W Habibullah was senior IFS officer who specialized in Kashmir affairs.
A TALL ORDER
My Kashmir: The Dying of the Light By Wajahat Habibullah, Penguin, Rs 499
Wajahat Habibullah began his lifelong affair with Kashmir while travelling to the valley with a busload of Bengali tourists. He wants his readers to gauge the splendour of the valley from the fact that its first sight was enough for the raucous crowd to instantly fall silent. Unlike his companions in their ubiquitous monkey-caps and shawls, Habibullah had the opportunity to see many more shades of the beauty and the darkness of the valley. He was posted in the valley in three phases as a civil servant, and was required to visit it often in the capacity of an advisor to the Central government and other institutions. His first-hand experience as an administrator, the friendships that he formed there, and his love for the people of this troubled land inform this rare piece of scholarship.
Habibullah insists that it is not so much Partition and the accession issue as Kashmir’s lived experience as part of the Indian nation that has complicated the problem. What has made this experience bitter is India’s misplaced assumption that the Muslim-majority population of Kashmir would automatically veer towards Pakistan. This perception stems not only from India’s lack of understanding of Kashmir’s inclusive form of Islam but also from its flawed reading of history. Habibullah argues that the Kashmiris were undoubtedly a religious people, but they could not have been entirely comfortable in a nation formed under the leadership of Punjabis, who had been their oppressors since the time of Sikh rule. It was Kashmir’s middle class, not the vast Muslim peasantry, who rooted for Pakistan.
{Is this really true? Does anyone deny the 1953 Abdullah's dalliance with foreign powers? And just because he is Muslim does that condone treachery? WH is right that KAshmiri peasants are more looking at Dilli then Silamabad. Time and again TSP troops were unable to find shelter in the hills and vale of kashmir since 1965 war. However the urban kashmiris brought up on GOI largesse are not the same. They are driven by ummah idelogoy.}[/url]
When Habibullah joined service in Kashmir in the 1960s, the valley was moving closer to India. It had taken time to overcome the shock of the dismissal of the Sheikh Abdullah government in 1953 on suspicion of planning a secession. The valley seemed eager to respond to India’s attempt to bring administrative conformity. In a few years, however, the initiative was lost. India’s dependence on a corrupt elite to run its writ, the denial of basic rights to the Kashmiris, and a persistent suspicion of Kashmiri intentions grounded the momentum.
{The corrupt elite were also kashmiris and not any outsiders. So whats teh real story here? The corrupt elite were Sheikh Abdullah's brother in law and his coterie. Is the real story about the SA being replaced by his brother in law? Right now Omar Abduallh is invovled in a party worker dying while present at govt house!}
As a cog in a gigantic machinery geared to retain power, Habibullah watched in horror as peasants were strip-searched, people were woken up and arrested and youths roughed up for no reason, while the henchmen of the local politicians were allowed to go scot-free. As a returning officer in Srinagar, in his second posting in Kashmir during the watershed 1977 elections that brought Sheikh Abdullah back to power, Habibullah saw a manipulative State machinery in full swing. A way was always found to hoist a friendly government to the chair in Jammu and Kashmir.
Despite the criticism lobbed at officers with a straight back, men like Habibullah never lost an opportunity to make a difference. Habibullah guesses that his success in persuading a victim of a massacre to accept compensation helped bridge the gap between the people and a discredited government. His dogged persuasion also helped break the Hazratbal impasse in 1993. Habibullah’s retelling of his success stories, which often sounds as if he is blowing his own trumpet, is intended to show that a sincere effort to reach out is never rebuffed. He almost pleads for such efforts to be made since time is fast running out for the state.
{What is the hurry right now? As far as other India knows Kashmir gets a lot of funds sent to it from Centre yet still claims discrimination. So again whats the real story?}
Habibullah fears that a radical, exclusivist Islam is taking over the people’s movement in the valley. The trend was evident in the insurgency of the 1990s, when terror groups, sponsored by Pakistan, sidelined the secular insurgent groups such as the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. Habibullah senses the spread of Wahabi Islam and sees its portentous shadow in the apparently rudderless stone-throwing skirmishes of recent times. He stridently calls for greater engagement with Kashmiri society, particularly with the long-ignored Hurriyat leadership, which, he insists, is separatist only in perception. This leadership, save a few exceptions, is not averse to finding a solution within India’s borders. India needs to engage the separatists in a comprehensive dialogue with the people and even allow them to interact with Pakistan because, Habibullah says, the Hurriyat leadership believes that it is impossible to leave Pakistan out of the equation. Although leaving Pakistan out may not be an option, Habibullah seems to have too much faith in Pakistan’s understanding of the changing contours of the problems and preferences of the people, who no longer wish to be with Pakistan. Pakistan has undoubtedly shown its willingness to compromise time and again, but when push comes to shove, can it be trusted to abide by the “will of the people”, ignoring the call of realpolitik?
{Hurriyat is US creation and waxes and wanes as US decides to get Dilli to kowtow. So no chance of Hurriyat getting involved until US decides they are not relevant.}
Habibullah acknowledges that Kashmir is trapped between Pakistan’s search for identity and India’s sense of nationhood, and that the contesting sovereignties make a resolution difficult. To overcome the stalemate, he suggests a host of measures — from encouraging America to play the role of mediator to opening up the borders with Pakistan,
{He does not give examples yet makes the same assertions that the seapratists are making.}
All this is a tall order. The crisis in leadership, to which Teresita Schaffer refers in her foreword to the book, is going to make things even more difficult. India, Pakistan and Kashmir lack the towering personality of a Sheikh Abdullah or a Nehru to push these measures through. Schaffer suggests that Habibullah treads on this problem lightly. Perhaps not. It just gets lost in the epic tale that he tries to weave together with his own experiences.
CHIROSREE BASU
First of all Teresita Schaffer is not a disinterested scholar. She is a US govt adviser! Its her buddies that sustain Hurryiat. her advice is to make Hurriyat a relevant US tool to exert pressure on India.
Thank god there is no tall leader otherwise by now poor Kashmiris would ahve been murdered in TSP just liek the Baloch, Pashuns and Sindhis!
Mr Habibullah is not seeing things clearly in Indian interests nor even kashmirifolks interest.
As we see TSP disintegrating its unconsionable to advocate throwing the Kashmiries into their lap as a sacrifice for Indan "stability".
Neither the US nor Schaffer will be there to reap the sad whirlwind when it comes.
