Being patriotic on Kashmir

It's both difficult and dishonest to talk about Kashmir without sedition and secession coming into it.

In fact, those terms define the Kashmir issue.
    
A large section of the population in the valley wants azadi if the sustained protests are any indication.

Since June alone, over 110 protesters have been killed in firing. And what they mean by azadi is freedom from the Indian state.

The stones in a thousand hands have just one target: the apparatuses of power of the Indian state trying to enforce its version of law and order.

But as is often the case, your law could be my jail. Your order, my chaos.
    
A state, as Weber said, is a set of institutions that possess the authority to make the rules that govern the people in one or more societies, having internal and external sovereignty over a definite territory.

As it happens, the territory in question is challenging the authority of the state.

Which explains the violence, and the relevance of terms like secession in the Kashmir debate.
    
It was in this context that last week, there was a meeting in Delhi where speakers like S A S Geelani — known for his separatist politics — and Arundhati Roy — a determined defender of the deprived and an uncanny attention amasser — participated.

The meeting was disrupted by some people because they thought the speeches were seditious.
    
There is talk of Arundhati Roy being tried in court for charges of sedition. This is unlikely to be good PR for India.

Not only would it look intolerant of criticism, it would effectively be internationalising the Kashmir issue.
    
Panning Roy is wise for India’s security and territorial integrity, the two things the moral majority of the patriots are worked up about.

But that seemingly just wrath does not fully address the problem.

And the problem is that in any given situation — Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland or Kashmir — patriotic India cannot see itself as a wrongdoer.

This partial blindness is brought on by self-righteousness, a staple colonial trait.

Just as the Brits thought they were doing Indians a favour by colonising them. Or the Americans think they are doing right the world over.
    
Patriotic India confuses the state with all that is fair and just. Their reasoning is simple: since we are Indians, we can’t be doing wrong.

You may point out innumerable examples of the state making a mess of its myriad social responsibilities.

But the patriots will dissociate a pure and abstract State from its misdeeds, absolve it of all blame.
    
The point the Kashmir debate raises is not so much as what can be said as what cannot be left unsaid.

It is an opportunity for patriots to look inward and effect a critical distance between themselves and the state, articulate the duality between people and the apparatuses of power.

An opportunity to register that if Kashmir is, for example, granted full autonomy, or even the right to self-determination, it wouldn’t be the end of history.

If ideology couldn’t hold the former Soviet Union together, why shouldn’t an unravelling Valley or the insurrectionist hills of the North-East at least point towards a loose federal set up?
    
Or, consider the example of Scotland, a country that is still part of the United Kingdom.

Scotland has its own Parliament, unthinkable to Britain, the greatest colonial power of all time, till it was set up in 1999.

The country’s legal system is separate from the English tradition.

The Scots’ cultural identity continues to be distinct even as debates on full sovereignty are underway.

Surely, there are ways out of the Kashmir situation.
    
Early this week, Ahanger, husband of the Shopian victim Neelofer and brother of 17 year-old Aasia, both of whom were raped and murdered by security personnel in May 2009, said, it’s impossible to get justice in Kashmir when the lawenforcing agencies are themselves committing serious offences. “Which is why we want complete freedom.”
    
There are thousands like Ahanger looking for justice in Kashmir.

And they equate justice with freedom. India fought for freedom from British rule for long.

This country was then the victim. Now that it is the master, India should be able to recognise the spirit in others dying for it.