{"id":3470,"date":"2018-04-09T10:56:43","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T05:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=3470"},"modified":"2018-04-09T10:56:43","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T05:26:43","slug":"kashmir-narratives-not-military-power-triumphs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/kashmir-narratives-not-military-power-triumphs\/","title":{"rendered":"Kashmir: Narratives, Not Military Power Triumphs"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

 <\/p>\n

Punchline<\/u><\/strong><\/h1>\n

Misplaced Optimism <\/u><\/strong><\/h1>\n

By<\/u><\/strong><\/h1>\n

Z.G. Muhammad<\/h1>\n

<\/h1>\n

\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The past Monday, when my column, \u2018Geelani Release- A Way Forward,\u2019 appeared in this newspaper, I felt remorseful of having written something outlandish- far fetched from the ground reality. It was flagrantly in contradiction with the black bordered banner lead stories, \u2018Bloody Sunday: 20 Killed\u2019 in all the newspapers. The blood curdling details of blood bath enacted in wee morning hours of Sunday in a couple of villages in Shopian district of South Kashmir jeered at my optimism; for reading too much in the government announcing restoring the denied public space to the Joint Resistance Leadership and also all those under the restistance canopy. \u00a0The blood soaked history of the past thirty years has countless bloody Sundays and Black Saturdays, but in the recent past 1 April 2018 \u00a0was the goriest day. Twenty two boys mostly teenagers killed, two hundred youth injured with many with bullet wounds \u00a0and over forty boys fired with pellets in face, giving \u2018dead eyes to many more children and youth.\u2019 In sombre villages like Padderpora bodies of teenagers arrived one after another, some charred beyond recognizition amdist weeping people and chest beating mothers.<\/h5>\n
In allowing Syed Ali Shah Geelani, to say congregational\u00a0\u00a0 Friday prayers in a Masjid in neighborhood, after eight years of house detention had sparked streaks of optimism in a section of people. Perhaps New Delhi\u2019s mindset of strangulating all space to the voices of dissent and using coercive methods had changed. Notwithstanding, skepticism of Geelani\u2019s second in command, Mohammad Ashraf Sehari the belief had gained strength for the announcement about allowing the resistance leadership to articulate its point of view freely not coming from the chief minister but New Delhi\u2019s horses mouth in the state- the topmost IPS officer.<\/h5>\n
It seemed that the one after another Intifada, \u00a0since 2008, with each one of them causing ripple-effect in the global media had made New Delhi to realize that both the denial mode and strangulating the voices of dissent had not helped it in deconstructing the seventy year old Kashmir narrative. Moreover, despite some television channels sparing no occasion in tarring and feathering the people of the state, the narrative has been gaining strength at the international level. Commenting on the Intifadas <\/em>in Kashmir, \u00a0\u00a0even the New York Times some time back wrote, \u201cKashmir\u2019s demand for self-determination is sharper today that it has been perhaps any other time in the regions troubled history.\u201d<\/h5>\n
The announcement about not \u00a0\u00a0choking the resistance leadership any more and releasing Geelani from house detention by the top cop \u00a0had sparked speculations that the move might be a way forward in as much as New Delhi creating a conducive atmosphere in the state for initiating a new political process in the state. It had also them believe that the dispensation in the capital may be conteplating picking up the threads about Kashmir from where Manmohan Singh left these in 2005 and 2006.\u00a0 Manmohan Singh had carried forward the policy of engagement with Islamabad pursued by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and had initiated some Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) vis-\u00e0-vis Jammu and Kashmir. \u00a0Vajpayee in spite of many hiccups including two year long standoff on the Line of Control had continued engagement with Pakistan on the track two and directly. In fact, these engagements were trilateral in as much as these involved India, Pakistan and Kashmir leadership. A section of the Hurriyat leadership was engaged independently both India and Pakistan leadership. Then New Delhi at not point of time had drawn any redlines; the Hurriyat leaders were freely allowed to visit Pakistan and hold meetings with leaders of Pakistan visiting New Delhi. These meetings were held inside the Pakistan Embassy, New Delhi. \u00a0For Washington being in the loop, the engagements were as good as the \u2018proximity talks.\u2019 The opening of the Jhelum Valley Road despite the apprehensions, if it was not a move towards converting the LOC into permanent border under the guise of \u2018porous border\u2019 was a landmark achievement. Notwithstanding the rhetoric, that it being a move towards converting the LOC into a permanent border, as rightly said by Ambassador Yusuf Buch former Advisor to UN Secretary General, \u00a0\u00a0\u201cAny road-map which deviates from the principle laid in the primacy agreement concerning Kashmir is bound to be arbitrary in conception and failure in effect.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0For about forty five years, from the day the road was closed, thinking of public movement on it was unimaginable, any one caught crossing over this the line of control was jailed- even shot dead. \u00a0The opening of the road and allowing people travelling on it without an international passport, put at rest the debate the change of nomenclature of ceasefire line to line of control had made the dividing line permanent. \u00a0The opening of the Jhelum Valley Road was a pointer suggesting that there is a possibility of the resolution of the Kashmir Dispute if the two countries start a dialogue with sincerity of purpose. Of all the CMBs, this one survived many an ugly tides in the relations between Islamabad and New Delhi during past thirteen years. Had the Manmohan Singh shown same statesmanship that Vajpayee exhibited after the Kargil War and 2001-2002 India-Pakistan standoff perhaps a lot of ground could have been covered for resolving the most important outstanding dispute between the two countries- the cause of three wars and looming shadows of nuclear of war in the region.<\/h5>\n
The optimism of a new start generated on Friday had the briefest ever life; it died with a whimper on grisly Sunday morning in sleepy orchard villages of Shopian. Instead of generating some hope in the beleaguered people suffering pellets, bullets and torching of houses many more \u2018wailing museums\u2019 were created that will continue to echo for decades with sobs and cries of sisters, aging mothers, and ailing fathers. More mausoleums of struggle and martyrdom created that will stand as a testimony for the future generations about the commitment of their ancestors to their political beliefs and cause. \u00a0The killings had put everyone in mourning and cast deep gloom across the state. Further more, it was to use Antonio Gramsci phrase \u2018the hegemonic discourse\u2019 describing the killings young boys as \u2018major victory\u2019 and \u2018a very special day\u2019 that extinguished the lost flicker of hope even from the most optimists in the state.<\/h5>\n
In political struggles, it is not the modus operandi or medium of the struggle but the strength of the narrative that matters. For past 200 years, more particularly for the past seventy years, the Kashmir narrative\u00a0 nursed with blood by the people of the state has been passed on from one generation to another. In the history of nations, there are umpteen stories that very candidly tell that it is not military power but the narrative of struggling people that ultimately is triumphant. One of the classical examples of narrative triumphing over the military power is the Evian Agreement of Sunday 18 March 1962 signed by the National Liberation Front of Algeria and the French Government.<\/h5>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 
\nPunchline
\nMisplaced Optimism
\nBy
\nZ.G. Muhammad<\/p>\n

\u00a0
\n 
\nThe past Monday, when my column, \u2018Geelani Release- A Way Forward,\u2019 appeared in this newspaper, I felt remorseful of having written something outlandish- far fetched from the ground reality. It was flagrantly in contradiction with the black bordered banner lead stories, \u2018Bloody Sunday: 20 Killed\u2019 in all the newspapers. The blood curdling details of blood bath enacted in wee morning hours of Sunday in a couple of villages in Shopian district of South Kashmir jeered at my optimism; for reading too much in the government announcing restoring the denied public space to the Joint Resistance Leadership and also all those under the restistance canopy. \u00a0The blood soaked history of the past thirty years has countless bloody Sundays and Black Saturdays, but in the recent past 1 April 2018 \u00a0was the goriest day. Twenty two boys mostly teenagers killed, two hundred youth injured with many with bullet wounds …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3470"}],"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=3470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3472,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3470\/revisions\/3472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}