Where is Politics in Kashmir?

It was 22 March 2004. We were in the hostel kitchen, which was quite large, opening to the garden, and hence became our makeshift study room. The day was warm and sunny. There were three or four of us there. News arrived that the Palestinian and Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin has been killed in an Israeli missile strike in Gaza. Our Palestinian friend Nadia, who was sitting near the door, facing the garden, broke into tears. “Yet another Palestinian leader has been taken out.” He had a grand funeral in Gaza city attended by a huge number of people. The media was quick to paint various scenarios: massive mobilisation of Palestinians would start a new intifada, or it was the beginning of the end of Hamas. After 12 years, none of the prophecies came true. In between, Gaza has been pounded twice, yet Hamas continues to survive, and Palestine continues to be in a limbo.

The sudden killing of Burhan Wani seems like a similar episode, though Wani was no Yassin. As expected the Kashmir Valley is simmering with anger and thousands attended Wani’s funeral. The Valley is shut, with internet and mobile services suspended. The stone pelters are back on the streets. The soldiers are doing what are mandated to do: spray bullets. Mad dogs on both sides have gone mad and barking at each other. The Kashmiris have received the support of the Radical-Left/Maoists in Indian mainland, which was also expected.

The Maoists have expressed their “solidarity with Kashmiri people”, called for “an end of the Indian occupation” and “for self-determination.” The Maoists have no doubt that Kashmir is a homogenous Muslim space and self-determination will realise the “beautiful dream of Azadi.”

They have also wondered why there has been no parallel mobilisation in Indian mainland, which “would have been the first necessary step for the emergence of a South Asia-wide constellation of revolutionary generalisation.”

As was the case with the aftermath of Yassin’s assassination, this tide in Kashmir will also subside. What needs to be asked are: Where is politics in Kashmir? What is Kashmiri politics?

1. If Kashmiris and their sympathisers think that the critique of violence, body-counting and appeal to human rights will win their case, then they are living in a fool’s paradise. Moral uprightness and militancy don’t go together. Even then, non-violence and moral appeal are not enough — Tibet is a case in point. Self-determination is a political demand, not politics as such.
2. What is Kashmiri nationalism? It seems that Kashmiris have graduated from wanting to be a part of Pakistan to creating an Islamic state, the Pakistani national flag has been replaced with the Quran. This fits perfectly with the strategy of the Indian state: push the Kashmiris to become more Islamic and religious, and finally they will land in the fold of Taliban-Daesh-type Islamic orthodoxy. This would make Kashmiris a constituency of the global jihadi transnationalism and they would be become pariah in the international fora. No prominent and influential country will support the Kashmiris, and without that support, India can continue to do what it is doing in Kashmir.
3. By pivoting their politics around religion, Kashmiris have made a huge mistake. This is where they differ from Bangladesh, Palestine and Kurdistan, all of which have articulated a modern nationalism beyond the narrow confines of religion. The Kashmiri nationalism becomes a religious nationalism, and in this milieu, looks like an aberration and anti-modern. It could have been salvaged if the claim was one of ethnicity — which could have created an inclusive politics, drawing in other religious groups. In that sense, Kashmiri nationalism will find it very difficult to find takers in the international arena: it is simply too old and dangerous nationalism to be settled and accommodated in the world.
4. If Kashmiris turn out in such huge numbers at the funerals, why cannot they mobilise into a movement? Where does that mobilisation vanish after the funeral? Fear of military? — then there would have been no freedom movement anywhere in the world. Perhaps many Muslims will be hurt if I say that there is a problem with Muslim imaginary of politics. It seems that death-grief-martyrdom is the only event, when Islam allows the creation of temporary public spaces where men, women, children and old can participate uninhibitedly. The figure of a grieving mother, daughter and sister is a recurring image from Chechnya to Kashmir.

The figure of muscular and macho Muslim young man armed with the Kalashnikovs is also very common from Syria to Kashmir. The Abrahamic motif of father sacrificing his son and preparing other sons to follow is often repeated, even by Burhan Wani’s father.

This is the double tragedy of Kashmir: The Pakistani and Indian states pushing them into Islamism, and with militancy replacing normal politics, masculinisation of politics becomes complete, making it extremely patriarchal and misogynist.

The more the economy is destroyed and it becomes informal, the more precarious will be the situation of women in Kashmir. Muslim politics, and Kashmiri one in particular, needs to get out of the language of sacrifice-grief-martyrdom.

5. A few Kashmiris and their sympathisers in the Indian mainland think that Kashmir is a case of social justice, and they are again mistaken. The goal of self-determination and social justice are mutually exclusive: the former wants to secede from a given society, and the latter finds a resolution in the given society. This conflation is emblematic of the confusion of Kashmiri politics.

6. It is clear that if you want your own nation-state, you better make a modernist claim. Politics will always be about mobilisation, based on mobilisation on the ground, in the streets. Funeral processions are not enough.