Liberal or Hypocrites?

Liberal or Hypocrites?

The urban Indian intellectuals proudly declare themselves as liberals. They do not stop there. They go a step ahead and claim themselves to be the reason for the existence of Indian nation state and everything good that India stands for. Everything that this nation has managed to uphold, despite naysayer’s prediction about us 60 years ago.

This may be true to some extent, but I wonder how to define this India liberalism, that makes messiahs of monsters. That allows secessionist venom to be spewed in the name of “Freedom of Expression” but scoffs at ultra-nationalism. That loves to label Minority Appeasement as Affirmative Action but when the recipient of appeasement is Majority, it is quick to label it as Fundamentalism.

All these questions used to arise in my mind at different points of time, but what has collated them is the following sequence of events.

Kamla Nehru College authorities allowed RIK to screen a movie “And the world remained silent” followed by a panel discussion about this alternate perspective of truth that the nation refuses to see.
A few days later they revoke the permission assigning the cause as non-availability of proper facilities. And now we get to know, in the same time slot and on the same day another movie is being screened at the same venue.

I can’t fathom the reason, the question that arises in my head which possibly you could help me find an answer to is:

Is Indian intelligentsia Liberal or Hypocrite?

Freedom : How the media handles its responsibility?

I am confused, please help me understand. A conservative newspaper like TOI has the headline “60 and Getting Sexier”. The news channels falling all over the place in an attempt to grab eyeballs, trying to outdo each other while making us believe that India is the next super-power. In the gloss and hyperbole, nobody had the time to do a reality check. In this din and this devious marketing campaign what got totally looked over was farmer suicides, naxalites, separatists in north-east, the protests of Singur, political agendas, vote bank politics being masqueraded as affirmative action and so many more. The media was happy projecting how well India has done and the reference was Pakistan. That country which political analysts say is on the brink of becoming a failed state. I wonder when will come the day when the reference point is South Korea, a country exactly one year younger to us.

And since the focus was Pakistan, how could Kashmir not have been the focal point. It was interesting to see how the Indian media has been cleverly promoting the separatist cause in the name of “objective” and “secular” reporting. The fourth pillar of democracy is eating into the roots of the country. This is the pillar that was expected by the founders of the nation to be the voice of sanity but unfortunately in a clever play of statistics it is creating a world of make believe. The way figures were being manipulated and sexed up makes me wonder who was at work –Journalists or Marketers.

Neither Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai nor Ms Barkha Datt and by implication Mr. Prannoy Roy (that doyen of free media who gave us The World This Week) pointed out these essential facts when they gave India the statistics that 87% Kashmiris want independence or held a Indo-Pak debate where pro-India voices where ruthlessly muzzled. The expression on Major Gen Roy Chaudhary by the end of the program said it all. And here let me quote Mr. Kshemendra Kaul views on this article[a smart ploy to save myself research effort, I guess that should make me eligible for a job in the Indian Media houses ;-) ]...

"Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Kumar are also woefully unaware of the regions they are commenting upon. The Poll has confined itself to Srinagar and yet the duo call the results as those from the "Valley". They obviously have no idea that Srinagar is only a small part of the "Valley".

Using the 2005 Electoral Rolls as a guideline, Srinagar voters account for 0.67mil (22%) out of 3.11mil in all of Kashmir "Valley". So any Poll results out of Srinagar can by no stretch of imagination be called as being representative of the "Valley".

Interestingly Srinagar voters are only 11% of the total eligible voters in all of Indian controlled J&K

In Jammu 255 people were polled and in Srinagar the number was 226, a ratio of 1:1.13. However, there are 1,058,540 voters in Jammu and 673,648 in Srinagar, a ratio of 1:1.57. The sample sizes chosen from Jammu and Srinagar have some inexplicable and certainly not credible rationale.

Similarly, with India's population five times larger than that of Pakistan, the respective sample sizes of 2030 and 1010 are askew and make little sense. "

To compare how statistics can be weilded to show what one wants to show, check the following link. This link is to the reporting of the same survey in Dawn, a leading Pakistani newspaper. The contrast in nature of reporting is drastic.

http://www.dawn.com/2007/08/14/top1.htm

Reply to Mr. Sanjay Kak on his Jash-e-Azadi

There was a mail invitation doing the rounds of the "E-mail Fwd Circuit", which spoke of a Documentary made by this young Indian filmmaker with many accolades and awards for his past portfolio of work in the "Festival Circuit". On any other day, I would have just trashed the mail, I am not really the arty variety, but what caught my eye was that the movie was about the place where I was born and it had been made by a person whose name suggested that he was from the same earth. The title was interesting "Jash-e-Azadi" which translates to Celebration of Freedom. I myself have very open views about the entire Kashmir imbroglio. I have often found myself discussing with my friends from the majority community the end-games that could get played out in Kashmir. I have discussed threadbare this concept and need of freedom. But that I guess would be digressing from the topic. Coming back to the topic, after validating the directors credentials from the internet, I thought to myself that possibly this could be one attempt by a new age film maker to put things in the right perspective and I ought to watch it.

Little did I realize then, that this decision of mine is going to send me hurtling down to the Library, to revise my wordlist prepared during the MBA entrance days. And I was glad to find I did remember the meaning correctly. It continued to be " category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to document reality".

While Mr Kak's film was marketed as a Documentary, it is full of conscious omissions and commissions that take it out from the documentary genre and place it in the category of advertorials. The patronage of Yasin Malik, a person who should be currently in Jail but for the lack of spine in the Indian leadership is a clear indicator of the motive of this piece of Jehadi propaganda. Calling Jashn-e-Azadi a documentary is as good or as bad as calling a Ramsey movie as Classic Cinema. It is what yellow is to journalism and B-grade is to Bollywood cinema. It tries to give the Jehadi movement a justification by playing on the victim syndrome and completely closes its eyes to the hardships and miseries heaped upon a population of half a million because of their inability to organize themselves and fight back like the Jews did, because of their belief in the Indian constitution, because of their relatively small numbers that prevents them from being a vote bank. And he claims on his blog that a group of people are following his screenings in an attempt to gain publicity, and I quote him…

"a small group of people had made it their mission to follow the film around and appear to stop it from circulating. (*Appear to*, because they too know that they cannot actually stop the film, but they do know that there is mileage to be got from appearing to stop it).

"These net-warriors (net-bullies, really) are living out a sort of fantasy life on the web, able to say what they want about the film, abuse, propagate falsehoods, lie, whatever. "

Well Mr Kak, never has this (what appears to you a small group) tried to prevent your screenings. This group believes and practices what the great Voltaire had to say, "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it". We are not like your producers, who would muzzle the creative freedom by picking up a famous poet and his son and mutilating his body beyond recognition and leaving him to rot in the fields. This may be your methods of bringing about self censorship. [ http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com/2007/07/wonder-who-killed-them.html].
How can you cry hoarse about censorship and freedom of speech, when your own blog is moderated? Sans censors, even pornography is an art form and the fact that you choose to moderate your blog space makes it clear that you do subscribe to that fact. Else you would have published even those comments full of invectives at you and allowed people to draw their own conclusions. In that context what you practice and what you preach seem to be at odds.

What this group has consistently attempted to do is to be present at your venues and highlight that aspect of this Jashn (celebration) that you have so conveniently chosen to hide and misrepresent. What they have tried to do on internet is, also present the other side of the story which has sadly gone unreported in this nation of a billion. In this nation where centuries of foreign rule, first Islamic followed by British has made us inherently apologetic about our religion. Where the media has sold its soul and the only suffering that they recognize is those faced by anyone but Hindus, we have tried to be objective reviewers of your movie and raised questions that any logical person watching that movie should. Unlike the much hyped director of the movie, this motley crew does not depend on Wahabi monies. This group does not call murderers, rapists and looters as Saheb. All these people who are everytime at your venues and protesting in Gandhian fashion against your venomous propaganda are working professionals, students, artists who do it to show the truth to the world. To impress upon the rest of the Indian population, that either they wake up now or be ready for another round of slavery, which is so evident in all GoI social policies.

Patriotism as a concept is long dead, but that does not imply that we do not have a sense of pride in calling ourselves Indian. It does not imply that we in the name of freedom of expression, allow people to mock on the armed forces of this nation who die out there on the borders so that we can have peaceful sleep at night. It does not imply we promote film makers who in the name of Campaigning against Censorship hack on the roots of the concept of nationhood. It is the continued attitude of servility and inferiority in the general Indian masses that allows movies like this to be produced and shown in India, which allows terrorists to roam freely on the streets of India, which allows for different yardsticks for those in power and the common man. It is this attitude, which makes it fashionable to run down everything Hindu and Indian in that order, which makes it intellectual to speak out against injustices selectively, which makes it fashionable and profitable to be on the rolls of the corrupt and inefficient.

Cultural Decimation of Pandits

This is in reponse to Mr Ashrafs article that appeared in the Greater Kashmir [http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=1_7_2007&ItemID=4&cat=17]...

The article “Migration to Cultural Decimation” made good reading. It was nice to know that there exists a subset within the larger Kashmiri Muslim community that rightly sees the en mass migration of Kashmiri Pandits as a human tragedy and “expresses” it as such.

It gives Mr Ashraf tremendous credibility as a writer, when he points out the fact that Muslims that could afford it, also chose to move out from the valley. For, it indicates a balance of thought and absence of partisan thinking that plagues both KP and KM writings on the above topic. What happened to Pandits was unfortunate, but what happened to Kashmiri Muslims in the valley was worse, for they got abused both by the Army and those that they had thought of as Saviors. Violence and abuse is condemnable irrespective of source and cause.

Having said that, I would like to point to the fact that he has chosen to make some hasty and simplistic conclusions which go against logical thinking and ground observations of the time they refer to. These being:
1. The “Tehrik” was nationalist in character
2. Unconditional migration of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley
3. Kashmiri Pandits being allowed to live their life peacefully under the Muslim rule in Kashmir

Today when Muslim intelligentsia of the Zafar Mehraj variety and their ilk look back and analyze why the assumption of supposed Nizam-e-Mustafa by April 1990 did not fructify, they realize the reason was the assault on Hindu Minorities and their resultant exodus that undid it. When I look back, I feel convinced that it was not the masses on the street and killings of Pandits that drove my parents to walk out of the valley. It was the nature of slogans that emanated from the mosques and brutality with which the murders of Pandits were executed that compelled them to run for Honour and Life in that order. I wonder how this thing was missed by the author. For the record, I was only a ten year old when we had to flee. When you have posters outside your house and the neighbors’ already having been killed following the poster pasted on their gate, I wonder what the authors reaction would have been to it if his name had been Ram Koul. Would he like a foolish brave heart have stood up to join the growing list of Kafirs exterminated or in a mad rush left everything behind? I wonder how he chose to conveniently forget those dreaded Hit Lists posted on all nooks and cranies, the slogans of “Asyi Ghasyi Kasheer Bataw ros…” [we want Kashmir without Pandit men but with their women] and many more. Those definetly were not signs of a plural, nationalist character. Claiming that KP migration in that context was unconditional sounds plain non-sense. I am a liberal and do not care who is in power as long as they dont poke their noses in my way of life, so are most of the Pandits. I am sure Pandits would not have fled if the bullets that fell them had not come from terrorist guns. They would have stayed and struggled along if the aim was a plural and vibrant Kashmir and not Nizam-e-Mustafa.

In hindsight it was a calculated assault on the Pandits, designed to make them leave the valley. There was a sense of finality that time, ably helped by announcements from across the border that Azadi was not too far away. And in that false euphoria the Muslim Terrorist Leadership advanced the program that was to be unleashed against the Pandits by a few months.

And by no stretch of imagination would I blame the general Muslim population for it. They were as much confused and afraid. I remember my father telling me about his friend in Jawahar Nagar, who was shaking like a leaf on discovering an AK47 in his house, brought in by his elder son. I also remember and appreciate the affection that I have received from the neighbours in Murran, Pulawama who even today are all addressed as Maam’s. That can never be forgotten.

As far as I am concerned, personally, before moving back to the valley – Bag and Baggage, I would wish to see this fundamentalist, terrorist leadership in its place and that’s the deepest part of the Dal Lake. I am convinced, without them, there is no problem absolutely between the Muslim and Pandit community. We would live they way we used to - peacefully and with love.

When in Mahabharta, Pandavas wanted to reconcile with Kaurawas at whatever conditions Kaurawas put, Krishna stopped them, saying that any compromise that’s built on the premise of “Fear” and “Helplessness” does not last for too long. I am sure Pandits don’t want Muslims to role the red carpets for their return. All they need is an assurance that morally bastard, fundamentalists are not at the helm, nor they have the say that they apparently have had in the recent past. Is that being conditional in any way, what so ever?

As far as cultural decimation is concerned, I am not sure how much of that will come true. Remember there was a time, when only 7 families of Pandits were left in Kashmir . This is not the first time that Pandits have been forced to convert or perish, it is the 14th time in recorded history. I look back at the past and feel comforted. Feel comforted, because I know History has a habit of being repeated. The question is only of time.

And if thoughts like the ones expressed in this article are an indication, then that day is not too far away when I will be again breathing the fresh air of my beloved Kashmir .

Looking forward to more such articles from Mr. Ashraf's pen and from others and hopefully next time, without simplistic assumptions and sweeping generalizations.