It is truly ironical that Dr. Farooq Abdullah, variously berated as a playboy and non-resident politician, should have emerged as the principal proponent of India’s civilizational ethos. In a significant, though unfortunately largely ignored statement last week, the Chief Minister offered to abrogate the contentious Article 370 which confers special status on Jammu & Kashmir, provided the Centre acts to bring the Pakistan-occupied portion (the so-called Azad Kashmir) back to the state, and to the country.
Regardless of the probability of our regaining Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the near future, this is a momentous declaration for several reasons. For one, Dr. Abdullah has rendered wholly redundant the pernicious theory that Maharaja Hari Singh, being a Hindu, had no right to sign the Instrument of Accession on behalf of his mainly Muslim subjects. Dr. Abdullah has thereby affirmed that though religion formed the basis of Partition in 1947, he repudiates the legitimacy of separating Jammu & Kashmir from India on the basis of religion. He has, therefore, joined issue with the religious-fanaticism-driven jihad in the Valley, which can even cost him his life. More importantly, he has done so because he identifies himself with the nation’s civilizational ethos. Dr. Abdullah is perhaps the only eminent Muslim who has claimed Lord Rama as his heritage; he also conducted himself with decorum at the Tirupati shrine.
As I understand it, Dr. Abdullah is the linchpin of two wars being fought by and in India. The first is the old, overt war to keep Kashmir in India. The second, more crucial, and relatively nascent, is the endeavour to root Islam in its Indian environment. This involves legitimizing a ‘pietist’ Islam as a way of life, delinked from the turbulence of political power (within the country or without), and entails opposition to the Wahabi-backed puritanical and aggressive Islam being propagated in the Valley through the gun by Pakistan-backed terrorists. It is well known that at various points in their history, Kashmiri Pundits have suffered horrible butchery, to the extent that the number of families once fell to a single digit. Despite this, ordinary Kashmiris hanker for peaceful co-existence. Dr. Abdullah has rooted this desire in the catholic embrace of India’s civilizational ethos, and is offering to strengthen the bond by (conditionally) abrogating Article 370. In effect, he is saying that the Hindu ethos is pietist Islam’s lifeline, which should be maintained eternally to sustain and enrich both.
Dr. Abdullah has underlined his belief in the civilizational ethos by strenuously resisting ethnic cleansing in the Valley. While not a single Muslim of any eminence outside the state has condemned the massacres of Sikhs there, the Chief Minister has virtually begged the community to stay on and has even inducted a Sikh into his cabinet to underscore his commitment to the community’s safety and honourable existence. This is, of course, an uphill task. Sikhs injured in the February 3 attack in Mahjoor Nagar, who are currently recuperating in a New Delhi hospital, openly express fears of being targeted like the Kashmiri Pundits (Pioneer, 25th February 2001). Yet not a single important Muslim or secular Hindu leader has called upon them, or sought to redress their fears. Nor has any eminent secularist had the decency to acknowledge that Kashmiri Pundits who fled the state were victims of a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing, and did not abandon home and hearth for the dubious pleasure of life in exile.
Interestingly, by calling for the return of Pak-occupied Kashmir, a region known to be chafing under Pakistani control, Dr. Abdullah has astutely asserted leadership of Kashmiris on that side of the border as well, since he has been elected by the larger (and free) part of the undivided state. Over time, this can only aggravate discontent in PoK. My point is that notwithstanding the skill, dedication and brutality with which the ISI is executing the jihad against this country in the Valley and elsewhere, the battle is by no means finally decided against India.
I say this because Pakistan is a failed state; it lacks internal coherence and its disintegration is inevitable. The bells first tolled in 1971 when Bangladesh broke loose. They tolled loud and clear again last September when leaders of the Mohajirs, Sindhis, Baluchis and Pakhtoons met at Acton Town Hall in London and disparaged the two-nation theory; they have realized that without a common cultural foundation, adherence to a universalist faith alone cannot crystallize diverse groups into a nation. The Mohajir-led disenchantment exposes the classic chink in Islam’s otherwise formidable armour – on the one hand, it denies legitimacy to ethnic identities; on the other, it fails to subsume these identities into a community with inner coherence. This is why Pakistan has been so desperately dependent upon Kashmir and virulent anti-India rhetoric to keep its flock together; but now the situation has taken a dangerous turn.
Gen. Musharraf’s Government is precariously poised over a precipice. On the one hand, backed by its Punjabi elite, army, ISI, Jamaat-i-Islami and the super-distilled purist Islam of Saudi Arabia, it is committed to bleeding India grievously and annexing Kashmir. On the other hand, the disillusioned ethnic minorities, rejecting the appeal of common religious lineage, are pulling in different directions. Simultaneously, the proliferation of jihadi outfits is threatening to overwhelm both Government and civil society in Pakistan. While Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider has been chastised by the Supreme Court for attempting to curb public fund-raising activities of jihadi outfits, the Government is sufficiently concerned over the growth of the gun culture to consider action against religious militants. This can only escalate tensions in an already volatile situation. Adding to Gen. Musharraf’s discomfort is America’s newly discovered intolerance to the export of terrorism, and its insistence that Saudi billionaire, Osama bin Laden, currently the guest of the Pakistan-backed Taliban in Afghanistan, be handed over to it for trial in a terrorist attack.
With such an unstable situation on its borders, not to mention the unwholesome state of affairs within, India must have a policy to face both eventualities. In the event of Pakistan’s disintegration, it must have some notion of what to do if Islamabad’s nuclear ability falls into the hands of potentially unstable groups. Meanwhile, we need a policy on Kashmir. It is a mockery of governance that after three months of unilateral ceasefire, the killings of civilians have increased and ethnic cleansing of Sikhs begun. Despite this, New Delhi has extended the ceasefire for another three months, though it is so clueless about how to proceed with the peace process that it cannot even decide if Hurriyat leaders should be allowed to go to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. I am at a loss to understand why Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee is persistently humiliating India by making it hostage to a sinking Pakistan.
In the circumstances, it is unfortunate that political parties have endorsed this mindless initiative. Of course, Congress under Signora Sonia Gandhi is directionless; but parties with the energy and ambition to take on an effete Congress and a feeble Prime Minister would do well to break out of the old rut of discredited minority politics. Notwithstanding the apparent inevitability of coalitions in the foreseeable future, resurgent India is craving for stability and coherence. The future belongs to the party that can lead the country in terms of its own genius.
The Pioneer, 27 February 2001