Yes. Link is provided
dmaodar On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 4:22 PM, Afthab Ellath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Damodar, it was a multi-paged article and you missed part of it... > > > ===== > > For years the overtly Islamic and violent aspect of the insurgency in the > Valley kept many secular Indian liberals from visibly sympathising with the > plight of Kashmiri Muslims: if only the Kashmiris, I often heard, had > organised a Gandhian-style political campaign.In recent weeks the Kashmiris > have repeatedly staged massive non-violent protests, provoking such > establishment figures as Vir Sanghvi and Swaminathan A. Aiyar into an > exasperated reckoning of Kashmir's cost to India. But Arundhati Roy's frank > analysis of the collapse of Indian legitimacy in the Valley is still rare > enough to profoundly unsettle many liberal assumptions. > > The commonest secularist response consists of fierce denial and bluster. > Kanti Bajpai avers that since the Indian state has not committed genocide in > Kashmir, the Kashmiri demand for freedom is groundless—surely by this > legalistic logic Gandhi and Nehru had no right to ask the British to quit > India? G. Parthasarathy at least has the hawkish virtue of clarity when he > implores India to follow Russia's example in Chechnya and strike Kashmir > with an 'iron fist'. > > What's much more disturbing, however, is when Harish Khare of *The > Hindu*accuses separatists and the isi of stirring up trouble in the Valley and > urges the government to use force to underscore "New Delhi's will and > capacity to stay put in Kashmir". Ritually denouncing the BJP, Khare also > exhorts us to a "renewed fundamentalist faith in the idea of secular India". > > > Indeed, more than one liberal commentator reacting to the mass upsurge in > Kashmir piously invoked the 'idea of India'. This solemn liturgy makes it > seem that the 'idea of India', like the 'American dream', is divinely > ordained to bring happiness to anyone who subscribes to it, as though > electoral democracy in a poor, multicultural country isn't an ongoing > experiment, one of the most utopian and arduous in modern history, and as > such subject to rigorous scrutiny and pragmatic revision—an experiment that > is, harsh though this may sound, prone to periodic malfunction, even > failure. > > The Indian liberal's perennial defensiveness on the question of Indian > Muslims has trapped him into a rigid fealty to the 'idea of India'—or what > is really an exaggerated faith in the Indian state's ability to maintain > India's secular identity in Kashmir. It is true that the original conception > of the Indian state contained many redemptive notions of cultural plurality, > and social and economic justice. But whatever prelapsarian integrity the > Indian state under Nehru may have had (Kashmiris have their own views on > this), it now appears to have been deeply compromised; and *if our > secularist narcissism managed to survive two state-supported pogroms in 1984 > and 2002, one of them by an avowedly secular political party, it is likely > to be shattered by the enthronement of Narendra Modi as India's prime > minister. * > > During two decades of vicious anti-Muslim campaigns and terrorist > retaliation, the Sangh parivar has not only given Indian nationalism a hard > majoritarian cast; it has also infected India's state and civil society with > its illiberalism. Certainly, Kashmiri Muslims, who feel assaulted with an > iron fist by both Hindutva-wadis and secularists, cannot be blamed for > failing to spot the fine distinctions between the idea of India and the idea > of Akhand Bharat. > > The Kashmiris are hardly alone in failing to detect wisdom and generosity > in a state that detains and tortures Muslims on the flimsiest of charges, > ignores the killing of Christians, organises mercenary armies against > tribals and Maoists, and helps big businessmen to fleece small farmers and > uproot the landless. > > Secular fundamentalists may continue to venerate the state, hoping, against > all available evidence, that it would preserve the idea of secular India in > Kashmir (and the Northeast, another region where faith in the idea of India > needs to be propped up by the Indian state's brutality). But in their > revulsion from the inevitably 'communal' politics of Kashmiri Muslims they > will find themselves standing with the most virulent Islamophobes among > Hindu fundamentalists. > > This proximity can't be written off as an unfortunate accident of history. > *Fundamentalism in the cause of secular ideals has proved even more > noxious than its religious counterpart, as the 20th century's extraordinary > ideological violence reminds us.* *The secular fundamentalists, who are > determined to nail their cherished 'idea of India' into Kashmiri hearts and > minds, seem to forget the many political leaders and intellectuals who > rationalised totalitarian brutality and imperialist wars by pointing to the > garishly virtuous nature of their secular ideologies (nation-building, > economic prosperity, freedom, democracy). The spectacle of American liberal > intellectuals cheerleading the war for 'human rights' in Iraq has more > recently underscored the grotesque irony of what Albert Camus called > 'massacres justified by philanthropy'. * > > Camus knew that a secular ideology of progress, which tries to validate > state violence by positing noble-sounding but purely abstract ends, had > replaced traditional religion in the world-conquering nations of the West, > one which, as he wrote, 'can be used for anything, even for transforming > murderers into judges'. > > Having arrived late in the history of the nation-state, we are probably > fated to replicate some of the West's ideology-fuelled disasters. The > fundamentalist cult of the 'idea of India' has already demonstrated its > murderous potential in Kashmir. Is it too late to unshackle the 'idea of > India' from a repressive Indian state and its callous elite? This is > certainly necessary—for the sake of democracy and pluralism in India as well > as in Kashmir. Such revisions in the political and moral imagining of > nations are never easy. But until they are made, the 'idea of India' will > increasingly risk becoming yet another one of recent history's many > beautiful abstractions stained with blood. > > ===== > Regards > Afthab Ellath > > > > On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 2:15 PM, damodar prasad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > >> Dear Aftab, >> >> Did you see this outlook article by Pankaj Mishra *India: A Massacre >> Justified By Philanthropy? >> >> http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081006&fname=Cover+Story&sid=3 >> >> since it is "pankaj mishra" , his credentials will ever be questioned?!!! >> we should be grateful to people like Pankaj Mishra. >> >> * >> >> For decades now, Kashmir has hosted a bloody stalemate, in which a >> powerful nation-state repeatedly tries, and fails, to impose its will on a >> small unyielding population. The Indian state uses political means >> (elections, special privileges) and financial inducements as well as >> military force to convince Kashmiris that they should not dream of >> self-determination. Still, Kashmiri defiance and harsh Indian retaliation >> exact a terrible human toll: tens of thousands killed, innumerable many >> disabled, tortured, orphaned and widowed. There is hardly a family in the >> Valley left untouched by the biggest military occupation in the world. >> >> People in mass democracies are usually slow to recognise the nature of the >> undeclared wars conducted by their representatives. But by the late 1960s >> there was hardly a public figure in the United States—from J.K. Galbraith to >> Philip Roth—who did not feel compelled to build up a chorus of denunciation >> against their country's deeply dishonourable involvement in Indochina. In >> comparison, the deaths, in less than two decades, of nearly 80,000 people in >> Kashmir have barely registered in the Indian liberal conscience. >> >> "I cannot imagine," Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote last month, "what it is to >> live like under half a million troops." Until very recently, such honest >> confessions of a moral impasse were rare not only in an increasingly >> corporatised media, which is as defiantly ignorant as it is nationalistic, >> but also among the people most likely to initiate national introspection on >> Kashmir—the impressively numerous writers and intellectuals who by training >> and temperament are secular and liberal. >> >> A few Indian commentators did deplore, consistently and eloquently, >> India's record of rigged elections and atrocity in the Valley, even if they >> spoke mainly in terms of defusing rather than heeding Kashmiri aspirations. >> But many more tended to become nervous at the mention of disaffection in the >> Kashmir Valley. "I am not taking up that thorny question here," Amartya Sen >> writes in a footnote devoted to Kashmir in *The Argumentative Indian*. In >> the more resonant context of a book titled *Identity and Violence*, Sen >> yet again relegates the subject to a footnote. >> >> It is not easy for me to point to these acts of omission. Most Indian >> liberals have fought with admirable courage the good and necessary war to >> prevent Hindutva from damaging India's multicultural ethos, and their >> commitment to justice for the poor and defenceless in Indian society cannot >> be faulted. They are right to suspect Pakistan of malicious intent in the >> Valley, and to fear that the four million Kashmiri Muslims demanding azadi >> expose 150 million Indian Muslims even further to the BJP-VHP's bigotry. >> >> But it makes progressively less sense why many Indian liberals should not >> make nuanced distinctions between Kashmiri and Indian Muslims; why they >> should help the fanatics of Hindutva hold Indian Muslims hostage by refusing >> to publicly uphold Kashmiri rights to a life of dignity. >> >> A commonplace secular-nationalist argument is that Kashmiri Muslims, if >> given the slightest concessions by India, would go radically Islamist or >> embrace Pakistan, emboldening separatists in the Northeast. But it has never >> been clear that radical Islam has a sustainable appeal in Kashmir. The >> Kashmiri feeling for Pakistan, too, is highly capricious, almost entirely >> fuelled by hatred of the Indian military occupation. >> For years the overtly Islamic and violent aspect of the insurgency in the >> Valley kept many secular Indian liberals from visibly sympathising with the >> plight of Kashmiri Muslims: if only the Kashmiris, I often heard, had >> organised a Gandhian-style political campaign. >> >> PS: I did not copy the image along with the text. its very evocative :-) >> See how "asoka sthabam" is transformed!!- damodr prasad >> >> >> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
