Thoughts On Violence In
Kashmir
by Subhash Kak
Louisiana State University,
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5901, USA
It
has been said that history will judge the dismantling of the socialist
system of economy in India to be the most important event of the early
nineties, more important than the Gulf War. Notwithstanding this, the recent
dialogue between India and the West has been dominated by reports of the
militancy in Kashmir and the attendant human rights abuses by the police.
Not only has the unrest in Kashmir received considerable attention in the
media but President Clinton has mentioned it in many of his public speeches.
One wonders why this
should be so considering that there are any number of places around the
world with longer and more bloody conflicts. It is not for love of freedom
that the US and its camp-followers have raised Kashmir as an issue in their
dealings with India.
Consider the Kurds,
for example; they have been fighting for their independence for decades.
Their cause was featured in the pre-Gulf War publicity build-up by the
Americans, although this publicity then cynically ignored that the Kurds
were persecuted equally badly by Turkey and Syria, American allies in that
War. After the defeat of Saddam Hussain, there has been no talk of an independent
Kurdistan. Edward Pearce, in his marvellous recent book {Machiavelli's
Children} explains: ``The Kurdish tragedy illuminates the gap between real
reasons for fighting a small war---oil, money, client-assurance, bravado
and figure-cutting---and those put on display: civilization, hostages,
the rule of law, peace (after war) and `our moral duty'.''
Machiavelli said, ``Nothing
brings a prince greater prestige than great campaigns and demonstrations
of his personal ability.'' Bill Clinton's seemingly altruistic rhetoric
on human rights was primarily an adoption of slogan bound to play well
in the media. That this is not a moral issue is clear from the fact that
the question of human rights is never raised with regard to Saudi Arabia,
the greatest ally of the U.S. in West Asia, a totalitarian dictatorship
that is firmly anchored in the eighth century.
The other function of
the human rights slogan has been to keep pressure on countries that would
otherwise wish to chart independent foreign policies. Internal difficulties
have made Russia dependent on the U.S. The United Nations is now like the
Church of the Middle Ages in Europe when it was invoked to bless campaigns
whenever convenient to a prince.
The Kashmir issue offers
delicious possibilities to the great powers; it is a stick that can always
be applied on India. Each time the issue of human rights in Kashmir is
raised in international forums, India might be pressured to make trade
concessions to one great power or the other to stave off censure.
To return to Machiavelli,
a campaign should have real risks, howsoever small, to lead to honour.
Clinton's capitulation before the Chinese on the human rights question
has effectively taken this issue out of his foreign policy. Nevertheless,
Kashmir will undoubtedly keep coming up in the bilateral discussions between
the Western nations and India.
THE VICTIMS
Those who fight are often
caught up in forces that they cannot control. The mujahideen of Afghanistan
hastened the breakup of the Soviet Union, but their support by the U.S.
was like the support of the rope for the hanged man. Afghanistan as a nation
is no more. It is battleground for murderous warlords marching on each
other.
The lip service that
the U.S. has paid to the Kashmiri militants, helped no doubt by the generous
contributions to the election funds of American Congressmen and Senators,
is a support that does great harm to the Kashmiri people. In politics,
as in life, it is foolhardy to set out on an unknown terrain without sufficient
resources.
VIOLENCE IN OUR TIMES
The unrest in India should
be seen in the context of violence in the modern times. All around one
sees a malaise replace the optimism of the post-Second World War days.
Consider the United
States. According to a study of the Sentencing Project, the rate of imprisonment
in the United States in 1990-1 was 455 per 100,000 of the population. The
rate for India for the same period was 34 per 100,000 of the population.
The US locks up fourteen times as many of its citizens on a proportional
basis than India! One might ask whether the unrest we see in India is because
it does not lock up its criminals like the U.S. does.
An even more significant
piece of statistics relates to murder. This year the murder rate in New
Orleans, a city of less than half a million people, is running at 100 per
100,000 people. At this rate New Delhi would have 8,000 murders a year.
And the urban sprawl of the Kashmir valley would have 3,000. The number
of deaths in the valley has been much lower than this figure. The crime
rate for the entire US is several times that of India.
It is striking that
the murder rate of American cities exceeds that of a region caught up in
militancy. But rightly no one is speaking of human rights violations of
American citizens in international forums, although one can imagine that
in the heyday of the Cold War this would have been fodder to the Communist
propagandists.
CAUSES OF VIOLENCE
As everywhere else, there
are two main arguments being given regarding crime in the US. On the one
hand are those who claim that urban terror in the US is a response to police
brutality, lack of opportunities for the urban poor, and the easy availability
of guns. On the other hand, there are those who blame the breakdown of
the family, poor education in the schools, gratuitous violence on TV, the
harsh nature of American capitalism, with its attendant insecurities, and
racism. And then there are others who see urban violence a natural condition
of the post-modern state as societies struggle to decentralize themselves.
Perhaps the non-political
aspects of the unrest in Kashmir have not been properly stressed. It appears
that the initial breakdown occurred because the security mechanisms were
not upto par in dealing with the firepower of the small group of militants,
just as the police in American cities is incapable of dealing with their
criminals.
WHAT IS NORMALCY?
If the city of Washington,
the capital of the US, can carry on with a killing rate higher than that
of Srinagar by isolating the violence away from the places most citizens
work, perhaps the lesson is that the government of India should likewise
endeavour to increase the areas in the valley that afford relative security
and bring back the refugees who fled in the past five years.
Better training to the
police should ensure that human rights abuses are minimized. But it is
essential that criminals be dealt with severely.
Violence by the militants
is expression in a language. How this violence plays in Delhi and Washington
is very important to them. Clearly what is important is to engage the public
in civil discourse so that the violent theatrics of the militants lose
any symbolic power.
But one cannot wait
for absolute calm to return. No place is absolutely safe. If we can be
provided reasonable security in Kashmir, we should return. Our presence
may help build bridges of understanding.
Source: Koshur Samachar
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