I just read the review Baruah. Can't wait to see it. Any idea how I can get in touch with Kak? I obtained his video on Arunachal years ago, after you wrote about it in assamnet.
m At 4:44 PM -0400 10/5/07, Sanjib Baruah wrote: >There is a provocative new documentary film on Kashmir. The following >review in Outlook magazine may be of interest to Assamnet. > >http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20071004&fname=ananya&sid=1&pn=1 > >October 12 2007. > >Azadi: Theirs And Ours > >By the logic of the Indian state, India is free and Kashmir is a part of >India, ergo, Kashmir too, must be free. But Sanjay Kaks documentary >provides visual attestation for something diametrically opposed to this >logic: the reality of occupation. > >Sanjay Kaks new documentary Jashn-e-Azadi ("How we celebrate freedom") is >aimed primarily at an Indian audience. This two-part film, 138 min long, >explores what Kak calls the "sentiment", namely "azadi" (literally >"freedom") driving the conflict in the India controlled part of Kashmir >for the past 18 years. This sentiment is inchoate: it does not have a >unified movement, a symbol, a flag, a map, a slogan, a leader or any one >party associated with it. Sometimes it means full territorial >independence, and sometimes it means other things. Yet it is real, with a >reality that neither outright repression nor fitful persuasion from India >has managed to dissipate for almost two decades. Howsoever unclear its >political shape, Kashmiris know the emotional charge of azadi, its ability >to keep alive in every Kashmiri heart a sense of struggle, of dissent, of >hope. It is for Indians who do not know about this sentiment, or do not >know how to react to it, that Kak has made his difficult, powerful film. >And it is with Indian audiences that Kak has already had, and is likely to >continue having, the most heated debate. > >Between 1989 and 2007, nearly 100,000 people--soldiers and civilians, >armed militants and unarmed citizens, Kashmiris and non-Kashmiris--lost >their lives to the violence in Kashmir. 700,000 Indian military and >paramilitary troops are stationed there, the largest such armed presence >in what is supposedly peace time, anywhere in the world. Both residents of >and visitors to Kashmir in recent years already know what Kaks film brings >home to the viewer: how thoroughly militarized the Valley is, >criss-crossed by barbed wire, littered with bunkers and sand-bags, dotted >with men in uniform carrying guns, its roads bearing an unending stream of >armoured vehicles up and down a landscape that used to be called, echoing >the words of the Mughal Emperor Jehangir, Paradise on earth. Other places >so mangled by a security apparatus as to make it impossible for life to >proceed normally immediately come to mind: occupied Palestine, occupied >Iraq. > >Locals, especially young men, must produce identification at all the >check-posts that punctuate the land, or during sudden and frequent >operations described by the dreaded words "crackdown" and "cordon and >search". Kaks camera shows us that even the most ordinary attempt to cross >the city of Srinagar, or travel from one village to another is fraught >with these security checks, as though the entire Valley were a gigantic >airport terminal and every man were a threat to every other. As soldiers >insultingly frisk folks for walking about in their own places, the >expressions in their eyes--anger, fear, resignation, frustration, >irritation, or just plain embarrassment--say it all. In one scene men are >lined up, and some of them get their clothes pulled and their faces >slapped while they are being searched. Somewhere beneath all these daily >humiliations burns the unnamed sentiment: azadi. > >One reason that there is no Indian tolerance for this word in the context >of Kashmir is that the desire for "freedom" immediately implies that its >opposite is the case: Kashmir is not free. By the logic of the Indian >state, India is free and Kashmir is a part of India, ergo, Kashmir too, >must be free. But Kaks images provide visual attestation for something >diametrically opposed to this logic: the reality of occupation. Kashmir is >occupied by Indian troops, somewhat like Palestine is by Israeli troops, >and Iraq is by American and coalition troops. But wait, objects the Indian >viewer. >Palestinians are Muslims and Israelis are Jews; Iraqis are Iraqis and >Americans are Americans--how are their dynamics comparable to the >situation in Kashmir? Indians and Kashmiris are all Indian; Muslims and >non-Muslims in Kashmir (or anywhere in India) are all Indian. Neither the >criterion of nationality nor the criterion of religion is applicable to >explain what it is that puts Indian troops and Kashmiri citizens on either >side of a line of hostility. How can we speak of an "occupation" when >there are no enemies, no foreigners and no outsiders in the picture at >all? And if occupation makes no sense, then how can azadi make any sense? > >Kak explained to an audience at a recent screening of his film in Boston >(23/09) that he could only begin to approach the subject of his film, >azadi, after he had made it past three barriers to understanding that >stand in the way of an Indian mind trying to grasp what is going on in >Kashmir. The first of these is secularism. Since India is a secular >country, most Indians do not even begin to see how unrest in any part of >the country could be explained using religion--that too what is, in the >larger picture, a minority religion--as a valid ground for the political >self-definition and self-determination of a community. The Valley of >Kashmir is 95% Muslim. Does this mean that Kashmiris get to have their own >nation? For most Indians, the answer is simply: No. Kashmiri Muslims are >no more entitled to a separate nation than were the Sikhs who supported >the idea of Khalistan in the 1980s. Such claims replay, for Indians, the >worst memories of Partition in 1947, and bring back the ghost of Jinnahs >two-nation theory to haunt Indias secular polity and to threaten it from >within. >The second barrier to understanding, related to the struggle over >secularism, is the flight of the Pandits, Kashmirs erstwhile 4% Hindu >minority community, following violent incidents in 1990. 160,000 Pandits >fled the Valley in that years exodus, leaving behind homes, lands and jobs >they have yet to recover. Today the Pandits live, if not in Indian and >foreign cities, then in refugee settlements that have become >semi-permanent, most notably in Jammu and Delhi. For Indians, even if they >do little or nothing to rehabilitate Pandits into the Indian mainstream, >the persecution of the Pandits at the hands of their fellow-Kashmiris, >following the fault-lines of religious difference and the >minority-majority divide, is a deeply alienating feature of Kashmirs >conflict. Kashmirs Muslim leadership has consistently expressed regret for >what happened to the Pandits in the first phase of the struggle for azadi, >but it has not, on the other hand, made any serious effort to bring back >the exiled Hindus either. In failing to ensure the safety of the Pandits, >Kashmir has lost a vital connection with the Indian state--and, >potentially, a source of legitimacy for its claim to an exceptional status >as a sovereign entity. > >The third major obstruction to India taking a sympathetic view of Kashmir >is the problem of trans-national jihad. Throughout the 1990s, Kashmirs >indigenous movements for azadi have received varying degrees of support, >in the form of funds, arms, fighting men, and ideological solidarity, not >only from the government of Pakistan, but also from Islamist forces all >across Central Asia and the Middle East. The reality of Pakistani support, >and the presence of foreign fighters, from an Indian perspective, damages >the claim for azadi beyond repair. > >Kashmiri exceptionalism in fact has an old history. >Yet even if we do not want to go as far back as pre-modern and colonial >times, then at the very least right from 1947, Kashmir has never really >broken away completely like the parts of British India that became >Pakistan, nor has it assimilated properly, like the other elements that >formed the Indian republic. The status of Kashmir has always been >uncertain, in free India. But with the involvement of pan-Asian or global >Islamist players, starting with Pakistan but by no means limited to it, >the past gives way to the present. >India no longer deals with Kashmir as though it were still the place that >was ruled by a Hindu king until 1947 and never fully came on board the >Indian nation in the subsequent 50 years. It now looks upon Kashmir as the >Indian end of the burning swath of Islamist insurgency that engulfs most >of the region. In quelling azadi the Indian state sees itself as engaged >in putting out the much larger fires of jihad that have breached the walls >of the nation and entered into its most inflammable--because >Muslim-majority--section. >Secularism, the Pandits and jihad are all very real impediments to India >actually being able to see what is equally real, namely, the Kashmiri >longing for azadi. Kak explained to his viewers that to be able to portray >azadi from the inside, he had to get through and past these barriers, to >the place where Kashmiris inhabit their peculiar and tragic combination of >resistance and vulnerability, their dream of a separate identity and their >confrontation with an overwhelmingly powerful adversary. Their misery is >palpable but they have yet to find a politics adequate to transform >dissatisradise. Here the sadhus in saffron robes arrive, on their way to >the holy shrine at Amarnath, on their annual pilgrimage, invoking, in the >same breath, the Hindu god Shiva and the Indian flag, the "tiranga" >("tri-colour"). You cannot take away what is ours, say these people. Ah, >but you cannot keep what was never yours, either. India for Indians; >Kashmir for Kashmiris: this is the fugitive logic that the filmmaker is >seeking to make explicit. > >Kak has set himself a nearly impossible task. He must take Indians with >him, on his difficult journey, past their prejudices, past their >suspicions, past their very real fears, into the nightmarish world of >Kashmiri citizens, torn apart between the militants and the military, >stuck with the after-effects of bombings, mine-blasts, crackdowns, >arrests, encounter killings and disappearances that have gone on for >nearly two decades without pause. >I became interested in Kashmir at the same time, for the same reason, that >Kak began his investigations: the trial of S.A.R. Geelani, accused and >later acquitted in the December 13, 2001 Parliament Attack case. In 2005 I >wrote a couple of articles about Geelani, a Kashmiri professor of Arabic >and Persian Literature at Delhi University, for this and other Indian >publications. These earned me denouncements as anti-national, self-hating, >anti-Hindu, pro- Pakistani, crypto-Muslim, etc. One letter to the editor >even called me a terrorist! Kak has already had a taste of this reaction >since the release of Jashn-e-Azadi in March, and must expect more of it to >be coming his way in the next few months, as his film is shown widely in >India and abroad. In fact, he is sure to get more flak that I ever got, >given he is a Kashmiri Pandit. >Aggressively Hindu nationalist, right-wing Pandit groups find Kaks empathy >for Kashmiri Muslim positions infuriating, a "betrayal" that enrages them >much more than that of a merely (apparently) >Hindu--non-Pandit--sympathizer like myself. But like Israeli refuseniks, >there is reason to believe that now India too has its own nay-sayers, who >cannot condone the presence of the Indian armed forces in Kashmir or the >continued refusal of the Indian state to engage with Kashmiris on the >question of azadi. Kak himself makes the comparison to Palestine by >calling the azadi movement of the early 90s "Kashmirs Intifada". >What allows someone like me--born, raised and educated in India, secular, >committed to the longevity and flourishing of the Indian nation in every >sense--to get, as it were, the meaning, the reality, and the validity, of >Kashmirs agonized search for azadi? Why do I not want my army to take or >keep Kashmir by force, or my fellow-citizens to enjoy their annual >vacations as unthinking, insensitive tourists, winter or summer? Why do >abandoned Pandit homesteads affect me as much as charred Muslim houses, >and why do I think that neither will be rebuilt and re-inhabited, nor will >they be full of life as they once were, unless first and foremost, the >military bunkers are taken down? > >The answer comes from my own history, the history of India. > >If ever there was a people who ought to know what azadi is, and to value >it, it is Indians. 60 years ago India attained its own azadi, long sought, >hard fought, and bought at the price of a terrible, irreparable Partition. >My parents were born in pre-Independence India, and to them and those of >their generation, it is possible to recall a time before azadi. >Kaks film incorporates video footage from the early 1990s, taken from >sources he either cannot or will not reveal. In those images of Kashmiris >protesting en masse on the streets of Srinagar, funeral processions of >popular leaders, women lamenting the dead as martyrs in the path of azadi, >terrorist training camps, the statements of torture victims about to >breathe their last and BSF operations ending in the surrender of >militants, the seething passions of nationalism come right at you from the >screen, leaping from their context in Kashmir and connecting back to the >mass movements of Indias long struggle against British colonialism, from >1857 to 1947. No Indian viewer, in those moments of collective and >euphoric protest against oppression, could fail to be moved, or to be >reminded of how it was that we came to have something close to every >Indian heart: our political freedom, our status as an independent nation, >in charge of our own destiny. The irony is that azadi is not something we >do not and cannot ever understand, but that it is something we know all >about, intimately, from our own history. What frightens us is not the >alien nature of the sentiment in every Kashmiri breast: what frightens is >its familiarity, its echo of our own desire for nationhood that found its >voice, albeit after great bloodshed, six decades ago. > >The British and French invented modern democracy at home, but colonized >the rest of the world. The Jews suffered the Holocaust, but Israel >brutalizes Palestine. India blazed the way for the decolonization of >dozens of Asian and African countries, and established itself as the >worlds largest democracy, yet it turns away from Kashmir and its quest for >freedom, and worse, goes all out to crush the will of the Kashmiri people. >Indians with a conscience--and perhaps Kaks film will help sensitize and >educate many more, especially the young--ought not stand for this >desecration of the very ground upon which our nationality rests. After >all, we learnt two words together--"azadi" and "swaraj", freedom and >self-rule--and on these foundations was our nation built. > >We are a people who barely two generations ago not only fought for our own >freedom--our leaders, Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, and so many others, taught >the whole of the colonized world how to speak the language of self-respect >and sovereignty. We of all people should strive for a time when it will >become possible for a Kashmiri to offer a visitor a cup of tea without >rancour or irony, as a simple uncomplicated expression of the hospitality >that comes naturally to those who belong to this culture. We should join >the Kashmiris in their search for a city animated by commerce and >conversation, not haunted by the ghosts of the dead and the fled. We >should support them, whether they be Muslims or Hindus, in turning their >grief, so visible in Kaks courageous work of witnessing, into a genuine >"jashn", a celebration, of a freedom that has been too long in the coming. >Anything less would make us lesser Indians. > > >________________________ > > > >Ananya Vajpeyi is a Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New >Delhi (2005-2008) > > > >_______________________________________________ >assam mailing list >assam@assamnet.org >http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org _______________________________________________ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
