26/01/11 – Time to disturb the sleep of our generation*

Congress government is slowly trying to sell Kashmir to Pakistan. Congi fellas, stop here. Enough. Do not make the people come to streets.

My dear id*** prime minister,
The need of the hour is not stealthy preparation of a plan to sell Kashmir to Pakistan. The need of the hour is to break down the Pakistan into parts.

http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1471&Itemid=1

Done and done . Facebook and blog .

@Shantanu,
For whatever reason I could not download the image, got a 404 error. Then finally saved the image from this page.

For a moment, lets agree with those who say that flag hoisting at lal chowk is a political gimmick and doesn’t serve any purpose. Now can they answer me what purpose is served by flag hoisting at Red fort on republic day? What purpose does flag hoisting at all state capitals serve?

@ Shantanu,

No one here disagrees with the position that there should not be any obstruction to hoisting national flag. If that is what BJP had to do it could have done the same at their party office in J&K an dwhy choose Lal Chowk and what was the need to name the yatra of BJP politicians from as “Ekta Yatra”?? Can you explain me the reason.

Neither has the government of India or Omar Abudulla government in J&K have problems if BJP would have done so routinely as part of Republic day celebrations!

Dont link the handling of seperatists to hoisting of national flag directly – In normal circumstances this would not have distrubed the peace of the fragile region of India. Had the BJP’s youth morcha not given this rally a political tenour, things would haev been as normal.

Coming to fragile peach in Kashmir, it is important govt of India and the larger society of India accept the fact whether they like or not that Kashmir as a region has been disputed for a long time (it is a differnet story if the dispute has been forced upon by neighbours or if the freedom movement is more native).

There is no question of appeasement? Please dont paint a skewed picture to say that there is no problem in Kashmir region? If there was a law and order problem in the region due to the potential provocation that BJP leaders could have made – would BJP take full responsibility for unrest. It is in this context the government of J&K advised Union Govt and in Chdambaram’s opinion BJP was advised against the yatra not about the flag hoisting!

Omar Abdulla as the political head of the state would in anycase unfurl the national flag along with the Lt. Governor of the state as part of the Republic day celebrations – and this has been happening and will continue to happen as part of the tradition. So there was no need for Omar to offer a olive branch to BJP.

It is sad that learned, educated and most articulate opinion makers such as you and others who regularly read your blog have and are painting a nationalistic picture for purely political mechanisations of BJP. If it was all about supporting BJP – then please do so openly rather than backing their political mechanisations through your blog which carriers more signifiance and credibility to bring a new polity.

Some food for thought, why has Kashmir been fragile for the last 60odd yrs inspite of successive Indian governments spending money to develop the region and bring in developments. It is time that there needs to be a re-think and out of box solution on Kashmir and for that to happen, in my opinion it is important to term Kashmir as disputed and then think internally to come up with methods of wining the hearts of Kashsmiri people as opposed to forcing things upon them.
It would be great if you can initiate a new blog just to discuss potential solutions that we can propose to the Government!

@Ashwin,

“No one here disagrees with the position that there should not be any obstruction to hoisting national flag. If that is what BJP had to do it could have done the same at their party office in J&K an dwhy choose Lal Chowk and what was the need to name the yatra of BJP politicians from as “Ekta Yatra”?? Can you explain me the reason.”

hope you know that a pakistan flag had been unfurled there at Lalchowk while Indian flag was stepped upon intentionally by those who were there when Pak Flag was unfurled there, in the full glare of Indian media and police. The govt only concerned with peace, but not the sovereignty? So, the govt does not care for that.. and so one of the national party want to unfurl the national flag there. ofcourse it is to get political mileage. no one is opposing it. They are trying to show up that they can take care of these issues and want people to vote them.

And about ‘fragile’ peace in kashmir.. the protesting, stone pelting, peace disturbing kashmiris want peace of their own way.. to throw Indian govt out and have independence(aka aligning with pakistan. We could not provide such peace to them. It is part of India and our national symbols must be used there..not the flags of enemies. If the use of symbols enrages those peace disturbing protestors, then it’s time for govt to disturb their peace. the govt should not work according to their terms, thats shame.

@ashwin
why beat around the bush with terms like kashmir dispute.?

take the bull by the horn and define it.

what you say as dispute is nothing but unease in the minds of muslim kashmiris of having to live under a hindu dispensation.it is a different matter that the administrators of this “hindu dispensation”have been more muslim and any thing but hindu all these 60 years, crawling before any muslim when asked to bend.so even a nominally “hindu” boss is not acceptable to them even if the boss is actually behaving like a servant.

the only “out of the box” solution that can satisfy the other “disputing parties” is handing over of this region to them and waiting for them to “dispute” another or annexe another.

all these years under their “self rule” they have been making the life of non muslims in the state hellish.even this is not satisfactory for them as they want the “nizam-e-mustafa”.

now go ahead and find an “out of the box” solution for these gems of humanity.

@Ashwin,
“Coming to fragile peach in Kashmir, it is important govt of India and the larger society of India accept the fact whether they like or not that Kashmir as a region has been disputed for a long time (it is a differnet story if the dispute has been forced upon by neighbours or if the freedom movement is more native).”

Who are not agreeing here that kashmir is disputed. thats why most of people asserting the use of brutal force to bring peace.But our great central government cutting down 25% of existing peace keeping military peace while the situation across borders is dwindling at alarming rate. And the great CM of Kashmir could not prevent some people who hurled pak flag at lal chowk.

Peace should not come at the terms of those people who dislike Indian flag being hurled at Lal Chowk. It is not peace then. If others dictate terms , then it is not issue of peace, it is issue of loosing your land. At this juncture, the CM actually should support BJP hoisting national flag at Lal Chowk, whatever may be the intention of BJP.

Like you are highly suspecting of BJP at it’s every action, we are also highly suspecting of Congress keeping in view it’s 125 years of dangerous minority appeasement and unability to handle kashmir issue. Especially the track record of congres loosing part of kashmir now called Azad Kashmir. And so we are marching behind BJP for now.

“If it was all about supporting BJP – then please do so openly rather than backing their political mechanisations” – If you want to support congress and Sonia Gandhi, pls do it openly. Do not hide behind words like “peace”,”BJP track record” etc.

@Ashwin,

“I do know what happened when Pakistan flag was hoisted briefly”

just sounds like those Hindu-muslim riot reporting media. “People of certain community pelted stones and Hindu communalists attacked back”.

@Ashwin,

“Like you, i am equally patriotic and have the greatest of respect for my national flag. One of the fundemental ethos of national flag is about integration of the country, what is the point of such yatras which in the name of hoisting national flag is dividing the society sharply and re-opening the wounds.

Ekta yatra and flah hoisting would make sense, only if it acheives integration of the society in the Kashmir, if it does not bring that then the very ethos of hoisting the flag gets defeated.”.

Ekta Yatra divides people? Boss, please don’t forget that you already categorized people into 4 categories. They are already divided sharply.The pro-Indian voices threatened,killed and even thrown out of Kashmir. What is more BJP marching with Indian flag could divide? And those same people who thrown out pro-Indian voices hoisted enemy flag already. They already divided besides dominating. There is nothing more to divide,my friend.Do not contradict urself and confuse urself.

In the time of their domination and State government’s utter failure to prevent them, the need of the hour is to highlight the Pro-Indian side.And BJP Ekta Yatra would have done that. You are actually wrong timing your suggestions. You are late by a phase. the phase of peaceful co-existent kashmir passed away some months back when they held kashmir at ransom for days together and separatist voices are coming to India and our Arundathi roy supporting them. At this time,I fully support any group of people hoisting national flag at the place where the enemy flag was hoisted.

You said one of the fundamental ethos is integration of country. Hope now you understood that hoisting a national flag at Lal chowk is the same attempt now.

Fully support you, Shantanu. My blog post (with the image) here:
http://sabhlokcity.com/2011/01/entire-indian-army-protect-wishes-hoist-flag-lal-chowk/

The entire Indian Army must come out to protect ANYONE who wishes to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk.

Regards
Sanjeev

I agree. Irrespective of the motivations of the BJP, they have a democratic right to host whatever flag they want anywhere in the country. They may be doing it only for effect – it doesn’t matter.

It’s the job of the government to ensure the peace. In my opinion, the BJP can easily take the govt. to court for not allowing them to host the flag in Kashmir.

The tragedy of the nation is not that BJP is making political mileage out of hoisting the national flag at Lal Chowk. The dangerous tragedy is that
the situation has given them an opportunity to grab political mileage – (if at all they are trying to gain political mileage), and this is what the entire nation should worry about. These happenings are telling us that there are dark days ahead for India and its security. Irrespective of whether anyone supports BJP or does not, should it not worry an average educated Indian, that there is something fundamentally sinister happening here? Whether anyone agrees or not that Kashmir is disputed, it still is an integral part of India and the Indian national flag should be hoisted in its capital on Republic Day. Not only is BJP being stopped from hoisting the flag, the PM, the HM of our powerful nation, is defying them and stopping them from doing so ? Is this not a matter to worry about and lose sleep? What message has gone out to the terrorists with the PM’s statement ? Have they not been emboldened to strengthen their agenda in Kashmir for the future ? I worry more about this. This is a very dangerous move by the Congress. In order to gain an upper hand over BJP, Congress is resorting to extremely dangerous tactics and this is what every right thinking Indian should worry about and whether they support BJP or not, Congress should be stopped from playing such dirty political games which will result in direct consequence of another partition of our motherland and we will lose the land of Sage Kashyap to these Islamic fundamentalists.

@ Ashish,

I agree with you that there has been 60% turnout in the last polls held in J&K, but there is a need to bridge the rest 40%. All i am saying is rather than capturing the hearts and minds of people of kashmir, we should not take steps to further antagonise and alienate the remaning 40%.

India need not assert its influence anymore on Kashmir, as we haev been holding free and fair elections. Hence the need for symbolism that BJP wants to bring does not have place. If BJP was so keen it could haev converted its Ekta Yatra into a yatra for meeting of minds of the remainign 40% who either did not vote or were not inclined to vote.

As for the Indian assertion goes, Omar Abdulla did invite BJP leaders for the hoisting of the flag, why did the leaders not accept it?

As for the hoisting the national flag, as i said in my previous post – it is the fundemental right of every citizen and that should never be denied. Saying that, in carrying out such fundemental right, BJP or any individual in the country do not have the right to be potentially provocative (may be the government over reacted, given BJP’s history with emotive movements and antagonising the society) be a cause to harm the peace of the region!

As i said, if they were keen on the symbolism – they could have hoisted the national flag in BJP headquartes in the J&K and their leaders could have made a speech in their party headquartes for their workers as opposed to taking out a procession and potentially make inflamatory speeches.

BJP has the uncanny attitude to talk one thing when in power and go diametrically opposite to that when out of power (most political parties are. Atleast i have not seen Congress go back diametrically opposite on national issues when they were in opposition).

@ Chakram,

Thanks for your comments and pointed replies. Core issue here is there is need for such a symbolism to take on the seperatists? I dont thinks so. India has already won that battle by conducting free and fair elections. It is now time for wining the hearts and minds of people and this cant happen through force. We have seen in the last 60yrs that force has not got us anywhere? If we were so keen to pursue the agenda of morality and Indianess then why is the Indian government not taking a step forward in saaying we shall organise a plebscite and settle the issue of Kashmir once and for all… We cant do that, because India is not confident. Hence the mantra has been to win the hearts of the people of Kashmir. From 4 categories, we need to make then as one category – that wants to live and breathe India!

Ashwin

Is that flag march necessary? Is it going to make any difference? Has it anything to do with national pride?

The answer to all of that is no. And I agree with you on all those counts. You are right in saying that the BJP is known for manufacturing high voltage emotive issues much to its advantage and this yatra is another one in that line. But that’s the quality of our politics and we have to live with it.

I don’t care much about hoisting flags, either at Lal chowk or at Red fort. I think it’s a meaningless waste of time and money. So I am less interested in where BJP “hoists its flags” and more interested in the government’s response to this yatra.

The government’s response undermined our basic freedoms. This yatra is merely symbolic for me. For all their ill-intentions, the organisers did not violate any laws. And I think you too agree that the government’s response was disproportionate. And that’s the whole crux of this issue.

I would’ve much appreciated if the administration tried to dissuade the organisers from carrying out the march, but if the marchers weren’t convinced, provide them with the required security to carry out that march. I wholeheartedly supported the separatists’ touring India to make their case for ‘azadi’. I admired the government for not booking Arundhati Roy et al for making unsavoury statements. That was offensive for, dare I say, a majority of Indians and yet acceptable, then I think this march must also be acceptable even if it’s offensive for a minority of Kashmiris.

Look in a free country, every person has the freedom to offend and feel offended. They are well within their right to do so without resorting to violence. So yes, they should’ve let the BJP carry out that march and they should’ve also allowed the separatists to carry out their own march – both perfectly acceptable when done peacefully.

Be is BJP/Kashmiri seperatists, no one has the right to disturb the peace of the region. If in the view and opinion of the district and state adminstration any rallies or protest marches that would hamper the peace and stability of the region the adminstration has the rights to deny such a permission. This is well coded practice of the government!

BJP are on one hand acting against the constitution and law of natural justice by disqualifying 6 MLAs in karnataka even before the vote of confidence took place – is that not total lack of respect to Indian constitution and Indian people. On the other hand they compalin about government’s high handedness on the Ekta Yatra! BJP leaders such as Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj need to do more than making gimicks such as these and play through the media if they have to be credible in the eyes of people.

@ Ashish,

Neither am i saying you are defending BJP.

In my assessment having known the history of BJP’s ability and capability to whip up the rhetoric and call for emotive actions, in my assessment government was right in asking BJP leaders to avoid doing it.

BJP leaders overplayed the freedom to hoist national flag card, rather than looking at various intelligence reports that would haev been at the government’s disposal before asking BJP to defer/withdraw the rally.

Let us be sure, such decisions are not taken merely the party organising the rally is in opposition or for ones dislike to a party. Before making such a decision, i am sure the district and the state government had ample legitimate concerns.

I would have agreed with your assertions had the government not offered to speak to BJP and unilaterally withdrawn permisson for such a yatra. Since that was not the case, In my opinion the government had all rights to maintain peace and order for the landmark day in Indian history!

I read somewhere, that Yassin Malik JKLF chairman was with his assocaiets lodged in a near by hotel to Lal Chowk to plan and carry out demonstrations had the BJP done so. I bet if such a thing would have happened then it was a perfect playground for violence.

Hence i still maintain that government was not wrong is askign BJP to not to go ahead with the yatra! Why just the government even BJP’s own allies asked BJP not to go ahead with such plans.

Had it just been about flag hoisting, as part of republic day celebrations, without any rally/march then i would agree with you if the government had stopped them from doing so. But that is not the case hence my assertion and opinion that Government of the day was correct in taking the necessary steps.

Gentlemen,
I believe that debate is over. Muslim ummah showed it’s power and got what they wanted. It always did anyway. You should be thankful that we still have the flag on Lal Killa, who knows sooner or later we would stop flying it there because 1. peace is fragile and 2. sentiments of minorities should not be hurt (well, like Ashwin whoever demands that we should not unfurl Tiranga is a minority anyway).
But then why blame ummah when the ‘rising superpower’ can not handle a tiny island like Srilanka which killed it’s citizens on the very republic day? Our ‘strong’ and firm and gentleman PM is helpless!!!
On a separate note, the church has shown it’s power in India when in one single public statement it has forced a supreme court judge to modify his statement. More secular news for you.
So,
1. Become more secular
2. become more liberal
3. and clone the Gandhis so that they can stay in power decades after decades.
Kashmir? It was a Nehru-Gandhi-Adullah joint property, we did not have it to begin with. 🙂

Deoband Vastanavi chose a path of peace and reconcilation, he has to quit,they dont want peace and reconcile. Here we gave up our pride of hoisting flag for peace and reconcilation! Isn’t it confusing!

@Indian (#18),
A man named RP Singh put the flag on Lal Chowk. Ashwin K would be happy to know that then government put him on hospital.
http://twitter.com/AbhijeetGupta25/status/30319728064987136

Ashwin: “Is that flag march necessary? Is it going to make any difference? Has it anything to do with national pride?”

It is about symbolism. Symolism runs our life… Rakhi festivals, thanks givinng dinners are all symbolic.

allow me to tell you a story:

A man always rushed to his alzhimer’s affected wife at 9 am everyday for breakfast at a nursing home, be what may. She could not recognize him at all, but he still continued to meet her for breakfast for years. When someone asked why did he do so as it would make no difference to his wife since she could not remember him anyway, he replied ‘Being by her side makes a differece to me”

Likewise, this flag hoisting may not make any difference to the seperatists. But, it makes a differnece to the patriotic people of this land.

Somewhere in this blog, I read about 60% voter turn out in some recent election. That was the case for last assembly election (state elections) but not for parliamentary election (national election). In last parliamentary election avg voter turn out was 39.66% and in phase 3 and 4, it was merely 26.43% and 25.38% respectively. Plz see below link for more details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_general_election,_2009

What does it mean? At the one end people come forward in large numbers to elect state government but not in the same way for national government. It is sufficient to show that Kashmir is a problem and people there disapproved of central govt and has no faith in them.

Lets come out of all our well cherished feelings of Nationalism and patriotism and see the Kashmir as an issue from political and humanistic angle. I do not support that Kashmir should be part of India merely to keep Indian unity intact or because of my feeling of Indianness but on the grounds of Indian strategic interest and seeing the inviolability of Kashmir as an independent nation. India can never make Kashmir as in integral part of India just by applying or increasing forces. Nobody can live for 24 hours and in that condition for decades under cover of an army. Presence of Army all the time itself is a biggest impediment for freedom which is the basis of any democracy. If this just a minority which is the problem then what is the need to have such large presence of army specially deep within the border. It itself shows that we have not yet won the confidence of Kashmiri people and keeping them with us by force.

Serious steps should be taken to reduce gradually the presence of army and diluting AFSPA and winning the confidence of KAshmir junta and to show them that it is in their favor only to be with India. We should not forget here that no insurgency can become such a big issue without support of people and Pakistan is just utilizing the political failures of Indian govt.

Real win will come for India not when any party like BJP will be succeeded in hoisting tricolor at lal chouwk but when people of Kashmir themselves come and hoist the tricolor their. And they should be protected not by army but the people themselves.

Nobody else but only and only the people of Kashmir has rights to decide their future. It is a political failure for India that we let people of KAshmir lost faith in India. And if we want to keep them with us then we will have to make it attractive enough to be with us. These Ekta Yatra kind of things are not going to help in this but will only cause them to have a more negative feeling toward India.

@Deepak,
Nobody else but only and only the people of Kashmir has rights to decide their future
By that same logic, we must allow people from Tamil Nadu/Aandhra Pradesh/Karnataka/West Bengal/UP/Maharastra/Mizoram/Nagaland/Assam etc to vote whether they want to be a part of Indian union or not. Do you agree to that point?

@Deepak,

There is a valid reason why we have Army deployed in J&k. To understand this, you need to go back to late eighties when Pakistani supported Terrorists (which also included many foreigners) selectively targeted civilian leadership (judges, local officials, local political leaders, etc) in Kashmir. So successful they were that they managed to wipe out the whole of leadership on the ground. Around the same time Hindus were also driven out of Kashmir. There was total break down of law and order in Kashmir.
During the same time, I remember watching TV serials on Pakistan TV showing their open support for Jehadi’s fighting in Kashmir, I particularly remember a scene when a Hindu judge was killed by a Terrorist on order of Pakistani Military official, his obvious crime was being a Hindu and he ordered life sentence to one of the arrested Terrorist.

All this was part of the Pakistani propaganda. The army was deployed in this background. And, under the circumstances no law enforcement agency could fight the war without right set of tools. And, one of that tool is unfairly maligned AFSPA. Our Army is one of the most professional forces we have got. They may not be blemish free, but there is active effort on its part to correct itself. For e.g. each complaint of human right violation is investigated and if personnel found guilty they are promptly court martialled.

You also talk about the state’s responsibility of paying attention to their people. As a matter of fact the state has been more than fair with Kashmiris. Article 370, and annual per capita budget allocation for Kashmir is the proof. Does Pakistan has a law that prevents regular Pakistani to go and settle in their Azaad Kashmir? Does Pakistan allow people from Azad Kashmir to elect their own CM (or PM) in a free and fair election. Compared to situation in other states Kashmir is a pampered state, and we do not see people asking for secession from other states, do we? It is not that Kashmir is ruled by someone sitting in Delhi, it is being ruled by Kashmiri leaders who were elected in free and fair election.

@Sid
This is not a right, republic of India does not give you this right. This sedition, opposite to right.
Indian Republic may not be giving this right but humanity gives. And humanity is above than any Nationalism.

So in your mind, British rule and republic of India are no different!!!
Definitely not. British rule was to exploit India and it’s resources but Indian rule is never for this. That’s what we think but what if people of Kashmir (here I am excluding Jammu and Laddakh) are not thinking so. For many of them Kashmir identity is still above than Indian identity. India will have to first give them reasons and a feeling of belongingness to India. Art 370 is an impediment in this but more than it the militancy and failure of democracy is responsible

If entitlement, sops and special privileges are any indication of governance, then no state is better governed than Kashmir and no other state is governed worse than those far eastern sister states.
Do you really think that entitlements, sops and privileges reaches to the common people in India?. Providing them is not the sign of good governance. If the governance is good then no need to provide all this even. Kashmiri governments were one of the most corrupt governments in India.

Really?? And what is this genuine reason? If army presence is this genuine reason, then can those aggrieved people provide the reason army went there in the first place?
Presence of army is one of the reason but more importantly the failure of Indian union to install real democracy in Kashmir is the reason. If only 10-15% people are coming, voting and electing then government can not be said as elected democratic government. This was the case in most of the previous elections in Kashmir. Kashmir is known for election rigging and frauds. State governments are removed arbitrarily and president rule placed there many of the times to give central govt a direct hand in ruling Kashmir. If the aggrieved people can provide the reason for army in the first place then I think even British rule was better in this than Indian rule. They even never did it. Army is to defend the borders not to maintain law and order.

Why is it that till late 70s, such unbearable grief was not mentioned in front of the democratically elected government of Kashmir? If grief is a valid reason to engage in riots, existential violence and jingoism then every person who was refused government service because he/she can not pay bribe has rights to kill government babus in every state. Do you agree?
Do you really think that till late 70s, govt of Kashmir was democratically elected in real sense. First Nehru detained Sheikh Abdullah who was having a big big influence over people there. We replaced him with Bakhshi Gulaam Muhaamd who turned out as highly corrupt person and used all the ways to keep himself and his party in power. Elections were rigged, voter turn out was very very low on those elections. For your second question, do you really think that common people their engaging in riots, jingoism etc? and if the government has refused to provide service then steps should be taken to make it more efficient and responsive rather than keeping people under control and not allowing them to raise their voice. and if it is not possible then they have all rights to bring a revolution.

Count number of stone pelters in Kashmir and see their percentage in terms of total population of state of J&K including Pandits. Is that “so much” in your definition?
They may not be so much but you can not infer from this that people who are sitting in their home are also not supporting them silently. If it is not the case then why it went on for months. They were not even under control of separatist. Even Geeliani failed to keep them under control. It only shows a general sense of grief prevailing there. It is the time that we should sit with them and try to understand what they really want rather than just suppressing them.

Just because Arundhati “I-am-such-a-psychopath-that-I-would-support-random-killing” Roy and Barkha “I-am-a-messenger-reporter” Dutt has more power in their throat than saner Indians does not mean that they are the majority.
They are just utilising it for their own professional benefits. Important is that, there should be something first which can be exploited.

As I stated, this right does not belong to anyone. Criticism of government is acceptable, attack on it or one of it’s citizens is not acceptable.
In the same way attack on rights of Kashmiri people which are granted by Indian Constitution itself should also not be acceptable.

Please explain how and why central government started applying “heavy hand” after dealing with Kashmiris for forty years.
Problme is that Govts so far tried to deal with Kashmiris rather then tried to integrate them with India. How many times they honour the democratic decisions of Kashmiri people. Union govt always tried to put puppet state govts in Kashmir.
Yaseen Malik, many hurriat leaders, founder of hijbul mujahdeen, they all are those who tried their hands first in Indian democracy only but found that given attitude of union govt of keeping kashmir by force and corrupt electoral practices, it is not feasible to be part of it. That’s where militancy started in Kashmir. Pakistan has just utilized the prevailing situation there. But for that India itself is more responsible then Pakistan.

The myth of grievance during nineties is a myth that likes of Burqa Dutt tried to spread carefully but it does not hold well when people know Kashmir’s history and what happened there during seventies and eighties. Place that in this context and the spin becomes clear.
I would recommend you to read the history of Kashmir again. Spin will become clear to you.

@Shantanu
Sure we will continue discussing this on the specific blog.
I would also like to mention that I am completely agree with you that humanity trumps nationalism only in dreams and not in reality. But thoughts about making a very strong nation having common law and common treatment for a country like India which has so much of diversity is also a dream only. Ultimately we will have to show some flexibility here to keep this country united.

The Kashmir problem has been made so complicated by Pandit Nehru and his successors in the Congress that they don’t have any idea how to solve it.And even now they give more importance to those who have a vested interest in keeping the problem alive than those who want to unify Kashmir with India.
Their protestations about patriotism sound so hollow when you think about Kashmir and about tons of Indian money they have helped likes of Quatrochi and Hasan Ali to loot and stash away.

first hand reports of activists from ekta yatra:

http://www.dailypioneer.com/313950/JK-cops-%E2%80%98offered-urine-for-water%E2%80%99-to-Ekta-yatris.html

Hello Comrade Deepak,

You make an interesting claim, that “humanity” and nationalism are mutually opposed. But this rather bizarre claim works against your argument at several levels.

Fact is, several ideologies claimed the same point you claimed, and they all ended up killing people and turning out to be inhuman. Case in point is Marxism/Communism. Communism started as an internationalist idea. “Workers of the world, unite!” was its war cry. Communists gave — and still give — lectures about brotherhood of men across national boundaries and decried nationalism in the strongest terms. Marx, Stalin, Lenin etc were contemptuous of nationalism. But what happened in the end? Do you have any idea how many people these anti-nationalism and “pro-humanity” people murdered? 80 million, on a conservative estimate.

Therefore, whenever somebody gets into the pulpit and urges people to reject nationalism in favor of “humanity”, I get nervous, very nervous. The pro-humanity people worked bloodbaths. History is witness to this. Give me the nationalists anyday.

At the same time you fantasize a conflict between humanity and nationalism, you also cheer lustily in favor of nationalism — Kashmiri nationalism, thereby diluting your credentials not only as a pro-humanity person, but also as an anti-nationalism person. What humanity do you see in those who drove the valley’s religious minorities out? Or the terrorists who kill in the name of “Kashmir”? Or those who throw boulders, burn and kill law-enforcers? Fact of the matter is, you have no clue what humanity is.

The core problem in Kashmir is neither nationalism nor humanity. It is *religion*. More specifically, it is a religion called Islam. Islam shares similarities with communism in its exclusivist and intolerant view of the other. The partition of India, Palestine “conflict”, 9/11, the global tide of suicide bombings, 26/11, Kashmir, the numerous terrorist attacks and murders of innocents in India — these are all manifestations of the same intolerance and bigotry. This bogus argument of humanity vs nationalism is like putting lipstick on the pig. If you think you are able to obscure the nature of the beast, the joke is on you. Best of luck.

@Kartik
The first thing, I would recommend you to read my updates once again and this time with an unbiased and ideology free mind.

Where I have said that humanity and nationalism are opposed to each other. They both are interlinked. Humanity is an end and nationalism is a mean. In the modern world where all the countries are basically comprising multiple cultures, religions; it is impossible to build a nationalism merely based on culture. Rather today nations represent a aggregation of interests, a practical entity which is representing the whole mass in the globalized world and working for their interest. But you can not enforce your concept of nationalism over anybody also and when a nation comprises multiple cultures/ethnicity then it is more desirable to have a flexible approach to maintain the unity. In this context I criticized the historical wrongs done by central govts and make the working of democracy weak there. I have no where supported secession of Kashmir from India. It is neither practical nor in Indian strategic interest. But to keep them with us we will have to listen to their grievances also.

I do support the case of Kashmiri Pandits. They should be allowed to return back and all state protections should be given to them. It is very ironical that NDA govt didn’t do anything for this. Instead of wasting their efforts in these Ekta yatra why not they raise this issue and fight for them.

I would also like to point that how did you interlinked humanity with communism/marxism. Humanity can only be universal but these ideologies only promote fight between man and man. Their basic ideology is only to divide people into classes and to eliminate one by removing other from the picture. This is the reason they caused so much of bloodbath. Humanity never teaches you this but it teaches only to increase universal love and cooperative approaches.

You should also not forget that todays liberal, capitalist, globalized world also promote internationalism only. And it is not in any sense bad but only good. Here the real desirability of Nation comes, not as isolated block of people but representative of them in international governance and politics. I am writing this blog thanks to this globalization only.

@Kartick
For your comment-
“The core problem in Kashmir is neither nationalism nor humanity. It is *religion*. More specifically, it is a religion called Islam. Islam shares similarities with communism in its exclusivist and intolerant view of the other”

You cannot attribute this universally to everybody who is a Muslim. While some sections of the Islam has this intolerance but not all and specifically the Sufi tradition of Islam which is prevailed in Kashmir is not that much fundamentalist and not all Kashmiris are fundamentalist. Many of them join Islamic fundamentalist groups because of unemployment, lack of other productive work etc.

Every religion including Hinduism has these kind of people who take their pride in glorification of their religion/culture and want to establish it exclusively everywhere. For partition of India if field would have been left empty for Hindu Mahasabha and RSS then they would have also demanded the Hindu Rashtra in the same way as Jinnah demanded Muslim Nation. And even this fundamentalist attitude of many members of Hindu Mahasabha/RSS and even Congress is equally responsible for partition. When RSS and BJP talks about establishing “Great Hindu Rashtra”, “Cultural Nationalism”, “Making Ram temple at Ayodhya” they are also showing the same intolerance and feeling of revenge for historical blunders. Rise of BJP can be attributed only to their divisive ideology of dividing people in Hindu and Muslim. This is the same thing which Jinnah did to fulfill his ambition of power. This is the reason when Advani went to Pakistan, he found virtues in Jinnah because they both are same and used religion as a tactic for their power ambitions. They both used religion for mobilization and may be secular in their heart (for Jinnah I am sure).

@Kartick
The larger point is that enough number of Muslims take their religious edicts seriously enough to cause the kind of worldwide upheaval, destruction and loss of life we are witnessing on a daily basis.
If here you are talking about those who are islamic terrorist then I will say they are just a minority. And who is appeasing them and where do you got that I am supporting them. They should be fought ruthlessly at all level with all means. Do you mean by your statements that the kashmiri youths who were fighting sometime back are all terrorist and fighting to establish a Islamic Kingdom?

jump to the conclusion that all Muslims have “grievances”
If some minority of muslim members have resorted to terrorism then we should not pay attention any of there grievances is a saying like that they have one only grievance. Is it a truth?? Muslim as a community is educationally, socially a backward community and positive steps are required to bring them in mainstream. This is the best way to reduce those number who do not interpret Quran in modern sense as you said. What other way you suggest to make sure that the minority you mentioned remain only a minority??

The humanist solution to the problem is to fight this minority resolutely, not drum up support for them as you are trying to do.
I am not supporting here any Islamic extremism. To conclude that any problem raised by muslims is necessarily a fundamentalist problem is just show your narrow thinking. I would like to remind you here that last year everything got started in kashmir from alleged killing of two women by CRPF jawans and further killings just act like a “ghee” in “aag”. It was not started because of a call given by any mulla, of even geelani. They were not attacking temples but j&k police and their police stations which are manned by mostly muslims only. They were attacking a state govt which is also manned mostly by muslims only. And the reason they lost their trust and faith in indian democratic system. Again I would like to mention that continuous presence of army is the biggest impediment in human freedom. Truth is that nobody was able to control them and it was a leaderless movement. If it would have been merely a islamic movement then it can not be leaderless.

This is what I see some communist bloggers do all over the internet with religious fervor
From when communist started talking about religion. Communist ideology do not believe in religion. They want to overthrow all the religions and believe only in reason based rational conduct. Have you observed any time CPI or CPM is India, preaching to give religious education to teach good islam or good hindutva.

Conviction has to precede repetition; repetition by itself doesn’t build conviction.
Conviction can never come by it’s own. If it is coming like this then it is also a conviction of “unthinking herd” only and not going to last long. Conviction should be based on reasons, rational thinking not on emotions. You should know the difference between positive education and repetition. What is the source of conviction for you???

@Kartick
The all-religions-are-equal line is as hollow and vulgar as plastic patriotism.
Hinduism itself believe that all religions are different in their outlook but similar in their essence. They all are just showing different path to reach to same place. Since path are different so they look different. Indian polity believe in secularism of type “equal treatment to all religion” but to remove fear and insecurity from the minds of minority, our constitution gives some special rights to them to feel them really equal. Minorities everywhere have this fear of being washed away by majority.

All religions have two kind of followers, one who believe in spiritual essence of that religion. Whose aim is to attain the enlightenment. For these kind of follower whatever all differences are superficial and in essence all path leads to the same end, second who practice more material form of religious. This second kind of follower see the difference because of their lack of wisdom and insight.

The flag yatra, more than a mark of nationalism, is an affirmation of India’s secular humanism over the hatred and bigotry in the valley.</B
Please elaborate your and BJP's conception of "Secular Humanism"

Hi Kartik and Deepak,

Very good and deep discussion !!! I just want to add some of my insight.

1. Human Values Or Dharma, Religion, Nationality, Regionalism, are all at different levels and needs to be understood at their level.

2. As per human values all are equal but this can not be practiced when it comes to selecting an employee, similarly when you find a homeless on the street you do not accommodate him in your house.. So human values have their level while developing social culture, designing and establishing systems, but not when it comes to one to one dealing.

3. Nationalism is important to instill sense of belongingness and sense of ownership in the citizens. These senses are very important for the survival of the society and they encourage individuals to sacrifice individual or personal interests for the interests of the society.

4. India is not a Nation and is difficult to develop into the one, because of different History, and different languages. Just having common Culture do not make it a nation. Hindi Heartland, Maharashtra, Bengal, Gujarat, Orrisa, Tamil Nadu.. etc.. are all Nations and not part of Nations..

5. Accepting all the states as Nation do not mean that such understanding is essentially divisive, but in effect it provides means to manage the differences. Not accepting the differences denies us even that possibility.

6. India is United in culture and should remain so. If we destroy the shared culture India can not remain united. Secularism as it is practiced in India is destroying the culture that unites this country.

7. Minorities should be prepared to get assimilated into larger Indian culture, at least they should not be allowed to strengthen their separate identity. This is what US is doing with the emigrants.

8. By not holding plebiscite, India has committed a blunder. The issue would have been settled long back in History and we would have been free to handle other important issues..

9. Even today, if we declare plebiscite, we shall be forcing people who are seating on the fence to take position and also it will force Pakistan out of its comfort zone..

10. Telling Kashmir people that we will not allow them to secede is Imperialist mentality and detrimental in the long run. We should remain together because it is beneficial, and not because it is forced on anybody.. India can not remain united under force, even if it is through constitution..

11. Indian constitution in fact is a third class constitution..and will not be able to hold this country together for long…

12. To manage diversity, we will have to forget whatever is written in any scripture, or happened in the past. We shall have to define what we want in the future and any arrangement in constitution, law, practice that goes against the planned future shall have to be discarded, irrespective of religious consideration. If followers of any religion do not accept it they should be separated into different category, given freedom to practice what they want but their rights should be curbed in a way that their freedom does not affect the other citizens..

Milind Kotwal

Hello Milind Kotwal,

Per Shantanu’s suggestion, I decided to carry on the conversation in the “J&K Solution” thread.