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| Another conference on Kashmir, another attack on India | | Things Going Out of Hand | | RUSTAM
JAMMU, June 20: One more anti-India seminar on Kashmir in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. One more attack on the Indian state. One more concerted attempt at vitiating religio-political environment in Jammu & Kashmir. One more attempt at hiding the facts and suppressing the truth that the trouble in Kashmir is the brainchild of the communalists and well-entrenched section of Kashmiri society.
The case in point is the two-day international conference on Kashmir, organized jointly by the Sajid Iqbal Foundation and India-Australia Institute, which is headed by former Jammu University Vice-Chancellor Amitabh Mattoo. The seminar was organized on June 18 and 19 at Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC), Srinagar. The conference was organized in memory of Sajid Iqbal, the only son of Iqbal Khandey, IAS, who met with an accident last year and lost his life at a very young age. Interestingly, some of
the participants in this conference and another seminar that was held on June 17 and 18 were common.
Some of those who addressed the conference included Nyla Ali Khan, Sheikh Abdullah's grand daughter; Gul Mohammad Wani, Kashmir University's political science teacher; Lutz Oette, lecturer at the School of Law, SOAS, University of London; Anwesha Ray, A Delhi-based "researcher"; Gous-un-Nissa Jeelani, former district and sessions judge; Dr A H Wani, a senior faculty member, Kashmir University and Dr Mirza Ashraf Beg.
What did these participants reportedly say? Nyla Ali Khan, who is visiting professor at the University of Okhlama and former professor at the University of Nebraska, United States, took on the political establishment and spoke against the AFSPA. She lamented: "Militarized intervention in Kashmir is being followed by militarized peace-making because State-Central and elitist national security models are not being challenged". She also said: "Imposition of draconian AFSPA in the state was a political decision", "its revocation should be a political decision" and the "military (should have no say in the decision to revoke this Act". Her message was as clear as the message of chairman commission for minorities Wajahat Habibullah.
Gous-un-Nissa Jeelani said that "the central forces operating in Jammu & Kashmir are enjoying immunity due to continuance of the AFSPA. Forces are not brought to the book despite having sufficient evidence against them due to imposition of AFSPA…Families of victims face difficulty in getting FIRs registered against the culprits of human rights abuses…Judicial as well as commissions of inquiries have limited scope vis-à-vis delivery of justice to victims". What she said could be construed as a blistering attack both on the state government and the central government. There was no fundamental difference between what Nyla Ali Khan said and what Jeelani said.
Gul Mohammad Wani said: "Native and indigenous models of conflict resolution can be considered in changing Indo-Pak relations. High voltage geo-politics means that the importance of the people is lost…We need to overcome the baggage of history…People of India are also the stakeholders in the resolution process". He appeared somewhat rational, notwithstanding his known stand on Kashmir. He is a bitter critic of the Indian laws.
Lutz Oette said: "International standards are very clear about torture and disappearances…An investigation should be thorough and impartial from any allegation…Now transitional justice has a variety of contexts. But Kashmir has transited from an armed conflict to an uneasy peace". Mirza Ashraf Beg advocated the need for "a thorough probe into all kinds of human rights abuses" so that "the truth is unraveled". Both said almost the same thing and what they said really matched with what the two women said while reflecting on the human rights situation and acts like AFSPA.
Anwesha Ray said: "The years, 2008, 2009 and 2010, were landmark in the sense that hordes of youth took to street protests, which was definite and observable change in Kashmir history…This transition from grenade to stone needed to be understood to see if aspirations are changing…The denial of political and democratic space, along with blatant manipulation of electoral process fuelled violence in the Valley in 1989". This lady was partly right and partly wrong. She was right when she talked about the subversion of democratic processes. She was also right when she opined that it was the subversion of the electoral processes that culminated in violent struggle in Kashmir Valley. But she committed an act of academic dishonesty when she did not refer to the forces which gave birth to the cult of stone-pelting at security forces, Army, police and the bunkers. She described the period from 2008 to 2010 as "landmark" and this description should clear all cobwebs of confusion and establish that she is under the baneful influence of the communal forces in the state.
There was also an "answer and suggestion session". One of the participants, like Gul Mohammad Wani, also admitted that "Indian people are stakeholders in conflict resolution as regards Kashmir issue in the sense it is their budget which is being spent in Siachen or other battlefields" and that it is the people of Indian who can force Government of India to think". "The onus lies with people of India," he said. His was a very canny suggestion. Ashiq Peerzada, who is working with a national daily, contested the conclusions of Anwesha Ray and asserted that "people of India are not clear about the idea of India". He made this suggestion while countering Ray's conclusion that "people of Kashmir don't have a clear-cut idea about Azadi". Another participant pooh-poohed Gul Mohammad Wani's suggestion that "indigenous models of conflict resolution can be tried" and said "in any freedom struggle, one should not deviate from the basic goal. As far as the indigenous models are concerned, one has seen the fate of the National Conference's autonomy resolution or fate of self-rule formula". Yet another person from the audience predicted an "armed struggle" and underlined the need for adopting an approach that "takes into account the historical perspective of the Kashmir dispute". It is clear that this person was as indoctrinated and biased as others in the conference were.
The fact is that all the speakers talked of a solution that would be of Kashmir, for Kashmir and by Kashmir and that would further render Jammu and Ladakh irrelevant.
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