भारत और हम

Here I am sitting in Geneva, writing about India and us. Ironic? Not the way I see it. I ask myself why I love my country because I'm not nationalist nor a patriot. In fact, the very concept of nationality is alien to me. That's what leads me to saying I simply love everything the world has to offer. I love India no more than I love many other countries in the world. I view humans as humans... individuals in control of their own circumstances. Nationalities are political boundaries drawn as territorial demarcations... mere instruments of governance emerging from the concentration of resources, cultural affinities etc. This makes us all humans... not Indians, Pakistanis, Germans, Mexicans, Russians, Albanians, Iranians, Israelis, Kenyans or Ethiopians. Going by this fairly lucid logic, we discover that people around the world are essentially the consequence of the same elements... Choices and circumstances. Hence, their personalities are a melange of situations resulting from the same fundamental drivers like pursuit of happiness, fear, courage and so on. Embarking on a detailed discussion of the redundancy of nationality and the innate irrationality of the concept of patriotism and nationalism is unnecessary since those who haven't already understood the essence of my point will not understand anything beyond it either.

So what do I imply by हम (us)? I speak about every single Indian from every single part of the nation and every single global citizen from every single corner of the world. However, owing to the political identity of being a sovereign nation, an identity to which the world's second largest population has agreed to, the responsibility for action is not the rest of the world's. Most of us already realize this ofcourse. However, for those who still think it is justified for a nation to live on the philanthropy of other nations... think again. Do these nations really deserve to exist? Shouldn't they be merged with another so as to justify their claim of sovereignty which is a claim emerging from the assumption that the nation has what it takes to keep its citizens happy and free.

What do I mean when I say free? That's a critical question. Amartya Sen made a critical observation when he drew a clear distinction between "freedom from" and "freedom to". Though portrayed as conflicting ideologies, I don't see where the conflict arises from. Freedom is essentially being free in every sense of the word, including being free to be free from! Actions resulting from exercise of this freedom are subject to, like all other actions, are subject to consequences. Understanding and embracing these consequences along with the actions and the root drivers leading to the action and every element of circumstance that provided the groundwork for this reality is total freedom.

Now consider those who claim, "I'm free to be free from starvation." If they say this as a statement of fact, it is completely valid, however if they state this as a demand from the rest of society, of which they are a part as well, they are infiltrating on another person's freedom. If the latter man were me, I would feel absolutely nothing for this person has chosen not to strive to beat his or her circumstances but chooses, instead, to place a demand on another's freedom. I'm free to refuse.

To put the concept of freedom further into perspective, I wrestled with the rationality of communism and came to one simple conclusion. It makes perfect sense subject to it being confined to those who want to be confined within it. I wouldn't call the ideology evil. It is built for a society of parasites and slaves giving them the upper hand over the "bourgeois" value creators.

I have yet to see a successful/pure communist nation or even a pure democratic nation. I choose to speak about India at the moment for no reason other than my intimate familiarity with its people, land, languages and culture. Patriotism as a sentiment is alien to me. That said, I'd like to enumerate certain fundamental flaws in our political, social, civil and religious/cultural fabric that will require to be amended if we are to be the land of the free. These, by no means, forms an exhaustive rendition. It is only some of the issues that are critical. I do not care about the burgeoning populations as much as I care about my own freedom in any society. It would be a fallacy to assume that all humans want to be free, so I do not indulge in that misconception. Instead, I am only interested that nobody steps on my toes...

Geo-political hypocrisy - Kashmir! Give them a referendum or quit calling India a democracy. For a detailed discussion on this, refer to my article on the "Kashmir Conundrum"

Socio-cultural fabric - It doesn't matter where you are from, the fundamentals of a human are the same. Caste-based discrimination within the country has taken a whole new dimension. Now it isn't the lower caste only that is suffering. All the ordinary citizens of the nation who don't come under the SC/ST/OBC category has to fight like dogs for everything from quality education to Government jobs while those who have the privilege of belonging to oppressed class grow by leaps and bounds with relative ease. This is an argument against affirmative action as a whole. Many would argue compassion. Forget compassion! Think about reason. What do these oppressed people need? Customized education and the tools to build competencies to compete in the modern world if they so wish to. In that case, it is rural development (Education and Entrpreneural development) that should be taking the upper pedestal in government policy. If any of you have traveled into a reasonable number of the villages of India you will witness the rubbish being taught at these schools and the inappropriate and ineffective development practices rampant across most of the sub-continent. Part of the reason of this problem is that these uneducated people don't realize the importance of a rational long-term approach. They can be easily made happy with affirmative action which fills the politician's vote banks and gives them greater control over larger parts of the country

Economic policy - "Protectionism," a term that most would associate with post-independence India where the Indian Industry suffered greatly under the shadow of the STC and Nehru's socialist approach to development. He was, not surprisingly, a great admirer of Stalin. Signs of this remained as a stick in the wheel if economic progress until P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh began opening up our economy in 1991. One of the sole bastions of regressive protectionism is the Retail Sector. Again, the fear for loss of voter support leads politicians to place huge barriers for entry of larger, more efficient retailers into India. Most cry out about claims for compassion in the face of dying local retail businesses. Do they deserve to die because they are not as efficient? Should they starve in the name of progress? I'll say only one thing to them. They deserve to live using their own creative and intellectual capabilities not by inhibiting those they consider superior in intelligence. That's a long story cut short ofcourse. The rabbit hole goes deeper than this and my conclusion at the end of it is right here.

Religion - My response to religious movements in India is mixed. I, by no means admire or respect religion in any form. However, I don't have any problems as long as the religious folk keep their religion to themselves. This has been the case in India for quite a while now. Unfortunately, the practice of religion has become quite a nuisance. What will you think of when I say fundamentalism? Terrorism? Al-Qaeda? I think of Evangelists, born-again Christians and the related lot. I see the growth of these little groups mainly as a response to contemporary Hindu and Muslim fundamentalism. The Christians must have been thinking... "Hey, it's been a while since the crusades, and now other religions seem to be getting ahead of us... Time to bring in the mind control and life control into Christianity!" The dangerous bit is that anything can be now justified using one of the hundreds of interpretations of the Bible or Quran or whatever ancient piece of vague, myopic, narrow-minded, regressive rubbish that most live by. Stay out of my way and I'll let you be. Cross my path and I declare war. It's simple. In India, this is a slowly growing phenomenon. Though the emphasis on blood-lines is still deeply entrenched, conversions are yet to take front seat in religious agenda. However, I do see this changing and it isn't for a brighter and more amiable future.

The Kashmir Conundrum

Kashmir – An area of conflict in South Asia that hasn’t seen peace, freedom and security for a very long while. After several hundred years of imperial rule, part of Kashmir became a part of the Secular, Democratic, Republic of India while the other part became a part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. A minute section of Kashmir is also occupied by China.

The History of the state is the key to understanding the basis of the Indo-Pak conflict and also offers the means for a peaceful resolution of the issue. The last ruler of Kashmir was Maharaja Hari Singh, a man who was despised predominantly by the Muslim population of Kashmir for his autocratic and anti-Islamic regime. It is Hari Singh who handed Kashmir over to the Government of India through a document of Accession which many claim he had no right to write in the first place by virtue of his lack of control over the Islamic rebel groups in his own kingdom.

This is where the feud between India and Pakistan began; over who had a claim over the territory of Kashmir. Pakistan chose to separate itself from India as a nation built for the Muslims because they felt marginalized in India. They claim Kashmir due to its Muslim majorities and India claimed Kashmir by virtue of the accession document signed by the Maharaja.

The real reasons are the strategic importance of the region in terms of Defense and Trade along with its abundant natural resources like water supply and the potential for agriculture. These reasons, along with a strong tendency towards power-play, are apparently sufficient for both countries to wage large scale conventional wars (1947, 1965 and 1971).

There are blatant human rights violations in the area coupled with a severe lack of development and employment opportunities that lead inevitably to large sections of the Kashmiri population living in conditions of fear, anger and squalor. They have not yet been given the right to exercise their will in this matter. This has led to the growth of various militant organizations in the region that oppose the oppression of the Indian Government. These “freedom fighters” are labeled terrorists by the Indian government justifying their military pressure over the entire civilian population in the area.

In 1947, when the Kashmir issue was first referred to the United Nations, India did not want to be at an equal footing with Pakistan while Pakistan was openly hostile towards the Indian Government. On 31^st December 1947, Nehru wrote to the UN Secretary-General:

“To remove the misconception that the Indian Government is using the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir to reap political profits, the Government of Indian wants to make it very clear that as soon as the raiders are driven out and normalcy is restored, the people of the state will freely decide their fate and that decision will be taken according to the universally accepted democratic means of Plebiscite or Referendum.”[1]

More than 50 years have gone by and the Kashmiris are still not acquainted with “normalcy”. They still have not had the (long overdue) plebiscite.

India’s stand was that, Kashmir was formally a part of India according to a legal agreement with the Maharaja to this effect and that any claim to any part of Kashmir by Pakistan is illegitimate.

Pakistan was of the opposite view where it felt that the Maharaja was driven out of his country by the people of Kashmir and that he had no authority to hand over the state which wasn’t under his control anyway. This nullifies any agreement made between the Government of India and the Maharaja.

Another dimension to this problem is the Pakistan sponsored jihad that was responsible for flushing out more than 2 lakh Kashmiri Pandits from the region ensuring a Muslim majority in case of a plebiscite. This endless muscle play by both India and Pakistan is obviously not going to lead to a sustainable solution. It is about time that we started considering a real solution.

The road ahead

The most pragmatic solution to this dispute comes from an unlikely source… Pakistan’s Military Dictator, General Pervez Musharraf. His commitment to humanitarian issues can definitely be questioned in the light of his ongoing feud with the rest of Pakistan for keeping power in an extremely undemocratic fashion. However, if one ignores the nature of the source of these suggestions, they are absolutely logical. The proposal included a four-point formula that addresses the key problems to this conundrum:

1. Demilitarization of the disputed area.

This would be done by both sides; India and Pakistan in tandem with a UN sponsored cease fire leaving room for organizing a plebiscite in the area.

2. Self Government.

Self-Government by the Kashmiris implies that both India and Pakistan will need to bring the Kashmiri interests to the table and add them to what has become a bilateral argument involving only Indian and Pakistani interests. Let the Kashmiris decide what they want.

3. Softening of existing borders.

The primary reason for the existence of hostilities amongst India and Pakistan is Kashmir. Once the region is divided according to the plebiscite, there will be no reason to have gargantuan armed forces regiments posted in the area leaving room for more productive interactions like trade and development. This can be achieved through creating, in phases, a permeable border amongst India and Pakistan.

4. International supervision and guarantee from the UN and major regional powers.

International supervision is necessary to ensure that both sides are operating in the interests of the people caught in the crossfire. The border drawn after the plebiscite and division of Kashmir will need to be recognized by the international community.

The plan is quite straight forward. However, implementing this plan is another challenge altogether with the primary obstacle being India’s unwillingness to give up territory. The Government of India will have to be convinced about its priorities. Territory comes after people. The people of Kashmir are suffering and are being driven into desperation. This could pose a serious law and order situation in India through the coming years with an increase in the already high levels of “terrorist” infiltrations across the country.

So put simply here is the solution I propose; i propose a referendum in the area. Follow it through in collaboration with Pakistan. The "terrorism" will subside. Draw an international boundary. Reduce expenditure on military. Divert these finds to Jammu and Ladakh redevelopment. Relocate the Kashmiri Pandits and print new maps. I am quite aware of the excruciating (almost intolerable) simplicity of this plan. The complications pour in when we start thinking about its implementation.

For starters, the Indian public also needs to be made aware of the situation that prevails in Kashmir today. The Government has skillfully kept this away from them through manipulation of the mainstream media. Demanding accountability and productive action from the Government of India should be the first step preceding international pressure through sanctions and power play. There is a severe dearth of objective, unbiased information about Kashmir. This will take a lot of courage from the Indian media… to stand up for what they were built to do; defend the truth.

I speak only of India because Pakistan is prepared to sit across the table and talk about trade-offs. India currently lacks the political will to do so. The people need to take up the initiative to push for political action.

This is an urgent situation that requires immediate remedial action before it exacerbates into uncontrollable dimensions. Let this be the last generation of children who grow up in Kashmir amidst the sounds of explosives and gunshots. Let this be a true test of the Indian democracy.

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Statutory warning: This article is purely my opinion and can be potentially undermined for the lack of primary data. I have not visited the region of conflict yet. The information that has led to the formation of my opinion has its origins in the data collected by NGOs, International organizations and publications on this issue. These have been largely neutral sources. I also attended a conference on the issue which was scathingly biased towards an independent Kashmir at all costs. There were a plethora of testimonials that corroborated the human rights violations as a result of Indian forces in the region. It was silent about the situation on the Pakistani side of Kashmir.

Now assuming that there are human rights violations happening on the Pakistani side as well (which is extremely likely as well), does that undermine my argument for a plebiscite or strengthen it? It does not take a very wise man to decide.

The conclusion and primary argument of my article is to hold a plebiscite and not to play a blame game. Most of the Indian readers who have criticized this argument profusely have done so on the premise that one cannot trust Pakistani action. India, in their opinion, has lost a lot of blood on this issue already. My question to this is whether that was necessary. Also, is the Indian blood all that matters? What about the Pakistanis and the "collateral damage"? Maybe they just deserved to die right.

The reason my country has drawn so much of my criticism is perhaps because it matters to me when their democratic stance seems like a facade that can be adorned depending on the circumstances. Also, I find it terribly inappropriate that the tax money of millions of citizens is spent on war supplies when the matter can be resolved through political will and action.

Yes, this might seem anti-Indian or outright heresy coming from an Indian. A splatter of rationality with a dash of detachment from nationalistic tendencies could straighten that perception out.

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[1] Jawaharlal Nehru, as quoted in Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, p. 98.