Arshia Malik
I had long concluded that people who are victims of abuse or exploitation inevitably end up becoming abusers or exploiters themselves. The psychology behind this is that the traumatizing and stressful conditions are so normal for them, that anything other than that feels uncomfortable and they tend to lean towards the familiar old, abusive surroundings thus turning against the weaker sections. This was further confirmed in Paulo Freire’s 1970 book, ”Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, incidentally dedicated to ”the oppressed”, when he explored the relation between what he calls ”the colonizer” and the ”colonized”. Examining how the balance of power between the colonizer, and the colonized remains relatively stable, Freire admits that the powerless in society can be frightened of freedom. He further explains that freedom will be the result of praxis – informed action – when a balance between theory and practice is achieved.
I have a pinned map of the former kingdom of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh on my study wall. It helps me keep a bird’s eye perspective on how the region is spread between three countries and the newly formed districts (initially 6 in each division of Jammu and Kashmir and 2 in Ladakh) increased now to 10 each. Many people in their mindsets clearly demarcate the region into Valley Muslims, POK, Hindu Jammu and Buddhist Ladakh. It is not as simple. There are overlapping identities which people either choose to forget or deliberately paint over depending on their intention. So the Kashmir Valley Pandits are conveniently forgotten as migrants or displaced; the Kashmiri Sikhs dismissed as a quiet minority which doesn’t like to rock the boat; the Jammu Muslims not quite integrated into the mainstream with ghettos of their own and the Ladakhi Shias or Sunnis disconnected from reality.
This Kashmir Valley imperialism or as I like to call it ”fascist colonization of pluralism” is evident in the separatist movement spear-headed by the Hurriyat when they sell the utopia of a ”Greater Kashmir” to nearly every district in the state. The tools for popularizing this construct are a rigid and inflexible form of Islam called Wahhabism or Salafism in which they invoke the fascist totalitarian concept of the hapless Kashmiri ”Ummah” being occupied by ”Hindu Endia”. It doesn’t bother them that the Jammu population is perfectly happy being with India (Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians Pandits, and other denominations). They deny the fact that Ladakh and its respective districts are proud patriots or nationalists as any other Indian across the length and breadth of the country and are immensely modest about their contribution in the defeat of Pakistan in the Kargil War. In addition to that, they manufacture consent for the construct of ”azadi” by silencing dissenters not in support of it through intimidation, coercion, open and veiled threats (more than enough in South Asia to frighten a person) or as a last resort sending ”an unidentified gunman” to give the intended message of the 90s slogan – ”raliv, chaliv, ya galiv” – ”agree, run or get killed!
26 years later, with an entire new Kashmir Valley generation getting exposed to the construct of ”azadi”, it boggles the mind that an entire intellectual brigade comprising of the elite Leftists, professors with tenure, permanent PhDs and opinion makers do not see the geopolitics of the region and a failed rogue neighbourly state or its import of Wahhabi version of Islam to Sufi Kashmir. That this careerist civil society chooses to ignore the reality of the UN Resolutions which it nonchalantly parades around (the first condition is Pakistan has to vacate the land it occupied in successive wars and secondly, the other ”recommendations” are not binding on India) makes one examine the ulterior motives behind these Indians masquerading as Civil Society and professing ”bleeding hearts” for the hapless Kashmiris.
My obvious question is – Don’t you see their colonization of districts and other parts of the state with this foolish objective, having plunged nearly one lakh youth towards their deaths and now gearing up to keep another generation illiterate, uneducated and underexposed to realities outside the Banihal tunnel. This Islamo-fascism of a few elite Sunni upper class ”imperialists” has been responsible for the blood, mayhem and displacement of almost three decades in collaboration with cross-border Non-Resident Kashmiris who have set up base in Western countries and peddle the fabricated ”occupation” in Western liberal Universities.
It is time to subvert the construct of this ”azadi” because now the third generation is getting radicalized and very soon they too will have imperialistic ambitions for Jammu and Ladakh too. I don’t know if the Kashmir imbroglio will ever get solved, having by now understood that the State too has its own interest in keeping the conflict industry going. But one thing is for sure, if the civilizational war, that is knocking on the doorsteps of South Asia, is to be won, it will be won by the dissenters of the construct of ”azadi” and by those who risk their lives and those of their families’ by resisting the ”occupation” of the separatists.
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