{"id":1662,"date":"2013-12-17T15:55:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T10:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=1662"},"modified":"2013-12-17T15:56:56","modified_gmt":"2013-12-17T10:26:56","slug":"fetters-on-scholarship-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/fetters-on-scholarship-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Fetters on Scholarship. Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0Z.G. Muhammad<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018Kashmir University has become an extension of the \u2018state establishment. Moreover, academic freedom and genuine scholarship is the biggest causality.\u2019 This lament has been finding an echo in most of the academic seminars held outside the campus. On 10 December 2014, when across the world people were observing the Human Rights Day and pledging to uphold all the\u00a0\u00a0 thirty Articles contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in a seminar some scholars, researchers and students were raising their voice against denial of academic freedom in the Kashmir University. This seminar had been organized by a group of civil society to mark the historic day.
\nScholars mostly from social sciences and languages narrated stories after stories about their being coerced to change their findings and bringing them in line with the \u2018dominant discourse\u2019, \u2018loading them with cultural meanings that condition to think in a particular ways, not to be able to think very well in other ways.\u2019 To quote Gramsci this is done to serve the \u201cdominant ideology.\u201d One of the M. Phil scholars narrating his traumatic experiences stated that he suffered the \u201cacademic oppression\u201d for over three years for not tailoring his thesis in line with the \u2018dominant ideology\u2019.\u00a0 Despite protests, he was forced to alter his thesis and rehash it in tune with the \u2018dominant narrative\u2019. His was not an isolated case; many more instances were quoted.
\nIt was disappointing to note that some teachers having \u2018consented\u2019 to the \u2018political society\u2019 for manufacturing narratives in total contradiction with the historical realities and using the institution they were heading for bolstering the anti-people narratives.\u00a0 These scholars believed that to use a Gramscian phrase\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cpolitical society\u201d has converted the university into a breeding ground for material and intellectuals corruption with definite purposes.
\nI am not going to debate here complex academic ideas, how this \u2018domination\u2019 and \u2018hegemony\u2019 can be countered by creating alternative institutions and alternative intellectual resources within the existing society\u2019, but, to\u00a0 look for an answer for a few simple questions that have been haunting my mind for past couple of days. What does the establishment want to achieve by throttling the academic freedom in the Kashmir University and in other smaller universities. By not allowing scholars to pursue research and conduct studies with honesty of purposes to look into the genesis of the problem, identify factors that have added to the perpetuation of this dispute can Kashmir Dispute be wished away, made to disappear or stop existing.
\nCan\u00a0 world be made to think differently about the dispute, that since 1947 in the words of Josef Korbel has \u2018cast a shadow from beyond towering Himalayas and the Pamirs, from Sinkiang and Tibet and the Soviet Union?\u2019 Nothing has changed since Korbel wrote these words in preface to his book Danger in Kashmir sixty years back. Seeing non-resolution of the dispute as a \u2018disaster\u2019 he had written, \u201cThe two great nations of the Subcontinent, India and Pakistan, continue to dissipate their wealth, their strength, and their energy on a near fratricidal struggle in which the hitherto almost unknown State of Kashmir has become the physical battle ground.\u201d\u00a0 These words\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 hold as true on 13 December 2013, when I am pushing my fingers on the keyboard as they were when written in August 1954.
\nTrue, over past sixty-five years many solutions have been mooted such as plebiscite under aegis of the United Nations, a region-by-region plebiscite, UN Trusteeship, Trieste and \u201cAndora models\u201d (a nominally sovereign territory in fact controlled by two state. Most of these solutions have come from intellectuals and think tanks outside the Sub-continent. There is hardly an instance of intellectuals in India or Kashmir having ever come up with a solution for the resolution of the dispute based on justice and fair play outside the \u201cdominant narrative\u201d or playing a pro-active role in persuading the political leadership for solving the Kashmir problem and mitigating the sufferings of people in the Subcontinent.
\nIt is equally true that but for the shortsightedness and lack of will of the political leadership, peace in region is threatened because of the non-resolution of the dispute. Nevertheless, I\u00a0 see the perpetuation of the Kashmir Dispute also as failure of academia and intellectuals in India, Pakistan and Kashmir. In the words of Noam Chomsky, \u201cIntellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.\u00a0 They are to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us.\u201d He rightly says, \u201cThe responsibilities of intellectuals, are much deeper than\u00a0\u00a0 the “responsibility of people,” given the unique privileges that intellectuals enjoy.\u201d
\nOne finds some intellectuals who could influence government\u2019s policy in fifties, sixties even later in the dock. For these supplementing the government\u2019s Kashmir policy instead of analyzing it objectively the dispute over future of Jammu and Kashmir has become one of the most complex and complicated issues of the world.\u00a0\u00a0 Had there been an independent intellectual thinking or had the top academia sent cautionary notes to governments in New Delhi against its strategy in Kashmir that \u201chas been gradually to erode Kashmir\u2019s special status under Article 370 of the Constitution of India\u201d.. In the words of Stephen Cohen to \u2018pretend that the problem was \u2018solved\u2019 by the Simla Agreement\u2026 And it stubbornly opposing outside efforts to mediate\u201d the dispute over Kashmir \u201cwould not be now seen as one of the of world\u2019s nuclear flashpoints.\u201d
\nIt is understood that scores of scholars in number of top most international universities have been working on the Kashmir Dispute. But they have been overwhelmingly focusing on\u00a0 its international and regional dimensions. How far can non-resolution of the dispute make Kashmir playground for Asian powers. If Kashmiri scholars are allowed and encouraged to research without invisible embargoes and tags- perhaps they will be able to come up with a formula that will help in its honorable resolution and bringing lasting peace in the region.
\nIt is high time for the people managing the affairs of universities to allow academic freedom in the university of Kashmir and other universities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 
\n\u00a0Z.G. Muhammad
\n 
\n\u2018Kashmir University has become an extension of the \u2018state establishment. Moreover, academic freedom and genuine scholarship is the biggest causality.\u2019 This lament has been finding an echo in most of the academic seminars held outside the campus. On 10 December 2014, when across the world people were observing the Human Rights Day and pledging to uphold all the\u00a0\u00a0 thirty Articles contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in a seminar some scholars, researchers and students were raising their voice against denial of academic freedom in the Kashmir University. This seminar had been organized by a group of civil society to mark the historic day.
\nScholars mostly from social sciences and languages narrated stories after stories about their being coerced to change their findings and bringing them in line with the \u2018dominant discourse\u2019, \u2018loading them with cultural meanings that condition to think in a particular ways, not to be able …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1663,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662\/revisions\/1663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}