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FOCUS Regional Dialogue
ful till the mid-seventies, and was to the advantage of secular India in this only muslim state of the federal structure. This story is worth recapitulating to analyse the role of religion in the interstate, and intra-state, politics of the region with its multi-cultural, including multi-religious, diversities. In many ways, the communal transformation of the impeccably secular politics of J&K, and the secularization of the politics of East Pakistan leading to its secession to emerge as the secular state of Bangladesh – with some help from across the border from India – and, its subsequent relapse as an Islamic state are all comparable examples of the use of religion as an instrument of protest of alienated communities against mainstream politics, and policies of regimes within sovereign states with or without some crossborder support in a region where the post-colonial territorial borders of state sovereignty do not constitute insurmountable cultural barriers as in the Indian sub-continent. The case of J&K in this context is central to our present concerns. Historically, the liberation struggle in the region was directed both against British colonial rule, as also against its local feudal underpinning consisting of its king, the Pandit coterie of civil servants, and Dogra landowners, all Hindus in the Muslim-majority “Princely State”. Sheikh Abdullah, the region's only charismatic mass leader has had impeccable secular credentials who, despite his overwhelming muslim political base, opposed the partition of the sub-continent to create Pakistan,never allowed a communal clash in the valley when the rest of the country was in flames before the partition; did not allow the Muslim League or invited Jinnah to Kashmir, but invited Gandhi and Nehru to forge links with the Congress Party to pursue their shared
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anti-colonial and anti-feudal political agenda; dropped the “muslim” prefix from his political party of the Muslim National Conference in this muslimmajority state, at the cost of some resentment in the party; and, above all, launched his radical land reform programme based on his “Naya Kashmir” manifesto whose beneficiaries later spawned a new secular muslim middle-class in the valley. While his secular politics alienated Sheikh Abdullah from the Pakistani leadership, his anti-feudal agenda was despised by the king, his Pandit courtiers, and Dogra landowners largely located in Jammu. Paradoxically, it was the Hindu king who initially vacillated about joining India and went to Karachi to meet Jinnah who neither trusted the Hindu king nor the muslim mass leader of the region because of his secular politics and earlier opposition to the creation of Pakistan which, together, explains his decision attempting to militarily clinch the issue in 1947. Paradoxically again, it was Pakistan's military invasion that united the Hindu king, and its muslim mass leadership in favour of India. In this sense, the region's secular politics, in tandem with the contemporary Indian mainstream politics, that proved to be the major constraint against Pakistan's attempt to communalise the issue to its advantage. Again, in 1965, when Pakistan under Ayub Khan launched its “Operation Gibraltor” by para-dropping troops in civilian clothes before launching the actual war, it was the Kashmiri people –mostly Muslims – who identified the infiltrators and handed them over to the Indian Army. It was at this time that the first ever communal violence also suddenly emerged in the valley, allegedly, sparked off by the “theft” of some Prophet's relic which was later discovered. One of the heroes of the 1965 war who won the highest gallantry award of
Vol. 3, Issue 12
the Indian government was a Kashmiri Muslim.Later, while Jammu &Kashmir remained largely unaffected by the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, from all reports, sympathies of the Kashmiri Muslims lay with the East Bengalis' struggle for regional autonomy than with the Pakistani military rulers.This should not be surprising, since the people of J&K had the same aspiration for greater regional autonomy within the Indian federation. Yet, since then, much water has flown down the river Jhellum -- in which, according to Sheikh Abdullah, Muslims were not allowed to wash themselves – to transform the politics of J&K to a communal cauldron well before, and unrelated to, the global assertion of radical “Islamic Fundamentalism” and “global terrorism”; that is the sense in which the two are different, both in terms of their source and aspirations. Proximately, the communal transformation of the politics of J&K had more to do with the contemporary trends in Indian politics, particularly in the era after the National Emergency of 197577, marked by the political assertion of a wide ranging social revivalism, including Hindu nationalism,a quantum-leap in the level of criminalisation and corruption and, above all, a phenomenal escalation in the level of social and political violence along with increased state-repression. Predictably, as an integral part of the Indian federation, these phenomena also manifested themselves in the politics of the J&K. But, cumulatively, they provided the political base in the region increasingly receptive to Pakistan's persistent attempts to communalise its politics, to its advantage. It was only in the general elections of 1977 after the National Emergency that for the first time in the J&K five Jamaate-Islami candidates were elected to
Epilogue, December 2009