SAFMA's face to face with realisation
Men, Matters & Memories

By M L Kotru

Interesting indeed it was for me to be able to attend some of the sessions of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) over the week-end. The three-day session spilled over to Monday. The most remarkable thing was to see journalists from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, each in his own way, trying to act as a bridge builder in an area riven by disputes.

SAFMA by itself is an innovative phenomenon which provides a platform for journalists from the region to discuss issues face to face. It is obvious the success or failure of the nascent institution will depend on how straight and honest the participants are in stating their positions and also on how strong is their commitment to the cause of building permanent bridges.

During the discussions in New Delhi one was glad to notice the seriousness which a majority of participants tried to bring to their discussions. It is a pity though that the discussions for the most part remained unreported by the capitals's media, bar one or two exceptions and with at least one paper deciding to yield a few inches of space to the deliberations for two days. A reflection perhaps of the fact, as stated at one of the sessions by Arun Shourie, that Indian papers, unlike in the past, are now known by the name of their owners and not, as in the past, by the names of their Editors. If this be the case in India, it should not be difficult to imagine the media scene in the neighbourhood. Yet, one does not have to go whole hog with Shourie. The journalist community can still influence decision-making in a manner that no prorietor or proprietor's body can.

Polemcis aside, the most interesting aspect of the SAFMA regional conference was that it enabled the large Pakistani contingent to score a first as it were after 1947. It made them the first Pak journalists to visit Jammu and Kashmir after the partition. This by itself was a significant achievement, one that needs to be persisted with on both sides of the border. The Pakistani scribes returned to Delhi a happier and somewhat sober lot, to end their visit with three days of speechifying at New Delhi's Ashoka Hotel.

For one thing, they were face to face with the realization that most Kashmiri Muslims they interacted with were not particularly in favour of acceding to Pakistan. Almost everyone, except hardened separatists like Syed Ali Shah Geelani and his ilk, wanted to join Pakistan. There were some tough encounters as well, one at least that witnessed a bizarre display of bad manners by the host at their meeting with the irascible JKLF leader, Yaseen Malik in Srinagar. This man has over the years come to think of himself as the ultimate martyr to the cause of Kashmiri Muslims' emancipation. Characteristically he chose to question the Pakistani's integrity ''and their indifference to the sufferings of Kashmiri Muslims''. A woman member of the Pak delegation ticked him off for his insolence and the JKLF leader was also reminded of the opulence he was surrounded by.

Bar this incident and another on their visit to the Kashmir University, the visiting journalists obviously had a professionally rewarding experience. Apart from the overwhelming support for 'Azadi' which the visitors ''discovered'', the only major pro-India presentation was the one made by the National Conference and, of course, by the Congress Party.

An ''eye-opener'', one which obviously did not open all Pakistani eyes, was the presentation made on behalf of the Kashmiri Pandit migrants in Jammu. A senior Pakistani journalist told me later that he was totally unaware of this aspect of the problem. The very articulate and persistent Dr Ajay Chrangoo of Panun Kashmir, insisted on the visitors having a session with migrants; he later joined the journalists in New Delhi where he once again took up the cudgles on behalf of the displaced Pandits. Not that there were many takers for his views among the Pakistanis but that never deterred him.

Talking to another Pak journalist on the last day of the conference I was astonished when he told me that Kashmir was essentially a Muslim problem. Pakistan was not concerned about demographics it just wanted that all Muslim majority areas come to it. Which brings one to the point raised in another conversation on the sidelines. Why wasn't Pakistan addressing the problem of cross-border terrorism? Why did it allow training camps, run by seemingly banned fundamentalist outfits, to operate in areas under its control ? Wouldn't CBMs, like the proposed opening of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad or Jammu-Sialkot roads, be rendered pointless in a situation wherein Pakistan is unwilling to call the militants to order ?

The most ''positive'' response one heard was that ''having seen with my eyes, and having heard with my own ears, Pakistani intervention in an 'Azad' Valley may not at all be necessary; an 'azad' valley will work out its own future.'' Which in other words represents the view endorsed by some track-twoers that the solution lies in Pakistan keeping what it has, India retaining Jammu and Ladakh and the valley getting independence. Another Pak visitor whispered 'azadi' is what all Muslims leaders seemed to want. ''You know'', he confideds, ''even the odd leader from the National Conference and the PDP, whom we met, favoured independence.. but that was said strictly on a 'between - you- and me' basis''.

This longing for freedom from both India and Pakistan, he admitted, was a revelation. It changes the whole perspective and the people of Pakistan must be informed of it, he said. If only for the sake of this part of the revelation having got across, the Pak journalists' visit to Kashmir may have been worth their while.

There was no point in expecting them to seriously consider the possible consequences of a ''Muslim Kashmir'' seceding from the Indian Union for the future of the world's second largest Muslim population living in India. Salman Khurshid, the Congress leader, raised the question in the open session of the conference. It went unanswered except for some protests by a few Pakistanis. Which reminds me of the answer provided to the same question many years ago by Gen Ziaul Haq's Foreign Minister, Gen. Yaqub Ali Khan at a background briefing at the Pakistan High Commissioner's house in New Delhi. Said he : ''I have great confidence in the magnanimity of the great Indian people. They surely won't dump the Muslim population into the Arabian Sea''. Have the cake, will eat it too.

Odd solution and evened men! ……
Yours Randomly,

By Dr. R. L. Bhat

A tale is told of a blind man walking of a dark night, with a lighted lamp in hand. A ‘wise’ one laughed at his folly and asked, "Night and day are all the same to you. What do you need this lamp for?" The blind man replied earnestly, "It is not for me; it is for thee lest you stumble against me". It is instructive to remember this tale when talking of the visit of Pak journos and its after math. It may be that the visiting team did take back some impressions. They may even have chanced upon an eye-opener or two. But the great question is whether the ‘wise-ones’ on this side have seen some light from the lamps that shone all along. Many people have asked how many of our journalists would have the gumption to tell to the face of the ‘elected’ government installed in PoK that it was an illegal entity, that they did not recognize as the leader of the visiting delegation told the deputy chief minister after he had gone to great lengths welcoming them and swearing peace and amity.

Nor did the people attending the ‘welcomes’ miss the tell-tale docility of the many ‘fire-brand’ ideologues who quietly chanted the bhai-bhai mantra when in the ‘august presence’ of the Pak journos. To say that they were looking for visas, visits and invites is to stoop to petty levels. They as well as others know that the visas and visits are arranged not gotten; they also know which wires to pull for that purpose. For, they are doing it all the time! So why do the firebrands go mum when necessary corrections are to be put in place? That is one odd question that would never be answered straight away. The other question could well be what Geelani meant by calling his ‘only’ solution ‘one odd’ solution. Did he realize that his Pak-solution evoked odd looks in the Pak establishment, or that he was the odd man in the jungle of Kashmir politics where all opinions flourished evenly? There Omar paid put to all points of fundamentalist Geelani saying that they promoted only his own cause. But that does not tell what ‘all Kashmiris’ supported in 1990-94 when Kashmir had been flooded with terrorists of all hues. It was not the third option, the second but the first thing that Geelani has been saying all these years.

Probably, it is not what impression the Pak journos took back with them but what lessons the Indian journos have learnt from it all. Onkar Singh of the Kashmir Bar may be an odd man, yet it would be important to reckon how many odd men and women around keep prattling principles and theories that have nothing to do with realities of the case or solving the problem or anything. They are pushing forth personal cause, promoting private interests and making useful noises all around. Sometimes they support the good sense; at other times they make the strategic points to make a more effective pitch. All these are at variance with what is mouthed privately in the security of bars and chambers. Rarely are the public posture and the private position reconciled. Often they are not even asked to be reconciled. The powers and promoters are content to project lines suited to the occasion without caring what that ultimately means in the long term. In the long term, as Keynes said in an economic context, all are dead. But nations live and are condemned to carry the burden of these indiscretions. Centuries are punished for the wrongs of moments in consequences and corollaries. Indeterminate masses pay for the definite gains of individuals and persons. And, often go unredeemed.

It was left to the displaced of Kashmir living in the camps around Jammu to connect the salient support and approval of the Pak media men to the turmoil and turbulence in the valley and the state. It was the representative of the Pak refugees to reiterate that the Pak occupation of parts of the state since independence is what the dispute in Kashmir is all about. Neither the rebuffed deputy chief minister nor the committed ideologues raised one voice that would have irked the smooth conduct of the ‘tour’. The Indian point, the Indian case was conspicuously given the slip by the people who represented this nation and people. It is would not be amiss to recall that historic hand-shake between Rajiv and Farooq in the city Parade Ground in the winter of 1987. Farooq took Rajiv’s hand and announced that he the Muslaman of Kashmir joined hands with the Hindu of India to seal a solution of Kashmir. Rajiv gave him his reluctant hand but muttered that he was not a Hindu of India. Few Indians are ready to acknowledge in exchanges of this sort that they are Indians or that they stand for Indian case and cause.

Politicos fight shy of saying that they support the stand of their nation; editors get visibly irritated at the mention of Indian case and analysts are at pains to show that they are more concerned with understanding the other side than putting forth their position. A Laloo posits Jinnah as an icon of Indian nation and compares the Bombay blast criminals with the accused of the ephemeral Jinnah murder case. Of course, others have been doing it for more viciously. Indian establishment has un-written Iqbal’s address to Allahabad session of Muslim League, where he had demanded a separate Muslim nation for the first time, out of the history books and public memory. Had Pakistan done so, it would have been understandable. No nation wants to carry such a crass blemish. Yet she is at pains to emphasize it while Indians want, not to forget it but, to un-write it, denying that it ever happened. Indians also want to un-write Pak aggression, Pak occupation, Pak position and posturing. It is left to the people who have suffered pointed wrongs - like Pandits exiled from Kashmir, like Refugees ousted from the PoK - to reiterate these positions and raise the prickly points. Often, they go unheard as the all-seeing, all-wise keep stumbling against the blind post. Knowingly. Willingly. Pray, why?