What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
With the State getting firm about the elite Muslim families encroaching on government land through various scams, the secessionist mafia and the corrupt half-separatist bureaucrat-politicians, the Valley is just witnessing the dawn of a new era
I can’t get this Hindi idiom out of my mind: ‘rassi jal gayi par bal nahi gaya’ meaning ‘old habits die hard, even if they bring a lot of suffering or misery to the person concerned, his attitude remains the same’. It fittingly describes Pakistan’s existential crisis and yet its audacity to hold Kashmir Solidarity rallies across.
The failed state has never stood up to its promises of a New Medina under which minorities would be safe and democratic ideals upheld as is often touted in Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech.
Spiralling into chaos since its inception, its founder regretted its construct in his last interview with the photographer Margaret Bourke, having an inkling of the eventual terror factory it would become. Now it relies on dole outs and bailouts from the US, the Middle Eastern Muslim-majority countries and those who want regional hegemony like China to keep India from rising and developing.
That the aspirations of the Sindhis, the Balochis, the Gilgitis, the Baltis and the residents of PoJK (Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir) are not considered despite growing evidence of their disgruntlement with the construct of Pakistan is proof of this unsuccessful experiment with Muslim separatism.
Now that Kashmir Valley has fully integrated into India as a Union Territory and the clean-up of Jihadis (armed terror groups), Islamists (overground workers OGWs), secessionists (Intifada factory) and half-separatists (Gupkar Gang) are on, Pakistan doesn’t realise where it is geopolitically on the issue of Kashmir.
Having been chided by the UAE and Saudi to forget about Kashmir and focus on its economic woes instead of India’s internal matters, it is a reality check for the Pakistani military-industrial-establishment and its allies in the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation).
A few, rare, rational Pakistanis across the spectrum have understood this and are attempting to enlighten its military establishment and civil society and the masses simultaneously, but they are like drops in the ocean of hatred, bigotry, ignorance, illiteracy, religious fanaticism, and superstitions nurtured since the 1920s and 30s, tracing their roots to the fanatic Mughal ruler Aurangzeb and Shah Waliullah.
But what should concern Indian citizens mostly is their government’s policy towards the failed state, and not repeat the foolish ‘Aman ki Asha’ programmes, no matter how many overtures come from across and how much the Indian Left-Liberals rant and rave about Indian secularism, tolerance and past non-aligned diplomacy. It shouldn’t matter how much the Pakistani military establishment blackmails the Indians on International forums or keeps harping at the now settled ‘Kashmir issue’.
February 5 dawned with the death of Pervez Musharraf, successor to Zia’s Operation Gibraltar plans and the architect of the Kargil War, which, in my humble opinion, decided India’s attitude towards a permanent enemy with whom there can be no talks or a shared future.
February is also the month when the Pakistani lobby in Washington, DC, London and other European cities plays out the fiasco of solidarity with Kashmir. But Kashmiris, especially the future generations, are not falling for the disinformation again as the Pakistani overseas divas of the Kashmir Solidarity Networks get ready to celebrate a bank robber’s conviction and hanging in Tihar Jail in 1984 as his “martyrdom for the Kashmir cause”.
Kashmir is slowly and surely shedding its dark past, starting with the erasure of its indigenous sects, creeds and culture, which generally happens when a monotheistic faith takes over the polytheistic one and the Pakistan-ISI-sponsored insurgency that buried two generations of Kashmiris in a proxy war and got the third one radicalised.
With the State getting firm about the elite Muslim families encroaching on government land through various scams, the secessionist mafia and the corrupt half-separatist bureaucrat-politicians, the Valley is just witnessing the dawn of a new era.
This new phase will not be a golden one considering cross-border terrorism will not stop and has acquired a new form of hybrid terrorism, nor can the State completely wipe out internal collaborators sabotaging the peace process from within who have found godfathers in Ankara and Istanbul now. But it gives us Indic Muslims a fighting chance to subvert the self-inflicted injuries of the Partition, the 1990s ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits and the various internal insurgencies of the PFI, SIMI or IM type using the victimhood narrative and “Islam khatre mein hain” card as always.
The Indian State may well keep this in mind every time it is forced to adopt a soft approach because of its Indianness, the lions on the Ashoka emblem have been docile for too long, it is time to rise, roar and revolt against this repression of centuries.
Arshia Malik is a Delhi-based writer, blogger and social commentator
Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author’s own
