Daily Times

The book ‘Spy Chronicles’ by former Chief of the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Asad Durrani, and former Chief of the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) AS Dulat is a quick read but not very fascinating.

Despite the controversy around it, Intelligence communities cannot replace the hype from grassroots politics.

The book reinforced my belief that there is a lack of sincerity and political will on both sides of the border to resolve the issue. One of the biggest challenges to the evolution of indigenous politics that exists within Indian-administered Kashmir as well as Pakistani-administered Kashmir is that in order to gain legitimacy any political actor must enjoy the support and blessings of the establishment. So a mainstream political actor, in order to be successful in Jammu and Kashmir requires the patronage of the government of India. Separatist politicians in Jammu and Kashmir would require the patronage of the government of Pakistan and the military of Pakistan.

In the Kashmir on the Pakistani side, no political actor is eligible to run for office unless he or she enjoys the patronage of the Pakistani military and the deep state or high-level elements within the intelligence services.

At the risk of sounding cynical, have Track-II discussions, which Durrani and Dulat have been participating in various parts of the world, been more than jaunts?

The depoliticisation of the indigenous political space and criminalisation of dissident politics on both sides of the border, which the intelligence agencies of both countries are responsible for, is particularly troubling and has led to the brutalisation of Kashmiri society. When excesses, whether military, religious, or political, are not curbed, they have long-term damaging effects. And when religion and politics are conflated, mass movements suffer from a lack of clarity and cannot be integrated with the resuscitation of progressive politics.

The onus lies on those who claim to lead the political movement for autonomy and self-determination in Kashmir to separate religion and politics and to present this movement in a more ecumenical form which world activists would like to take forward, without any allegation being leveled against them, by the fundamentalists who are rearing their ugly heads over the world.

My oft-repeated observation, for which I have received flak from certain quarters, is that India and Pakistan have been using Kashmir as a bargaining chip. A lot of Kashmiris raise the slogan of self-determination or plebiscite with sincerity, but for a lot of people in Kashmir — military officials, political actors, mainstream as well as separatists, military and bureaucratic officials — the slogan of self-determination or plebiscite has simply become rhetorical.

There is a lack of sincerity and political will on both sides of the border to resolve the issue

There are times when India gets belligerent and categorically tells Pakistan that it needs to vacate and demilitarise the portion of Kashmir that it holds, and ensure human rights and liberties to Kashmiris on its side of the border. Pakistan responds just as aggressively and screams itself hoarse about the Kashmiri people’s right of self-determination, and then both countries, whenever there is a spell of camaraderie puts the plight of Jammu and Kashmir on the back burner, which the two spymasters admit.

A political movement that pays insufficient attention to the emergence of peace, political liberty, socioeconomic reconstruction, and egalitarian democratisation, good governance, and resuscitating democratic institutions ends up leaving irreparable destruction in its wake.

A mainstream movement or a militant nationalist movement that lacks such a vision becomes hamstrung and feckless. Such a movement must have the foresight to pay attention to whether the legislation and execution of political, socio-economic policies and programs in contemporary Kashmir is successfully addressing women’s as well as men’s experiences and concerns. Religious and political rhetoric remains simply rhetorical without a stable and representative government.

The redress of wider political, socioeconomic, and democratic issues in Kashmir requires reconceptualising the relationship between political actors and civil society actors. There is a large section of the populace of Jammu and Kashmir that is still ecumenical; a large section of the populace that would still veer away from the forces of radicalisation or any kind of monoculture identity.

I observed in my book Islam Women and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan that the Simla Agreement, ratified in 1972 by then Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi soon after the 1971 war, gave legitimacy to the bilateral nature of the Kashmir issue; entrenched the cease-fire Line of Control (LOC); validated the UN charter as governing relations between the two countries; and agreed to reaching a final settlement of the disputed area in the former princely state of J & K.

The common perception in India was that by ratifying the Simla Agreement, Pakistan had tacitly acknowledged the Indian Union’s claim over the state. This perception in politically influential circles in India and Pakistan seemed to give a much yearned after legitimacy to India’s centrist policies. Democracy, however, promises curative treatment as opposed to mere palliative treatment, and citizens continue to hope for the restoration self-determination, rule of law, a solution-oriented revival of internal political dialogue, and accommodation of diverse ideological and political leaning identities within a secularist framework, creating new openings for people, to discuss public issues and become active participants. The aims of that process should be repair of the frayed ethnic fabric in all parts of the State, not just meeting between heads of elitist intelligence communities.

I have emphasised in my various publications in academic and popular forums that insisting on the rigidity of one’s stance which doesn’t allow political accommodation encourages the malignant uncertainty, which helps in the institutionalisation of corruption, and opportunists. The increasing political paralysis helps India and Pakistan to maintain the status quo, which works in the interests of some of the actors, state as well as non-state, on both sides of the LOC.

In trying to espouse anti-establishment positions, some of us tend to ignore the dangers of obscurantism and the growth of a conflict economy, in which both the Indian and Pakistani state, are heavily invested. The espousal of violence as the means to redress political injustice and socioeconomic inequities will not bring the ship into harbor. Violence has always been a Frankenstein monster that ends up destroying those who rationalise and romanticise it.

I would have liked to see a more nuanced analysis of Kashmir, particularly by Dulat, and a recognition that while the human rights of ordinary civilians have been violated by the military as well as by militants, it is important to recognise that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is a “potential infringement of the right to life.” The introduction of other severe laws by the Government of India has made it further non-obligatory to provide for any measure of accountability in the military and political proceedings in the state. These laws should be reevaluated, and AFSPA should be revoked in order to truly reinstate democracy in J & K.

At a time of political and social upheaval in the state, Kashmir requires the revival of a politics that engenders a consciousness of place, territory, and culture that offers a critical perspective from which to formulate alternatives to ultra-right-wing nationalist discourses. The concept of a syncretic identity or ‘Kashmiriyat’ can be effectively employed to name a cultural alterity through the nation, and create a situation in which India and Pakistan are forced to confront an alternative epistemology.

Jammu and Kashmir is a conglomerate in which regional, communal, and ethnic divides have been exacerbated in the wake of the recent Assembly elections in the state. My primary interest is to ensure that future generations of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir do not forget, which is why I emphasise that these seemingly unbridgeable chasms underline the need for interdisciplinary academic interventions that seek to bridge the divide between the three parts of the state as well as explore historical linkages with parts of the state in Pakistan.

The writer is the author of Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism, Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir, The Life of a Kashmiri Woman, and the editor of The Parchment of Kashmir. Nyla Ali Khan has also served as guest editor working on articles from the Jammu and Kashmir region for Oxford University Press (New York), helping to identify, commission, and review articles. She can be reached at nylakhan@aol.com

Published in Daily Times, June 11^th 2018.