It all began with Nehru’s attempt to apparently ‘save’ Kashmir back in 1947. “The consequent attempts” did sow the seeds for many of the problems that the Kashmiris are having to face today. It essentially is not just about the vigorous political ego clashes that ensued between Muhammad Ali Jinnah – the then Prime Minister of Pakistan and Nehru but the complete story is indeed dicey when perceived from a progressive political perspective. Nehru, a Kashmiri Pundit, himself was never very concerned about the fate of Kashmir and its own largely ethnic Muslim population. This does not hand over the extreme right-wing fundamentalists the right to blame it all upon the Indian National Congress. But as a matter of fact, the crises could have been dealt in a better way than it had been, and maybe, like the 562 other princely states that had joined with India back then, Kashmir could have been on much better grounds today.
When addressing a state ( which is a largely academic term ), we often consider an extent of land with people scattered here and there, while largely refusing to recognise that the people indeed, are the ones who majorly constitute that state. Kashmir’s ethnic population did not just consist of a typical Muslim majority, but just like a geopolitical area that has forests and mountains at its heart, it consisted of a number of ethnic tribal populations, most of whom were forced to leave their land and whatever they had associated with it when the armed forces recruited by the Indian state began attacking them violently. Raids were organised by these tribal populations, but speaking of the role modern technology has played in ensuring the progress in weaponry and ammunition, all of these raids ceased to persist.
In context to gang rape, what surfaces up first in your mind is the Kunan-Poshpora incident that included almost 100 women who were gang-raped by the Indian Army. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) guarantees the army with powers that should not be accessible to anyone who is part of the greater human civilisation. What is even more intriguing is that such atrocities even took place in other states like Manipur where naked women marched against the Indian Army since rape and assault had turned out to be a regular part of their lives by then.
In case of the Kunan-Poshpora incident though, the abusers even refused to merely apologise.
If you recollect what has happened in the most recent of times, beginning from the murder of Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Govind Pansare, activist Narendra Dabholkar, scholar M M Kalburgi and journalist Gauri Lankesh to landless labourer Afrazul Khan being hacked to death and then burnt alive wherein the entire murder was shot live by a camera, by the assasin Sambhulal Regar. Later, he went into a temple and wore a tilak in front of a Hindu deity to devote the blood of the unsanctified ‘Kafir’ who had now been rightfully hacked and burned to death.
Ever since the NDA Alliance has come to power in the election of 2014, the number of scams and state sponsored activities committed in order to create a Hindu-Muslim disparity yet again (Aren’t we familiar with the divide and rule policy?). History, however – has neither forgotten, nor forgiven the Gujarat Riots of 2002.
The most recent murder of the 16 year old son of Asansol’s Imam Md. Imdadullah sets yet another example how, the people of India, still want to go on living together, in harmony and peace. Even after his son’s injured, lifeless body was brought in front of him, and he knew the religious identities of the culprits, he went on to address all the people for a call for peace.
The Kathua victim was grazing her horses one fine evening on a pastoral land close to her home when the abusers captured her and then managed to sedate her with anti-seizure drugs. The eight men continued to rape her inside a temple for a week before she was ultimately strangled and then stoned to death. This, however, is an extremely political act and cannot be distinctively perceived as ‘just another rape case’. This rape was committed to initiate a picture of brutality in the minds of the Bakarwali people, to exterminate them of what is remaining of their resisting capacity to retain the littlest bit of their very own homeland.
The Kathua rape case also calls for some attention on Sanji Ram, one of the abusers who was known to assault Bakarwali women in the past and has been considered a symbol of terror among them since then. The list of abusers also include Special Police Officer (SPO) Deepak Khajuria. The extent of brutality practised does render all of us speechless for a while. However, a section of extremist Hindu nationalists have been trying to actively justify the rape and murder of the 8-year-old, claiming that she would have grown up to be another “terrorist” if not murdered. Two BJP MLAs have also shown sympathy and defended “the cause of rape”.
While Hindu Ekta Manch goes on to march for the safety of the accused, in attempt to communalise the entire issue – her’s parents admitted that they had ensued an active search for their daughter everywhere except for in the temple since “temples are sanctified places”, they remarked. Ironically, temples have served as years of discriminating grounds for the Dalits, Muslims and women. Women running their menstruation are indeed not allowed to enter into temples.
The blazing example of Syria or Gaza strip comes to mind when talking about Kashmir. Even after all these brutal crimes have been practised for so many years now, even after so many children and adolescents have suffered from pellet guns and Molotov Cocktails as much as they could, the people, the common people of Kashmir, want peace in the end.
The ‘politicide’ of Kashmir does include a series of chronological events that suffice partial ethnic cleansing, relentless shootings, pellet guns, use of Molotov Cocktails, targeting children, women and the senior citizens, ensuing horror among the people by constantly terminating operations that exhibit tremendous brutality and a visible attempt to culturally, socially and economically finish a generation of people belonging to a particular ethnicity constitute just a part of the entire story.
The people of Kashmir do not conform to the Indian version of state sponsored terror and nationalist propaganda. The people of Kashmir do not consider themselves to be a part of the state that has done ghastly things to them over seven decades. The people of Kashmir, just like the Palestinians or Syrians or Iraqis or Rohingyas, want a dignified, peaceful, worthy lifetime. And the right to live, in any space-time zone across the planet till date is a birth-right. The demand for Justice for Unnao, for Nirbhaya, for Susan, for Kathua and for the thousands and thousands of women who have been raped in Kashmir and in the north-eastern states is an utterly legitimate demand, that has to be addressed by the state at this very moment. The truth must be realised soon that the civilians in any state never want neither riots, nor wars. The propaganda weaved by the state should strangle them in their own noose of terror. Kashmir, the beautiful, serene, richly cultured land of Kashmir deserves peace, peace with dignity.
“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
P.S – I personally have friends from Kashmir who have comforted me during an episode of shootings that was going on in their place. After all this time, I have been invited to stay at their places since their parents “love, honour and respect Indian women”.