Chapter 3
Disinformation Compaign
POLITICAL ALIENATIONA major thrust of the disinformation
campaign revolved round the alienation of the Muslim masses, particularly
the Muslim youth in Jammu and Kashmir. Alienation, understood as the rupture
of the Muslims from their political and social environment, it was alleged,
had set in, due to the psychological reaction to their exclusion from the
political processes in the State and their withdrawal from all forms of
political participation.
It was alleged that partial application
of the secular equality, envisaged by the Constitution of India, to the
State, impaired the religious political and economic precedence of the
Muslims, which formed the basis of its autonomy. It was also alleged that
secular equality embodied by the Constitution of India could not be reconciled
to the Muslim identity of the State and the militant violence symbolised
this irreconcilability.
Accusations were levelled against
the Government of India and the Hindus inside the State as well as in the
rest of the country, that they had unceasingly sought to demolish the separate
and independent identity of the State and terminate the autonomous political
organisation, ensured for it, by the provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution
of India. Many leaders in the Congress which was in the opposition in l990,
when the terrorist violence erupted in the state, several leaders of the
political parties in the United Front Government and many leaders in the
left parties and parties professing commitment to socialism and classless
society, went as far as to make wild claims that the accession of the State
was conditional upon the recognition of its autonomous Muslim identity
and the National Conference, led by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, had supported
the accession of the state to India on the assurance of the Indian leaders
that the Jammu and Kashmir State would not be integrated into the secular
constitutional organisation of India and would instead be reconstituted
into a separate political entity on the basis of the Muslim majority character
of its population. Inside the State, the Pradesh Congress, even the Janta
Dal factions, blamed everybody: the Indian Government, the State Governments
which they had themselves run, the Hindus, imperialist forces and foreign
hands, for the onset of the militancy in the State, absolving the Muslim
fundamentalist forces and secessionist movement of all responsibility for
the death and destruction, the terrorist flanks had brought about. Most
of these leaders indulged in self- condemnation and went as far as to enumerate
the wrongs done to the Muslim community and their failures recognise to
the right of the Muslim majority to reorganise the State on the basis of
the Muslim law and percept.
Many of these leaders demanded and
insisted upon the restoration of the autonomous position, the State enjoyed
before the constitutional changes embodied in the "Delhi Agreement", were
implemented by the Presidential Ordinance in May 1954. The National Conference
leaders demanded a political organisation for the State, which would be
based upon the exclusion of the State from the constitutional organisation
of India, by abrogating the application of the provisions of the Constitution
of India, which were extended to the State by the Presidential orders of
1954, and the subsequent orders promulgated to integrate the State into
the secular political organisation of India. They demanded a political
package, to form the basis of the political process, scheduled to be initiated in the State, to contain Muslim militancy which they proposed to envisage:
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Complete exclusion of the Jammu and
Kashmir State from the constitutional organisation of the Constitution
of India, extended to Jammu and Kashmir by successive Presidential Orders;
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the recognition of the right of Muslims
to reconstitute the state into a Muslim polity;
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the recognition of precedence of the
Muslim majority in the society, economic organisation and the government
of the state and;
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virtual relegation of the Hindus and
other minorities in the State to a subject and surrogate people.
Another major political factor which
was alleged to have led to the alienation of the Muslims was that they
were denied participation in the political processes of the State Government
and the Union Government had always manipulated the configuration of power
in the State, to the exclusion of the Muslim masses Allegations were made
that the electoral processes in the state were massive rigging, to keep
out the "true representatives of the Muslims." It was claimed that, had
fair elections been held in the State, the Muslims would have given to
themselves a government, based upon Muslim law and precept and independent
of the federal government of India. In a Muslim State, which would be based
upon the religious law and precedent of Islam and in which the precedence
of the Muslims would be recognised in economic, social and political
organisation,
the Muslims would not have needed to rise in revolt against India.
Allegations were also levelled against
the Government of India that the Muslims had been denied the political
power, which they were ensured by the separate constitutional organisation
of the State. The successive State Governments were blamed of having organised
the decision-making units in the State in a manner that were dominated
by the Hindus, who converted the decision-making processes of the State
Government to the disadvantage of the Muslims. Several left extremist leaders
went to the extent of identifying the Muslim militancy with the conventional
class war in which the Muslims were characterised as the downtrodden and
the exploited masses.
The Muslim leadership in the State,
which had overtly and covertly supported the fundamentalisation of the Muslim
society, also blamed the Government of India and the Hindus of having excluded
the Muslims from their rightful share in the exercise of political power
and the decision making processes of the State Government. They joined
to denounce India for the ills which, they alleged, had led to the militarisation
of the Muslim protest. The Muslim United front, a combine of several organisation
ideologically committed to the Muslimisation of the State and its secession
from India, the Jamait-Islami, the main fundamentalist Muslim organisation,
and the dissident splinters of the National Conference, accused the Indian
Government and the Hindus of having deprived the Muslims of political power
by having rigged the elections held in 1987, and installed into power the
National Conference-Congress coalition, headed by Farooq Abdullah. The
National Conference leaders expressed their anger against the Government
of India and the Hindus in their own way. Most of the Conference cadres,
bred up in the anti-India movement led by the plebiscite front blamed the
Congress leadership of having interfered with the function of the Conference
government. In the moments of great crisis, when the militant violence
began to spread rapidly and paralysed the entire administrative organisation
of the State, the National Conference leaders denounced the appointment
of Jagmohan as the Governor of the State, who was called by the rank and
file of the Conference called the "Assassin of the Turkman Gate" and a
sworn enemy of Islam. Farooq Abdullah, who headed the Conference-Congress
Coalition Government in the State accused the United Front Government of
interference in the affairs of the State with a view to scuttle the freedom
of the Muslims. The Coalition Government resigned in protest against what
the leaders of the Coalition Government termed as the deliberate attempt
of the Indian Government to throttle the aspirations of the Muslim majority
in the State. The Congress leaders in the State, as well as in India, joined
the Conference in its condemnation of the quick and effective measures
Jagmohan adopted to contain the rapidly escalating militant violence.
The Conference leaders added fresh
candour to the disinformation campaign to cover the real motives behind the ethnic cleansing of the Hindus from the valley. They made wild statements
about the exclusion of the Muslims from the services of the State Government
and the Government of India, which they alleged were dominated by the Hindus.
The run-away leaders of the National Conference and the local Congress
and the remnants of the left factions of the Communist Parties, who had
not made public confessions of their guilt and fraternized with the Mujahids,
and who had fled Kashmir before the Hindus did and had taken quarters in
Jammu and the other towns of India, led the campaign to spread false stories
and canards about the terrorist violence in Kashmir. Flanked by swarms
of special security officers and housed in well guarded fortresses, they
commended the courage of the Muslims in Kashmir in having risen against
injustice and denounced Jagmohan, the Indian security forces deployed in
Kashmir and the Hindus who had oppressed the Muslims and deprived them
of their rights.
The human rights activists and many
more people who saw their advantage in furtherance of the Muslim crusade
in Kashmir, ultimately a post-cold war maneuver to destabilize India, joined
them. The whole exercise was motivated by design to hide the real character
of the militant violence in the State and its rabidly communal and separatist
ideological commitments.
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