{"id":3674,"date":"2018-07-09T09:59:56","date_gmt":"2018-07-09T04:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=3674"},"modified":"2018-07-09T14:57:02","modified_gmt":"2018-07-09T09:27:02","slug":"the-others-narrative-my-take-on-sozs-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/the-others-narrative-my-take-on-sozs-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The “Others” Narrative: My Take on Soz’s Book"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

 <\/p>\n

Punchline<\/h2>\n

The \u201cOthers\u201d Narrative<\/h2>\n

Z.G. Muhammad<\/h2>\n

<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some twelve years back, Farooq Abdullah, senior scion of the Abdullah family told me \u00a0\u00a0he was writing a book that will tell many inside stories, never told before. The information as a student of contemporary Kashmir politics had come to me as good tidings. My belief has been that\u00a0 the stories of politicians, who are on the other side of the fence or are\u00a0 tethered to the \u2018hegemonic politics\u2019 in the state, in \u00a0a situation like \u00a0\u00a0ours not only help in deconstructing the \u201cdominant discourse\u201d\u00a0 but \u00a0also work as catalysts for strengthening\u00a0 the popular resistance narrative.<\/h5>\n
\u00a0In the summer of 2006, I had visited Dr. Abdullah for a detailed interview, for one the books, of triology, I am engaged in writing for quite a time. \u00a0It was one of the longish interviews, mostly on the record and some off the record. His takes both on the record and off the record, are important for telling the Kashmir story.<\/h5>\n
\u2018On 27 October 1947, when sorties after sorties of \u00a0Indian troops had landed in Kashmir after the controversial \u201cInstrument of Accession\u201d was signed by Maharja Hari Singh and Lord Mountbatten \u2018the eldest Abdullah scion, then ten years old\u00a0 had accompained his father Sheikh Abdullah to receive men in olive green at the Srinagar aerodrome. On seeing Sikh soldiers with huge iron rings adorning their turbans, tall as poplars desembarking \u00a0from the aeroplanes he had shuddered and \u00a0told his father they have come to kill us. Sheikh sahib with a pat on his back had told him, no, no, they have come to save and protect us.\u2019 This may be a small incident, yet it makes a huge statement about the impact of \u00a0the landing of Indian \u00a0\u00a0soldiers on the psyche of Kashmiri\u00a0 children\u2019. Even, in single liners like this \u00a0in the works \u00a0\u00a0of \u2018the others\u2019 as one would prefer to call politicians whose political outlooks and doings are not in sync with the overwhelming political sentiments in the state\u00a0 are leads for scholars for disengaging truth from the falsehood, \u00a0deliberately mixed up for strenghtening the \u2018the State\u00a0 discourse.\u2019<\/h5>\n
\u00a0I, for one, see even the autobiographies of pro-India politicians like \u00a0Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Dr. Karan Singh, and Syed Mir Qasim, etc. despite \u00a0all their distortions and prejudices important for telling the whole Kashmir story. For instance, on the landing of Indian troops at Srinagar Syed Mir Qasim, one of the former chief ministers of the state and important leader of the Congress \u00a0writes, \u201cThese full blooded young men were burning with passion for avenging the massacre of their dear ones in what then had become Pakistan. As they landed at the airport some of them opened fire and \u00a0killed a few Muslims.\u201d \u2018On these killings, the general masses were so much infuriated that no Kashmiri leader including Sheikh Abdullah, could possibly \u00a0stem the uprising.\u2019 This he too very subtly suggests that India started its inning in Kashmir on a killing spree. \u00a0\u00a0On the question of plebicite, he also very candidly exposes New Delhi double standards, \u2018On the one side B.N. Rau, India’s representative to the United Nations Security Council assured the Council about India\u2019s commitment to the plebiscite in the state. Moreover, informed the United Nations, that Indian Government was not bound to accept the decision of the\u00a0 Kashmir Constituent Assembly on accession. This assurance was repeated by Rajashwar Dayal, then another important Indian diplomat, but in Kashmir, Gopalaswami Ayyangar wanted to see the accession ratified. In 1953, he camped in Sringar, and advised Sheikh Abdullah to pass the accession resolution.\u2019 It also tells, a story about Jammat-I-Islamia, that other wise perhaps would not be known. Mir Qasim suggested \u00a0Indira Gandhi ban the Jammat in Kashmir, Indira Gandhi turned down the propsition because then she would be obliged to ban RSS in India, which she could not afford\u2019. In fact, it is such hints weaved in long texts, that makes the works of \u2018the others\u2019 also another genus of history.<\/h5>\n
Farooq Abdullah so far has not published his book, that promised of telling the inside stories about New Delhi dubious role in Kashmir- perhaps after \"\"<\/a>2008 Assembly elections, expediency took him over, and he\u00a0 dropped the idea. Neverthless, one of his former important partyman, who reprsented the National Conference in the Indian Parliament for quite a long time recently came up with a \u00a0book, \u2018 Kashmir Gilmpises of History and the Story\u00a0 of Struggle.\u2019\u00a0 The 236 page hardbound book, with a beautiful dust cover, and nice oil paintings by Masood Hussain, published by Rupa Publishing India is a blend of \u00a0the past history and the \u00a0contemporary politics in the State. \u00a0\u00a0The book \u00a0is priced at Rs. 595.<\/h5>\n
The author,\u00a0 unlike many Indian politicians, who in line with the South Blocks \u2018style- book\u2019 \u00a0prefer to call Kashmir, an issue or a problem, Soz boldly calls it a Dispute that needs to be resolved through a dialogue with three main stakeholders \u2013 the people of Jammu and Kashmir, India, and Pakistan In fact, this take of the author is in sync with the stand of the Hurriyat Conference. He also suggests to Union of India to see reason and realize that it had gone wrong in Constitutional relations with Jammu and Kashmir.\u2019<\/h5>\n
On the social media, some friends \u00a0discarded the book as trash. True, it is not as revealing a book\u00a0 as\u00a0 expected from a man who has been in the thick of New Delhi\u2019s politics as a Union Minister and Member of Parliament for four decades and could have the opportunity of gaining access to classified archives in the Nehru Museum and National Archives, that is generally denied to scholars from Kashmir.\u00a0 Nevertheless, \u00a0it cannot be dismissed as unworthy of reading. For more than one reason, the book is another important addition to the bibliography of Kashmir. The author has culled out information from extant works on Kashmir and pieced them together in lucid prose to tell the story of Kashmir\u2019s glorious and poignant past. From, chapter 28, titled the \u2018Fights Against the\u00a0 Dogra Aristocracy\u2019 to chapter 33, \u2018the Way Forward\u2019 \u00a0the author leaves a lot to be contested and disputed. His chapter on the migration of Kashmir has an earned an appreciation for its candidness has earned appreciation from the readers. He has told facts that many authors shied away from.\u00a0 Nonetheless, in more than one chapter in building an argument, he has depended on works of one or two authors. For instance, in chapter 29\u00a0 he quotes Ajit\u00a0 Bhattacharjea, so profusely that\u00a0 it looks as if one was reading Ajit\u2019s \u00a0book \u2018Kashmir: The Wounded Valley\u2019 published in 1994. In the same chapter, he extols Sheikh Abdullah on the basis of Abdullah\u2019s take on his role in the UNSC without going through the works of other members of the delegation, who had denounced him as a flamboyant and\u00a0 disaster, who had earned the title of \u2018quisling\u2019 on the floor of the Security Council.<\/h5>\n
It seems that the author has purposely avoided writing on the controversies surrounding the \u201cInstrument of Accession\u201d- fact, and date of which has been questioned by many important historians. Notwithstanding, the constraints of the politician of his tribe, the chapter, \u2018Armed Militancy And Its Aftermath\u2019 comparatively is a good \u00a0reading. In this chapter, he very subtly makes a case for removing of \u00a0the AFSPA, that he calls a draconian law.<\/h5>\n
Despite, raising many controversial points that could fail on the litmus test of history, the author very rightly in the last chapter writes that the revocation of article 35-A is a threat to Kashmir\u2019s very existence, which Kashmiri can never accept, in any circumstances.<\/h5>\n
The book is another addition to the Kashmir narrative.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Published in Greater Kashmir on 09-07-2018<\/p>\n

zahidgm@greaterkashmir.com<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 
\nPunchline
\nThe \u201cOthers\u201d Narrative
\nZ.G. Muhammad<\/p>\n

 
\n 
\nSome twelve years back, Farooq Abdullah, senior scion of the Abdullah family told me \u00a0\u00a0he was writing a book that will tell many inside stories, never told before. The information as a student of contemporary Kashmir politics had come to me as good tidings. My belief has been that\u00a0 the stories of politicians, who are on the other side of the fence or are\u00a0 tethered to the \u2018hegemonic politics\u2019 in the state, in \u00a0a situation like \u00a0\u00a0ours not only help in deconstructing the \u201cdominant discourse\u201d\u00a0 but \u00a0also work as catalysts for strengthening\u00a0 the popular resistance narrative.
\n\u00a0In the summer of 2006, I had visited Dr. Abdullah for a detailed interview, for one the books, of triology, I am engaged in writing for quite a time. \u00a0It was one of the longish interviews, mostly on the record and some off the record. His takes both on the record and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3674","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\/3674"}],"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=3674"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3681,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions\/3681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}