August 25, 2008	Monday	Sha'aban 22, 1429

Archives Write to Mr. Jawed Naqvi

MUCH like the famous butterfly of chaos theory, which flaps its wings in Brazil and sets off a tornado in Texas, the laws of dialectics posit that any two phenomena in the world are likely to be inter-linked. Arundhati Roy’s recent visit to Srinagar in its ongoing ferment thus coincided with the BBC covering Kashmir’s biggest peaceful uprising, quite possibly ever, from its studios in New Delhi.

We had seen BBC reporting Saudi Arabia from Bahrain for decades by a legitimate compulsion, that’s because the world’s staunchest pro-American kingdom had kept the iconic British news organisation at a safe distance. But Kashmir was a story at least since the 1990s that any bureau chief in Delhi or Islamabad would give their right arm to cover. So what had changed this time that the massive Friday congregation in Srinagar was reported from BBC’s Delhi bureau? Did that signal a waning interest in the Kashmir tragedy? Whatever a news agency may conclude, the story itself is not waning.

To continue with the butterfly-tornado linkages, Russian troops found themselves provoked into invading Georgia precisely when the Beijing Olympics were gaining steam. Now figure out the dialectics of that. To fortify more obscure linkages, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed for an emergency Nato meeting around the same time as the Indian Air Force marked a new phase in its defence ties with the United States and its allies. It showcased the skills of its fighter pilots against US and Nato air forces in a complex and advanced network-centric war games.

Ironically, India’s fleet of Russian-made Sukhoi-30s, IL-78 tankers and IL-76 aircraft, a legacy of the Soviet era, rubbed shoulders with F-15s and F-16s in what was described as the toughest test for flying machines and men. The venue was the Nevada desert. All this is poised to move closer home later this year when the United States navy will field its most-powerful warships led by the latest nuclear-powered super-carrier USS Ronald Reagan and nuclear submarine USS Springfield in a new range of war games in the Arabian Sea from Oct 15.

The exercises that are bound to evoke a sharp reaction among large sections of Indians, will see Indian and US warships in complex air-to-air, under-sea and warship-to-warship manoeuvres in the war games for 10 days. In another striking confluence of seemingly disparate events, the message could be quite the opposite. Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated in May 1991, had only months earlier protested against refuelling facilities given by the Chandrashekhar government to US planes engaged in the 1990 Gulf war. But that seems like another era.

In this complex skein of unrelated events, one of the patterns in the kaleidoscope betrays stark neo-colonial characteristics. It pertains to an ongoing tussle, as a Kashmiri wit told me, between Pakistan’s two main political leaders who reminded him of the great Premchand’s

Shatranj Ke Khiladi, the classic story of chess players. The story was set in colonial India when British troops were moving into Lucknow to depose the ruler of Awadh. Much of India was in ferment ahead of the 1857 uprising. But quite oblivious to the darkening clouds, two minor nawabs of Lucknow were locked in another duel to death over a game of chess. The neo-colonial imagery is palpable from Palestine and Iraq to Afghanistan and all the way to Bangladesh via Kashmir and rest of India.

Arundhati Roy’s eyewitness account of the mood in the Kashmir Valley hints at the dilemma confronting the masses in their upsurge against Indian rule. On the one hand the message to India is one of a subjugated people’s continued rejection of Delhi in their midst, be it in the form of troops, bunkers or concertina wires. Ay jabiro ay zalimo, Kashmir hamara chhod do (Oh oppressors, Oh tyrants, Get out of our Kashmir.)

On the other hand as the writer discovered, the anger does not necessarily translate into love for Pakistan. I would say part of the disenchantment relates to Premchand’s story of the chess players occupying Pakistan’s centre stage of late. In Roy’s words: “It would be a mistake to assume that the public expression of affection for Pakistan automatically translates into a desire to accede to Pakistan. Some of it has to do with gratitude for the support cynical or otherwise for what Kashmiris see as their freedom struggle, and the Indian state sees as a terrorist campaign. It also has to do with mischief. With saying and doing what galls India most of all.”

What could be more ironical than Pakistan’s self-absorption with an internecine tussle at a potentially crucial moment in Kashmir’s history?

One way of understanding the dialectics linking Kashmir and Afghanistan, or Kashmir and the Indian state of Chhatisgarh, or Chhatisgarh and Balochistan, would be to look for the most marginalised minorities, a heavy component being Dalits and tribes people whose habitat is under siege. Islam seems to be the common link from Balochistan to Kashmir, stitching together otherwise disparate peoples. So-called Maoists link vast swathes of Indian tribes and Dalits from southern Karnataka, through Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar, and all the way to eastern Uttar Pradesh. Another common thread linking them is the coming together of national entrepreneurs and multinational corporations to clear the habitat of the tribals and the Dalits or to exploit their usually mineral-rich natural resources, or by setting up dams that displace the local people. It’s a common story of the regions under assault today across South Asia.

Going by Arundhati Roy’s most recent book The Shape of the Beast, a collection of her conversations and interviews she would seem to represent yet another thread linking the turbulent regions of South Asia with those in the Middle East, Central Asia, the African continent and Latin America. Kashmir has been a recurring theme in most of her books. In an interview with P.G. Rasool in March 2006, included in the book, she says: “I hope Kashmir will be in all the books I write.”

Her latest account from last week’s visit to Srinagar has provoked a strong reaction from the ruling Congress and the main opposition BJP, both describing her as anti-national. This is not new. Her speech in 2005 on the International Day of the Disappeared drew similar vitriol from the media. Her response is contained in the chapter on Kashmir.

“I wish the fact that there are approximately 8,000-10,000 disappeared people in Kashmir would become a topic of hot discussion. Even notorious regimes like Pinochet’s Chile cannot boast such numbers.”

The question is: is anybody ready to see the dialectics that connects the current turmoil in Pakistan with the allegorical reference to Pinochet in the context of Kashmir? Let me give you a clue. It has to do with someone who poked his nose into the unexplained disappearance of far too many people.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com