Author: Tarun Vijay
Publication: Organiser
Date: April 24, 2005
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=75&page=13
The only thing that comes closer
to a Hindu in General Pervez Musharraf's India visit is his jiyarat (pilgrimage)
to Ajmer to pay obeisance at Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti's dargah. Radical
Islam prohibits such expressions of faith which Maulana Maududi said are
a la Hindus. This is a Hindu tradition to pray at samadhis, which has been
followed by Muslims of the subcontinent, nowhere else. Otherwise, the General
seems to be having his way-to negotiate Kashmir and put the so-called cricket
visit on the backburner. Dr Manmohan Singh has tried his best to play it
cool and to give his visit a profile it deserves, but the adamant General
has promised to raise Kashmir even at the Kotla. That's the way he has
been so far. Pappi-jhappi now and the 'core issue' next moment.
He allowed the LoC melt under a
puzzling bus service which saw Indian leaders euphoric but the General's
side showed a marked aloofness, no Shaukat Aziz, and the so-called 'prime
minister' of PoK too was sent willy-nilly without any marriage-like ceremonials,
so visible on our side.
Now his cricket diplomacy has put
India in a difficult diplomatic situation. We may have to down-play our
own core issues and talk Kashmir as a first priority, which we have always
been resisting with an oft-repeated sentence like, 'Let us get closer on
economic, social, cultural, media issues, etc. and controversial issues
can be taken care of later'. No way now. We saw a kiss-and-embrace period
with terrorist attacks and bomb blasts providing the background music continuously
and showed the General expressing his desire to see the cricket match.
That was the day, people should not forget, when South Block showed a little
inconvenience, which was on the front pages all over and a 'serious' issue
of prime time discussions on TV channels. Everyone seems to be with the
General. Let him come, what's the problem, after all he is coming to see
an India-Pakistan match; this will further strengthen our love affair,
you know! The astute Defence specialists would wink with a smile showing
a great diplomatic move on their eyebrows.
Taking a cue, the MEA announced
its welcome, sent a formal invite and stated that this is going to be purely
a cricket-centric visit with no other issues involved. Finally, it turned
out that the General is visiting for more serious matters like Kashmir
and shall visit the Kotla grounds for some 45 minutes. That's really cute
diplomacy, which has made the Indian Prime Minister to follow the General's
line, and reports are that even Vajpayee and Advani may show up at Kotla.
What else could he have wished for? We are looking haplessly at a Hurriyat
with no credibility, giving the General more importance than our own PM
and yet, we must smile at the traitors for the sake of an illusory peace.
While the West feels obliged to
keep the General in Islamabad happy and safe for geo-political reasons,
it can't ignore the Indian media going overboard to please the General
for a more noble cause-peace. And it's damn serious about it. Nothing that,
it feels, can hamper the peace process or even remotely displease the dear,
neighbouring, 'peaceful' Army Junta is published.
And his visits to Delhi get unprecedented
media coverage. His mohalla, the birth certificate, his favourite colours,
his hairstyle, the way he lifts his left hand to keep his hair back, his
mother's visit to the old home, emotions and nostalgia envelope the sweetness
with a Kashmir stamp laced with Hurriyat and 'the brave struggles of Kashmiri
people'. Everything else chalega, but Kashmir remains a core issue as ever
and always. To sell this style with flying colours and still to have Delhi
mandarins come to his defence saying 'after all he heads a country like
Pakistan, so something has to be told for-home-consumption-the Taliban-like
people you know, but he is different and genuine when he talks to us!!'
That's Delhi speaking, you know! Isn't it a great success?
Major achievements for the 'General
success' are distancing Kashmir from the known Indian position that it's
an integral part of India, disconnecting Hindus from Kashmir and depriving
them of a role in any negotiations and finally getting admired for what
he is-here and also inside Capitol Hill. Having decimated the Hindu population
from the Valley and putting Hindus in a junkbox in his own country, the
General can now talk of sweet-honeyed relations with the neighbour.
The relations have become so closed
during UPA that just a few weeks before in Islamabad, Natwar Singh's Jinnah
cap fit him so snugly that one couldn't recognise who was the Indian amongst
the two Foreign Ministers shaking hands in Islamabad. That's the spirit
of togetherness indeed and we must not spoil the party, raising doubts
either regarding the security or moral. In spite of the continuous bomb
blasts and avalanches, the mood is depicted by seculars as upbeat in the
Valley and rarely have we seen such celebrations and prayers in the Muslim
shrines, celebrating a bus to Muzaffarabad.
And surely, when some pandits of
suspicion said the bus will bring Jehadis and all the unwanted people freely
now, a friend sniped back, "Are there still any left?" Those who want to
come for bomb explosions and other-related Jehadi holy rituals like killing
innocents at the DC office last week, who never wait for the sarkari buses
and would rather feel embarrassed taking a legitimate route simply for
the fear of losing excitement they get in negotiating rugged, snow-bound
passages through deep forests, the way Gulzar depicted so romantically
in Machis. In any case, lesser the items on Pakistan's list to create turmoil,
greater the chances of peace in the region. Even eliminating the need for
a passport is a brotherly gesture we may repeat with China sometime later,
which has consistently refused visa to people from Arunachal, saying 'you
are our own, why need a passport for home coming'?
In the backdrop of this 'Basant',
it remains intriguing why the aboriginal inhabitants of Kashmir, the Hindus,
have been totally forgotten. Nowhere in the negotiations on Kashmir, or
the efforts to improve relations with a neighbour who was till the other
day a base and a bloody sponsorer of barbaric Jehadis, it's relevant to
remember the Hindus, whose ancestors gave the Valley a name-Kashmir-and
who have been forced to lead a miserable life in their own motherland as
refugees since last 20 years. Those who reported distribution of sweets
and jubilations among the Valley Muslims didn't find it useful to speak
to any Kashmiri Hindu about his reaction to such a 'great' achievement
for the Valley, a place that belongs to him as much as to the sweet distributors.
Though, for the sake of peace and amity the media, the human rightists,
the candle-wallahs, and even the professional demonstrators for anything
related with communal combat of the Left hue have kept a studied silence
on Pakistan's human rights record and not even the painful memories of
the 1948 assault through Mirpur and Muzaffarabad on 'our' Kashmir are mentioned
in passing. 'We all have become peace messengers and a monolith for encouraging
good times between the neighbours', quipped a journo. Otherwise, in other
situations, these very worthies act as if they don't belong to even a concept
of a nation and report the 'truth' going beyond the lines of a 'despicable'
sense of 'national interest'. 'We are not what CNN is to the US interests'-that's
what a proud mediaperson would love to claim. But here for peace, forgetting
anything that may create ill-feelings in the hearts of Valley Muslims have
to be kept in mind. So, while a bus between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad,
with some semblance of checks and control like a permit is an in thing,
Hindu refugees in Jammu's tent colonies should wait for a bus back home.
That bus service does not provide any glamour of 'peace' the way Muzaffarabad
route radiates with a different charm, excitement and headlines that can
be forwarded globally for the country's image building.
Even while Kashmiri Hindus try to
find a space in national newspapers, their books also get scant notice.
Recently Panun Kashmir brought out a significant documentation on Kashmiri
Pandits in exile. It is the first of its kind-a valuable contribution to
the understanding of their status, presenting the struggle of Kashmiri
Hindus in a straight-forward manner without any emotionalism and rhetoric,
including their memorandums to National Human Rights Commission, a comprehensive
list of the killed Pandits and organised massacres, demographic changes
in the Valley, properties dispossessed and areawise details of the desecrated
Hindu shrines. They have yet to see a proper review of this documentation
in any mainline newspaper.
Nothing hurts more than a discriminatory
attitude, that too in the name of secularism. Do everything to bring peace
and even the refugee Hindus know that a cool, peaceful Valley means a warmer
place to ensure their return. So where is the need to make them feel isolated
or unwanted? Why this government should make Kashmiri Hindus' issue entirely
a forgotten matter? Is that a good secular move? The bus to Muzaffarabad
should not become a salt to rub on the Kashmiri refugees' wounds. While
Kashmir Assembly still has seats reserved for those living in PoK and maintains
their properties in the Valley, Kashmiri Hindus cast votes in special booths
in Delhi and Jammu and are forced to sell their properties in the Valley
for a pittance. The peacemakers should remember: the more you share happiness,
the more you get return smiles. And the more you rub salt....
(The author is Editor of Panchjanya
weekly and can be contacted at tarunvijay@vsnl.com)
