India Ragdo-II and the Catalysts

The agitation on Amarnath land exposed cleavages in Indian polity. A section of the high profile liberal elite in India came out brazenly supporting separation of Kashmir from India one way or other. The likes of Arundhati Roy, Shabana Azmi, Vir Sanghvi, Prem Shankar Jha, and AG Noorani, through spoken or written words created an impression amongst the separatist rank and file that ‘Azadi’ was round the corner. ‘Ek Dakka Aur Do’, (just one push more) was the common refrain of separatist campaigners then.

The public mobilization had less to do with the actual land row and more with wrecking Indian sovereignty over Kashmir. The campaign was not called India Ragda/Ragdo-I for only sloganeering. It reflected the underlying motivation. Carrying the experience forward this year’s campaigners unleashed, after the recovery of the dead bodies of two ladies in Shopian, India Ragda/Ragdo-II.

Dr Sheikh Showkat Hussain, Department of Law, Kashmir University, called the recent unrest in the Valley the ‘resistance beyond the armed struggle;’ and the spirit underlying India Ragdo-II as, “Indian state needs to realize that it is confronting a highly informed and educated young generation of Kashmiris, they know the direction in which right of self determination is evolving and has evolved. It has definitely evolved in a direction which is advantageous to Kashmir, not against it. East Timor and Eritrea availed it despite being non- colonial possessions. Montenegro enjoyed the right of self-determination in spite of having forty five percent opponents to independence.”

The separatist mind articulates its position vehemently. It describes expressions of separatism as the expression of a ‘Resistant Kashmir’, and demeans political engagement and democratic process in the state as ‘collaborating Kashmir’. The manifest disenchantment of the common man with the separatist leadership and his confusion is trivialized as ‘vacillating Kashmir’.

The India Ragdo-II intifada in Kashmir is being guided by such a mindset. This mindset would have taken note of the admission in early May, towards the fag end of parliamentary elections, by none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, “…I have always believed a strong peaceful moderate Pakistan in India’s interests. We worked very hard on that and in fact I and General Musharraf had reached nearly an agreement, a non territorial solution to all problems, but then General Musharraf got into many difficulties with the Chief Justice and other fronts and therefore the whole process came to a halt.”

Separatist think tanks in Kashmir have been relentlessly searching a way to circumvent the predicament in which Pakistan is caught up and chart out a course to bring a halt to the ‘halt’.

Columnist Syed Rafiuddin Bukhari, in Rising Kashmir, commented, “…Pakistan Government is grappling with the worst ever crisis, the Kashmiri leadership should stop looking towards Islamabad and think independently to charter their own course.”

India Ragdo-II is the course separatists have embarked upon. Their hope lies more on the support which they generate amongst a section of entrenched liberal elite, be it Arundhati Roy or Prem Shankar Jha, people who advocate a concession on sovereignty not to bail out India from international pressure but out of an ideological outlook which recognizes Muslim communalism as a progressive secular imperative for India to reconcile with.

Separatist rank and file see some space in the new American foreign policy. The new US ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, statement that Kashmir “has been an extremely sensitive hotspot for the world and for the region where we have almost experienced thermonuclear war on several occasions,” has been music to the separatist rank and file. So have previous statements by Assistant Secretary of State William Burns or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Separatists have not missed the success of the Pakistani government in toning down India’s assertions on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. The release of Hafeez Syed is seen as a gradually stiffening stance of Pakistan on Kashmir. Keeping the pot boiling in Kashmir through a non-violent intifada serves Pakistan preserve its Kashmir Policy with reinforced moral legitimacy.

Last but not the least, the Indian Ragdo-II intifada as per separatist thinking delegitimises the democratic process in the state. Mr. Arjimand Hussain Talib brings out this aspect brazenly: “It should now be clear to India’s political and media establishment that high voter turnout in Assembly elections does not mean an end of Kashmiri Movement for self determination. Kashmir needs a real political settlement which goes beyond the pre-1989 military status quo”.