KASHMIR The counter-narrative is the idea whose time has come December 10, 2016, 3:30 PM

The counter-narrative is the idea whose time has come December 10, 2016, 3:30 PM IST Arshia Malik in Stepping Out | India | TOI Recently there was an Arena segment in the Aljazeera program hosted by Mehdi Hassan in which the future of ”Indian-administered” Kashmir was debated between Ather Zia, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Northern Colorado and founder of online journal Kashmir Lit and Sualeh Keen, writer and cultural critic. My response to Madam Zia’s comments to Mehdi’s question that the human rights violations of the Kashmiri Pandits is never talked or referred to and her reiterating that the UN has a mandate for Kashmir’s ”case”. The Kashmiris lost any ”case” they had the day, week and year the secessionists / separatists ethnically cleansed the ”indigenous” Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley and supported the Hizb/JKLF circulated hit lists for targets to be assassinated with names of secular, liberal, Leftist Muslims, Pandits, Sikhs forcing them to migrate. That terrible crime made the silent majority complacent in the cleansing by creating an atmosphere of terror – pitching an ISI-Pak Army sponsored rag-tag group of guerrillas against the might of the Indian Army. Those self-styled Rambos had no qualms putting a civilian population in the line of fire, leading to scores of the 1990 Gowkadal-like massacres on the streets and bylanes of Srinagar as was bound to happen in a proxy war/ shadow war/ guerrilla war sponsored openly by the Pak Establishment in 1989. The case of it being a common, natural struggle of an economically deprived, misgoverned state for more democracy, representation, and development by overthrowing an incumbent, corrupt dynasty who were treating Kashmir as their ”jagir” with interference from New Delhi was forever lost when Islamo-fascists in the garb of freedom fighters hijacked ”the struggle” by closing down cinema halls and acid attacking/knee-capping women into wearing the hijab/burqa. The case was lost at the altar of manufactured consent the day the ‘intifada factory’ at Press Enclave, Residency Road, Srinagar ”taught” young writers to only write about India’s mishandling of the sentiment of Muslims and to only selectively condemn the violation of human rights in the numerous workshops under the guise of Creative Writing, which the founder of Kashmir Lit mentioned above also sponsors. The Kashmiris continue to lose their case even today, forcing the hegemony of the Kashmir Valley on the Ladakhis, Kargilis, Baltis, Gilgitis, Jammuites, Rajouris, Doda natives and others by ”manufacturing consent” through hooliganism, threats to individuals by sending gunmen to silence dissenters, and various intimidation tactics that is peculiar to Muslims globally by declaring them ”lesser Muslims”, apostates, blasphemers, and endangering their lives in an already charged, insular society; trying to silence those who do not tow the line of ”azadi”. Living in Colorado and lecturing the world about what is good for Kashmir reeks of a sense of superiority, and condescending attitude from Madam Ather Zia, something that the Left-dominated academia at JNU is always propagating in its approach to postmodernism, and the usual US imperialism / Indian occupation which resulted in the JNU row. The practice of taqiyya (lying) and ketman (lying by omission) is apparent especially on a Qatari-funded channel with a normally hyper moderator like Mehdi who surprisingly appeared controlled and neutral today but who is known to have staged audiences. Inviting a dissenter, from Indian Kashmir like Sualeh Keen was mere tokenism just to make it look like a debate. This penchant to term the conflict generated by the proxy war of Pakistan a long, ”drawn-out struggle” by Madam Zia is very condescending and far removed from reality. A long ”drawn-out struggle” in a siege from within by non-state actors and from outside by state troopers for almost 30 years is not something you gloss over sitting in a studio in the US in a secular, liberal and rich country. It drives men, in private jobs out of work for months, to insanity. Forced to rely on their savings, with old and infirm parents and elders dependent on essential commodities/ medicines to reach the Valley, the ”drawn-out” seige with its hartal (strike)-calendar exposes the struggle for self-determination for what it is – a gross human rights violations by the Hurriyat on their own people. The administration fights to get through the NH-1 in the cold, brutal winters sometimes with aerial support and the stone-pelters paid for by the ISI hawala channel funded money do not make it easy. Children confined at home for months and deprived of an education with schools burnt and exams postponed or canceled are the second generation to witness this, mine having already been a victim of deprived dreams and disrupted lives. We were the lucky ones. An entire generation of men was lost to torture and forced disappearances by the brutal crackdown on militants by the State and the orphans of both militants and Kashmiri police personnel killed in the line of duty, growing up in various orphanages and homes, are proof of that. I’m not even going to touch upon the mental subjugation and insanity prevalent in such a ”siege” – rising marital discords, depression in children and young adults, rising suicide rates and drug addiction, and so on. Follow the money and gold, follow the bullet is what I always say. After decades the arsenal used in the fidayeen attacks on various camps in India have been traced to the Pak armory. What is left is for all the money, gold and offshore accounts related to the J&K Bank to be traced. India would rather blind and maim, and kill its own citizens and take up the self-destructive demonetization just to make sure the border is never redrawn again with a nuclear-armed aggressive neighbor. If Madam Zia with her tenure in a US University doesn’t understand this then what can be further said about this zeal for a long ”drawn-out” struggle. Instead of impeaching the Hurriyat to cut their losses and dealing with New Delhi to save face, she is implying that Kashmir implode into a civil war and mafia land grab which it eventually will and has already started witnessing. The counter-narrative is the idea whose time has come. There is a saying, I am not sure which culture or country or tradition to credit it to: One should not terrorize anyone to the extent that fear dissolves. I am modifying it to – the dissolving fear develops into a certain death wish and when those fearless speak, the counter-narrative crumbles in a swish. Rahul Pandita, once tweeted – ”Kashmir is essentially a Greek tragedy – of sons who do not return home, and of sons who cannot return home.” I am taking it further to say – ”Kashmir is also essentially a human and evolutionary tragedy – of mothers who send their sons to death dressed as grooms of Allah and of mothers who defy certain death/ostracism in keeping their sons away.” I am one such and will be till my dying day, always resisting the lure that ”jihad” in Kashmir holds for our boys/men