TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
If wishes were horses, donkeys would ride, goes the age-old adage. And to paraphrase, if battles and wars could be won over maps drawn on sheets of paper, then the history of world would have been different….Hitler would not have fallen before the might of Allied Forces and Napolean would not have lost the Battle of Waterloo. And nearer home, Gen Niazi would not have surrendered along with more than 90,000 Pakistani soldiers before Indian forces in Bangladesh nor would have Gen Parvez Musharraf’s secret intruders been left dead and unclaimed following the 1999 conflcit in Kargil.
In the context of Jammu & Kashmir, this is an old habit now. For any disgruntled Kashmir based politician, for any anti-India activist, for any human rights intellectual, for any hostile foreign agency or for any maverick writer seeking recognition…the easiest way to attract some quick media attention is to deliver a statement or write an article or draw a map questioning the fact of J&K being a part of Indian Union or depicting the boundaries of J&K in a manner inimicable to the officially stated position of India.
The most quixotic manifestation of this phenomenon is seen in the latest case in which the BCCI (Board of Cricket Control in India) engaged the London based International Management Group (IMG) on a contract basis to prepare a manual for the popular cricket tournament IPL-6. And lo,’ the IMG returned the favour of its paid services by printing maps of J&K showing the State’s borders as disputed and going one step further to qualify this by adding a caption that Kashmir is a dispute between India, Pakistan and China.Veteran cricketer Bishan Singh Bedi is right that BCCI has much to answer on this but the basic question is, what was the BCCI at the first place doing all the while when this mischief was going on or shall we conclude that beset by inner strife, scams and match fixing charges, BCCI somewhere lost the track.
Interestingly, while the Govt of India was caught unwares, the Govt in J&K preferred to maintain convenient silence lest the ruling party should be seen antagonising its separatist constituency for which any such secessionist noise is a music to ears. And, the Twitter savvy Chief Minister of J&K preferred to post opinions about Advani, Modi and the fate of BJP rather than dwell on the issues at his doorstep.
The mute question, nevertheless, is, can the boundaries of Jammu and Kashmir ever be altered or the war over Kashmir ever bewon by drawing fancy pencil lines on fancy glossy sheets. If that was so, Yahya Khan would have not lost but won the 1971 war while directing his Generals through a pointer on the wall-board map.
The truth, in a nutshell, is, Jammu & Kashmir will be as it is. There is going to be no change in the geographical realities even as much there is going to be no relent in the political unrealities. The socalled mainstream political parties of Kashmir acknowledge this in heart of hearts as much as the separatists understand this albeit secretly. Kashmir cannot be won by paper maps and the common man realises better than anybody else the worth of securing a few square meters of land to live and to die. Umapathy conjures up the example of the last Mughal, Bahadar Shah Zafar who was banished from India to regret for a mere two yard land for a grave in his home-land “Kitna Hai Badnaseeb Zafar Dafn Ke Liye, Do Ghaz Zameen Bhi Mil Na Saki Kuye-Yaar Mein!.”
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