Hushyar is the Mantra- A word with fellow Kashmiris

Punchline
Caution Is Needed
Z. G. Muhammad

Sixty-seven years after, New Delhi stands in Kashmir where it started. True, much water has since then flown down the Jhelum, but it’s ‘strategy’ in Kashmir has not changed a mite. The blowing out of proportion a small purely administrative issue at the NIT, Srinagar by the corporate media, the ruling elite and politicians in New Delhi when seen in a historical perspective is a part of the same “game plan” which began in 1947.
Some thirty-two years back a leading Urdu fiction writer and top filmmaker Khawaja Ahmed Abbas in an interview told me that India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947 had cast a role for a group of left-leaning intellectuals and Communist to engineer a change in an inherent mindset of the overwhelming majority of the state. Nehru believed that Kashmir was a ‘laboratory’ for testing his idea of India and defeating the two nation theory. In a separate interview, Rajinder Singh Bedi another communist writer endorsing what Abbas said subtly conveyed that Nehru ‘after the military victory in Kashmir wanted us to vanquish the land ideologically. In December 1947, Nehru had appointed him as Director of Jammu and Kashmir Broadcasting Service to counter what he called ‘propaganda of Pakistan.
On the, one hand Prime Minister Nehru sent a horde of communist ideologues to Kashmir to mutate the political outlook of the majority of the people that had evolved over a period of one hundred and twenty-seven years of oppressive, bigoted and discriminatory rule. On the other hand, he sent his ‘toughest Sikh general Kalwant Singh to take overall command in Kashmir to silence any voice of dissent. Nehru, as he had told his then “trusted man” in Kashmir that Singh, was just a ‘man for taking the offensive.’ Nehru, interest in taking over Kashmir and perpetuating the dispute was not just to use it as turf for “testing his idea of India’ and defeating Jinnah’s ideology in an overwhelmingly Muslim majority state which as a corollary to the partition plan should have been part of the country he conjured. Nehru wanted Kashmir as he told his High Commissioner to Pakistan, Sri Prakasa for bigger game, ‘The fact is that Kashmir is of the most vital significance to India,” he told him, “We have to see this through to the end. If it is going to be drain on our resources, but it is going to be a greater drain to Pakistan.’ Despite Nehru desire to see Kashmir part of India, “Sardar Patel at one time wanted Kashmir to be part of Pakistan. In his 27 September 1947 letter to Sardar Patel, pleading for the release of a Kashmiri leader needed for making Kashmir joining India, Nehru had explained the reasons for seeing the state becoming part of India. Nehru, even seventeen years after the partition, wanted to use Kashmir dispute to defeat the idea of Pakistan. After 1964, Holy Relic Movement and release of Kashmir leaders from prison, hopes had brightened for the resolution of the dispute. Nehru again at his old game sent Kashmir leaders to Pakistan with the proposal of ‘confederation’ as a solution to the dispute which clearly suggested undoing of the division. Largely a fair-minded Indian commentator has rightly observed that ‘Gundevia and Nehru knew that the idea was not workable. Pakistan would reject the proposal.’ As Altaf Gauhar writes that Ayub Khan impatiently told Sheikh Abdullah ‘confederation was a solution totally unacceptable to Pakistan. The arrangement was to undo partition and place Hindu majority in dominant position.’
If Kashmir was a ‘laboratory’ for Nehru for testing his ideas, and a turf for executing his idea of India, Kashmir leaders, and common Kashmiris have been for New Delhi just “guinea pigs” for experimenting its Kashmir policy for holding on the state. As early as 1948, even the political aspiration of Nehru’s man-Friday in Kashmir were no consequences. On 14 May 1948, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, wrote to her father, “Personally, I feel that all this political talk will count for nothing if the economic situation can be dealt with. Because, after all, the people are concerned with only one thing- they want to sell their goods and have food and salt.” In fact, Mrs. Gandhi’s this letter to Nehru became one of the important pillars of India’ carrot and stick policy in Kashmir during the fifties and sixties even seventies. The subsidy on food grains, holding Jashin-Kashmir, adopting political corruption and intimidation and terror state policy had their origin in this very doctrine. Even after Nehru, New Delhi’s Kashmir policy of diluting, defusing and dissolving a political movement through political rhetoric and ensnaring the gullible leadership by coining catchy phrases like “ protecting Kashmiri sub-nationalism”, “sky is the limit’, “Insanayat Kay Daraya Main” and so on is surviving.
It was not Nehru alone, who had used Kashmir as turf for playing his games. Nonetheless, the right wing Jan Singh immediately after its birth looked at Kashmir as a springboard for consolidating its “nationalist” image. In its inaugural meeting on 21 September 1951, it had ‘invoked Hindu warriors who had fought Muslim invader. “The party stood for the reunification of the mother and conquering of Pakistan. It suspected the Indian Muslims as a problem minority.” The anti-Muslim mantra did not work in 1952 general election; its performance was dismal winning just three seats. The unsettled relations between New Delhi and Srinagar and the agitation of Praja Parshid against the nomenclature of the head of the state, the state flag, and the state constitution provided an opportunity to ‘revive its cadre and “reinvent the party on the national stage.” An eminent historian writes, this agitation had planted seeds of Independence in Sheikh Abdullah mind. This agitation ultimately led to 1953 and after developments.
So, it would be puerile to dismiss NIT incident as a non-issue, the Hindutva can exploit it for furthering their agenda in Kashmir- so word Hushyar is the mantra.