembled and my frozen fingers refused to push on the keyboard. The blood-soaked pictures of our martyred children, Nayeem, Iqbal, Jahangir, Arif, along with those martyred in 2008, 2009 and 2010 hovered around in the sullen environs of my study. They popped up from the corners of every book about Kashmir on the bookshelves with big question marks writ on their faces- bullets having drained every drop of blood from them.

How long will, they enjoy the impunity to shoot us down for a sport like coots in the lakes?   How many more teenagers have we to sacrifice at the altar of the gods occupying temples of justice and democracy in  New York  Washington, Moscow, Beijing and  New Delhi to prick their conscience? And make them realize the pain agony of hundreds of thousands of mothers of Kashmir whose children have been snatched from them much before they would cross the thirties. To make them share the agony and pain of thousands of mothers who continue to keep doors of their house open late in the night with the hope that their children picked up by men in uniform will return.

True, we have made immense sacrifices for realizing our dream of political freedom. For reminding the United Nations Security that it has failed to implement its resolutions on Kashmir, we have taken out two million-strong marches to the blue gate, a symbol of its presence in Kashmir.On many occasions, soldiers have pierced chests of our children with bullets and splashed the blue gate with red blood. Nonetheless, the questions writ large on the faces of our martyred children have also host of questions for us to ponder over at the individual and the collective levels.

It is historical fact. New Delhi and its leaders from the father of Indian nation, M. K.Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jay Prakash Narayan and many others at the peak of their eloquence were great votaries of the right to self-determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. For years, the Indian Parliament resonated with the pledges of holding a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi has not expunged these pledges from the Constituent Assembly proceedings and debates in the Parliament. The fact was when New Delhi tried to back out from its pledges, we as people failed to be smart enough to rise to the occasion to subvert their move by revolting against the “collaborators”. New Delhi, with its mighty army, could not have afforded to violate the international agreement on Kashmir as good as the Traité de Versailles without collaboration from these people. That is why    Nehru had written to overenthusiastic Sheikh Abdullah, who was against a referendum on 21 November 1947, “In fact, I share the feeling myself. But you will appreciate it is not easy for us to back out of the stand we have taken before the world. That would create a very bad impression abroad more especially in the UN circles.” Caught up in a conjured predicament of the ‘development’ and the ‘cherished cause’ instead of defeating the power-hungry politicians we allowed ourselves to be ensnared by them for some petty interests. Thus enabled them to draw ecstasy out of our pain.

The worst part of our history has been that we have allowed exploitation of the most popular political movements by our leaders for installing and strengthen the collaborators. Who with sugar-coated slogans like ‘liberalizations and the rule of law’ worked for defeating the people’s narrative and strengthening New Delhi’s hold on the State.   The 1964 Holy Relic movement, which had shaken New Delhi and proved catalytic in bringing the Kashmir Dispute back on the central stage at the international level instead of furthering the cause the movement it was used for avenging a political rival. To see Bakshi buried politically, the leadership in the vanguard at that time worked for installing New Delhi new man Sadiq with an agenda to erase all symbols of the State semi-sovereignty. It was but for the then leadership that New Delhi succeeded in strengthening its hold on the state. Had the then intelligentsia and media not failed to call a spade a spade the short-sighted “resistance leaders and organizations” would perhaps desist from given legitimacy the government installed by New Delhi.  These parties by participating in the elections whether local bodies in 1969 or Assembly in 1972 strengthen “the collaborator culture”. Its most disastrous fallout was every Tom, Dick and Harry jumping over the Janata Bandwagon in 1977 to stem the entry of Sheikh Abdullah in the Assembly. And in their crushing defeat, they gave legitimacy to the Indira-Sheikh Accord that New Delhi wanted to play upon in the international forums against the people’s discourse. New Delhi used the Indira- Sheikh Accord to inform the international forums about the UN resolutions ‘outliving their utility’ for Kashmir resulting in the movement for the right to self-determination taking a back seat for thirteen years.

In the post-1990 scenario, it was because of the courage and sacrifices of the third generation youth of the state that Jammu and Kashmir were back in spotlight internationally. Once again the key global players had shown interest in the resolution of the Kashmir Dispute. The cosponsor of 1948, UN resolutions the United State after a gap of 28 years (India-China War)  once again got pro-actively involved in seeing the Dispute Resolved. New Delhi’s forty-year-old stubbornness had mellowed down, and it had started sending feelers through top people like Iranian President Rafsanjani about its intent of seeing Kashmir resolved. But, after 1996, when it found one after another “friend” to collaborate with and coined one after another catchy phrase to trick people it again used again the electoral politics to defeat the final settlement.

With our agony perpetuating history has again brought us at another juncture- the choice is ours.

Published in Greater Kashmir on 18-4-16