Random Walk Model can best be explained in terms of an excessively drunk person trying to get home. He walks few steps and falls. Knowing he must get home, gets up but forgets which direction he came from. He then takes few more steps and falls again. Can this person ever reach his destination? You know the answer! After several attempts, he will collapse somewhere far from his home.
Indians do not understand the Kashmir Problem. If you ask ten people, you will get ten different answers. Yet, they might all agree that it is the biggest problem which India faces and that Jawaharlal Nehru was somehow responsible for it.
Scholars and trolls from extreme right to extreme left and all shades in between, have spread decades of misinformation about Kashmir’s relationship with India and its history. The confusion among Indians, especially the Kashmiris should not come as a surprise. When Kashmiris act on this misinformation and commit acts of terror or stone pelting, we express shock, horror and disbelief. It is easy to blame Pakistan for fishing in troubled waters. But what about our own willful ignorance?
United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
For decades, we were told that Kashmir is a mess because Jawaharlal Nehru had asked the UNSC for help in 1948. While it is unfair to blame the BJP alone, everybody who is somebody in that party have repeatedly claimed that Nehru referring the issue of Pakistani interference in Kashmir to the United Nations was a “blunder” that India could never recover from, and the cause of all evils. Yet, today we see the same Nehru-baiters following the same “evil” Nehru’s footsteps to play politics at the United Nations Security Council!!
Why is the current government dragging the same troublesome UNSC back into the conflict, which was supposedly a terrible idea when Nehru did it? Why are we obsessed with influencing the UN Security Council to pass yet another resolution? Why are we blaming China for diluting the resolution? Why mess with UN at all? Isn’t this the behavior of drunken and clueless government?
What is the message this government is sending to the world, Indians and the Kashmiris in particular? Is this their admission that Kashmir is indeed a disputed territory under jurisdiction of UN and hence UN alone can decide? Is it because our government is too incompetent to deal with it by itself? Is the government trying to fool us that something is being done, as purposeless as it may be? Or is this admission that Jawaharlal Nehru did not do anything wrong in 1948?
Kashmir Point of View
A columnist wrote an open letter from Kashmir to the people of India. Obviously, this Kashmiri does not consider himself an Indian. To him there is a “Kashmir Issue” that is unresolved. He expresses no doubt that the incidents like Pulwama will continue if that Kashmir Issue is not resolved. The unstated premise of his argument is that “Kashmir is not part of India”.
Kashmiris like him believe that India has colonized Kashmir. In their mind, this is indefensible in modern times and they get frustrated with “Indians” for not understanding what they think should have been obvious! India which fought for so long through violent as well as peaceful means against British Imperialism perpetrating the same act of colonization comes across as hypocrisy to them. We of course readily blame the Mullahs and ISI for brainwashing these young men. But what about the help given to the Mullahs and ISI by the right-wing leaders and trolls under the guise of Patriotism?
India’s Guilt
Indian thinkers across the entire spectrum from far-left to far-right continue claim that Kashmir became a disputed territory when Nehru asked UN for help in 1948. If that claim is true, where is the legitimacy to “Indian Occupation” of Kashmir? Nehru may indeed be evil and incompetent. But he was our Prime Minister and according to our own claims he signed off India’s rights over Kashmir to the United Nations in 1948! Based on our own assertions, Kashmiris think their beef now should be with the UN and that India should have left 71 years ago.
If we put ourselves in position of a third party, Indian position over Kashmir might look something like this:
“India had relinquished its sovereignty over the State of Jammu & Kashmir in 1948 but on second thought, has decided to continue to rule by force”.
India’s Double Standards
When right-wingers like Subramanian Swamy claim that India (Nehru) had long handed over Jammu & Kashmir to the United Nations, they are hailed patriots and few tears of self-pity are shed for being the “victims of Nehru’s incompetence”. Yet when an Umar Khalid or an Arundhati Roy makes the same claim and concludes Kashmir should be let free, sedition cases are slapped on them. Khalid and Roy are misguided by none other than likes of Swamy. The “patriotic” Indians need to understand that they are not innocent in this game.
Indians Don’t Understand How Their Own Government Works
Amit Shah, the second most powerful man in India had once again claimed that Kashmir Issue is unresolved because of Nehru and that Hyderabad was “respectfully” resolved because of Sardar Patel. This was the claim made by LK Advani, Venkaiah Naidu, Narendra Modi and many others. It is unfortunate that a Deputy Prime Minister, a Vice President and even the Prime Minister of India do not understand how Indian Government works! They seem to think that Nehru and Patel operated like two feudal lords, divided the country between themselves and ran two parallel governments in competition with one another. Did Advani run a parallel government when he worked under Vajpayee? Would Modi put up with Rajnath Singh if the later did so?
Once again, it would be wrong to blame just the BJP for this ignorance. Even the best-selling “historians” of our times don’t seem understand what really happened in 1940s and 50s. They portray Nehru and Patel as the only two people that mattered who were locked in a love-hate relationship. The millions of Satyagrahis, thousands of their leaders, Congress Working Committee, Provincial Governments, Constituent Assembly and other ministers of Nehru’s national government vanish without a trace in these narratives. They neither had any opinion nor did their opinions matter, according our “historians” like Ramachandra Guha.
No Prime Minister divides part of his country to keep under himself and lets his Home Minister manage the rest. Any claims of Nehru keeping Kashmir while Patel seizing rest of the Princely States or of Nehru taking care of Law and Order in the erstwhile British Administered Provinces while Patel taking care of Princely States are naive, ignorant and shameful!
Sardar Patel held both portfolios of Home Ministry and States Ministry, which means he was Home Minister to the entire country including Kashmir. But Patel worked under Prime Minister Nehru and hence Nehru had ultimate authority over all the Princely States as well as rest of India. Further, just like the case of Narendra Modi, Nehru too had rest of the portfolios like Finance, Defense, Education, Irrigation, Commerce etc. to supervise as well.
Nehru expected Sardar Patel to “respectfully” resolve Kashmir as well. But according Patel’s own trusted lieutenant VP Menon, Sardar Patel was overwhelmed and had no time for Kashmir to the point that he wanted to hand over Kashmir to Pakistan. So, Nehru appointed N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar as the minister for Kashmir before it was too late. Ayyangar knew lot more about Kashmir than Sardar Patel ever could. After Sardar Patel died in 1950, Ayyangar became the minister for all the Princely States. For likes of Amit Shah and Ramachandra Guha however, Ayyangar may not even be human let alone a minister of equal status to Patel. Hence they cannot even acknowledge Ayyangar.
Contradictions In India’s Many Claims
Kashmir is in India because of Nehru and Nehru alone. If Indians really believe Nehru committed a blunder and that Sardar Patel had the right idea, they should hand Kashmir over to Pakistan. That would certainly resolve the problem since it will then become Pakistan’s Problem. It will make Pakistan happy as well as many Kashmiris. This is completely within the control of Indian Parliament.
It is an unsettling fact that part of erstwhile kingdom of Jammu & Kashmir is in India, rest of it is with Pakistan while both the countries want it entirely. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself told the Indian Parliament that this is the real “Kashmir Problem”. While Modi’s claim that Sardar Patel could have occupied it entirely is unfounded and irrational, let us accept for a minute that Nehru was indeed incompetent. Where do we go from here? Why didn’t Modiji offer a solution to India’s greatest problem? It is obvious that Pakistan will not hand it over willingly. It is also obvious that Modiji’s new friend, the United Nations Security Council cannot win that territory for us. The only option is to launch invasion. Why was that not done in last 5 years? Why didn’t Vajpayee finish the job in 1999 during “Operation Vijay”? For how long will we blame long dead Nehru and cry over our supposed misfortune?
Let us assume that Nehru committed a blunder in 1948 and indeed handed Kashmir over to UN on a “platter”! That must mean that India willingly gave up its rights over Kashmir permanently. The young Kashmiri would not be wrong under this scenario to believe that India is legally and morally obligated to pack up bags and leave Kashmir! For him, the supposed politics of Nehru and Patel is irrelevant.
Ball Is In India’s Court
Blaming Pakistan is futile when the mischief is perpetrated by Indians themselves that too for entertainment purposes. Indians relentlessly undermine their own position in Kashmir with the hope discrediting Nehru and undercutting his legacy. When the separatists use the same arguments but draw a different inference and plans of action, Indians play victims and express shock and anger.
Soldiers and CRPF are just doing their jobs and going where they are told to go. They have no ideology and even if they do, it is irrelevant. They are trying to make a living and provide for the families that are dependent on them. They have been casualties of the cruel games played by us for sole purpose of dragging Jawaharlal Nehru through mud.