Indians have generally been great at identifying where a problem stems from, but have fared pretty badly in finding workable solutions, much less effectively applying these solutions to solve the problem. Increasingly, however, it appears as though a vocal, privileged section of the elite and self-proclaimed, self-obsessed intelligentsia (a class in which socialite authors, civil-service-fail journalists, leftist university professors, deracinated students, and otherwise unemployable NGO-types include themselves) has lost the ability to even identify a problem with any modicum of sense. Whether this is because of their faux and pretentious liberalism or it is because they suffer from a South Asian, nay peculiarly Indian, version of the Stockholm Syndrome that makes them see the perpetrator of violence as a victim and the reaction/response to violence as injustice and oppression, remains unclear. This trend is manifest in the way some of these people look at not just the current bout of violence in Jammu and Kashmir but also in how they view Pakistan. Although an entire book can be written on the flakiness of this lot, the available space allows for just a few samples of how daft their logic and analysis is.
To go by the hyperventilation of these people in their petitions, articles, blogs, it would seem as though at the root of the current problems in Kashmir lies Arnab Goswami. Blame it on Arnab is their new motto, almost an article of faith. According to them, speaking up for India and against Pakistani provocations and jihadist Kashmiris is jingoism and anti-national; appeasing the jihad-infused stone-pelting crowds and sucking up to Pakistan is the true sign of nationalism for this lot of turn-the-other-cheek liberals!
Pakistan’s attitude to India was succinctly summed up in a tweet: ‘Most extremist Pakistanis want to kill you (Indians & Hindus); most moderate Pakistanis want the extremist Pakistanis to kill you!’ Quite simply, Pakistan remains unreconciled to the reality, even existence, of India. This was true in the past when the jihadists were not running amok and is true today when the jihadists operate with complete impunity in Pakistan. The left/liberal lobby in India seems to believe that terrorism started in India in the 1990s after the Kashmir disturbances. They gloss over the fact that terrorism has been imposed in one form or another, under one label or another, by Pakistan since Independence. From the tribal invasions (that too was jihad) in the late 1940s, to the fuelling of terrorism and separatism in North-East in the 1950s and 60s and the sending in of agent provocateurs and saboteurs in Kashmir in 1965, to the incitement and support to Sikh terrorists in the 1980s, Kashmir in the 1990s and 2000s and jihadist terrorism of the Indian Mujahideen variety since the turn of the century — Pakistan has not let go of any opportunity to murder Indians and destabilise India.
Strangely, despite the fact that the so-called non-jihadised Pakistan was hardly well-disposed towards India, there is a class of people in India who have convinced themselves that a jihadised Pakistan will be a catastrophe for India. Ergo, they argue, no price is too high to pay to support Pakistan and save it from itself. They are just incapable of understanding that when it comes to India, there is very little to choose between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Islamic Emirate of Pakistan or the Islamic State of Pakistan – each will be as inimical to India as the other. In defence of their argument, they will quote an odd article or a lone voice in the Pakistani media pleading reason and caution to Pakistanis. Somehow they never bother to ask how little such a sensible voice counts for in Pakistan. They also forget that throughout the last 70 years, there have been such voices in Pakistan.
The Indian left/liberal lobby gives exaggerated importance to these voices and latches on them to push their own case even though the reality on the ground is completely contrary to what these voices in Pakistan advocate. But clearly, just as the sensible advice of these Pakistanis didn’t change the strategic calculus of the Pakistani state back then, it is not going to change this calculus now. The disconnect between how India sees an event in Pakistan and how the Pakistani establishment sees it is apparent from just one incident: the massacre of APS kids by Taliban was seen in India as something that would change the strategic orientation of Pakistan; in Pakistan a former ISI chief called it ‘collateral damage,’ or a price that Pakistan had to pay in pursuit of larger strategic objectives!
Just as they are convinced that Arnab is the problem in improving relations with Pakistan, the left/liberal crowd feels AFSPA is the problem in Kashmir. Most people waxing eloquently about AFSPA and criticising it, have never read it, much less understood it. Not just the clueless Indian commentators, but also the supercilious New York Times feels bold enough to expound on AFSPA based on the ignorant outpourings of the Indian ‘intelligentsia’. The Pakistanis happily latch on to this drivel and use it for their hysterical propaganda. Nobody bothers to ask the NYT as to why so many blacks are shot down in cold blood around the USA even though there is no AFSPA there; there is no AFSPA in Karachi and yet in the last two years more than 2000 people have been killed in cold blood in fake encounters by the police and rangers; there is no AFSPA in Balochistan so under what law has the Frontier Corps butchered thousands of Baloch? None of the great defenders of civil rights and liberties have bothered to compare AFSPA with the Protection of Pakistan Act, the Military Courts law in Pakistan and the Action in Aid of Civil Power law in that country; And yet the NYT correspondents do lazy journalism by swallowing the drivel of clueless Indian writers and vomit it out in their own newspaper. Although I am tempted to explain AFSPA, I would rather that these swallow-and-vomit journalists do their own homework (and not read the trash peddled by Amnesty or HRW) and try and understand the law. Suffice to say, the problem in Kashmir is not AFSPA; it is a little more complicated and has more to do with jihadist indoctrination, Pakistani interference, unchecked infusion of an Islamofascist ideology, an inchoate and half-baked sentiment of ethnic nationalism which is xenophobic, intolerant and unwilling to live in peace with the other and of course the failure of politics and governance to check these trends in the body politic, which have now infiltrated the government and administration itself.
Finally, a bit about reportage from Kashmir. Neither is stone pelting a peaceful protest – many of those calling it ‘peaceful’ went apoplectic when Shiv Sena blackened the face of one of the quintessential turn-the-other-cheek liberals – nor is a crowd that tries to burn government property, assault policemen and burn police stations a peaceful crowd. Security forces will do what they need to do to protect public property and their own selves. While journalists must go and report from hospitals, for them to show such unquestioning faith in the yarns spun by the injured and their families is poor journalism.
To go by the reportage from the Valley, every single injured person was innocent! This is palpable nonsense. The fact is that in Kashmir, the story changes depending on the audience: before a Kashmiri audience, the injured person will show bravado and promise to start pelting stones the day he is released; before a sympathetic bleeding-heart journalist from Delhi, the same person will plead innocence, almost always running an errand for his mother when he got caught up in the unrest; before a policeman, he will plead not guilty – invariably returning from tuition, or playing cricket, or something else when he was caught in the cross-fire; If the police has video evidence, then the parents claim that their kid is innocent, it is his friend who led him astray. The fact however is almost all the people injured or dead are part of a violent mob, something that has consequences when the violence threatens to spiral out of control as it invariably does. The only way to avoid these injuries and casualties is by not chucking stones, not firing at security forces, not becoming part of a violent crowd that attacks public property and security personnel.
All this is not to deny that there is a political problem in Kashmir, which will not be solved until politicians of all hues and persuasions give up their cynical double-games and work towards solutions that even if not perfect are at least acceptable, both in Kashmir as well as rest of India.
