Civil Society Initiatives And
Peace In KashmirBy Yoginder Sikand
India Thinkersnet Yahoo Group
15 January, 2004
Insofar as the basis of the Kashmir conflict is political, a lasting solution to the conflict can only come about at the political level. Despite this, civil society groups in Kashmir, and in India as well, do have a crucial role to play in promoting a peaceful resolution of the ongoing conflict in the region.
My own involvement with civil society initiatives in Kashmir has been very limited, I must confess. I have visited Kashmir several times (the last being three years ago), and have also traveled to Doda, Rajouri, Poonch, Ladakh and Jammu. My own particular interest has been in Kashmiri Muslim religious traditions, and the possibilities that they might contain that can be used to promote more accepting, engaging and embracing notions of other religions and their adherents. I started by traveling to various Sufi shrines in the Kashmir Valley and in the Jammu province, collecting material about the Sufi saints who still command the love and devotion of huge numbers of people. This was part of an Oxfam-sponsored project on religious harmony in India. I wrote several tracts based on my research and also published several articles in various Kashmiri and Indian newspapers on the subject. We also arranged to have a video film made and a seminar to be organized on the subject in Srinagar.
Although not directly related to the Oxfam project, we also prepared and published a directory of NGOs in Kashmir.
In this paper I would like to focus on the possible role of religious, specifically Islamic, groups and organisations in working for a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir conflict. Clearly, insofar as the Kashmir dispute is linked to the larger Hindu-Muslim question and to the processes that led to the partition of India, the religious dimension of the conflict cannot be ignored. The growing role of radical Islamist groups in Kashmir in recent years has only made the conflict more intractable. Although this should not be taken as suggesting that the Kashmir dispute is essentially religious, rather than political, or that a solution to the conflict lies simply in a liberal or progressive understanding of religion, I believe that understandings of religion, both Hinduism as well as Islam, that are more accepting and tolerant of people of other faiths, if not of other religions themselves, can play a vital role in bringing about a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Kashmir.
In this paper I would like to focus on the possibilities of promoting more tolerant understandings of Islam in Kashmir, and the problems involved in such a project. I would argue that the tradition of Kashmiri Sufism has enormous, although unexplored, potential to combat chauvinist and intolerant versions of Islam. Historically, the spread of Islam in Kashmir owes almost entirely to the peaceful missionary efforts of various Sufi saints. Many of these saints, particularly of the indigenous Rishi order, were also widely revered by the Kashmiri Hindus. Their mode of missionary work was culturally rooted in the Kashmiri social ethos, which also partly explains why Hindus, too, would regularly visit their shrines to pay their respects to them.
Much literature exists, in Urdu, Kashmiri and Persian, on the life and teachings of the Sufis of Kashmir. In recent years some books have been written on the subject in English. For the most part, such texts are written in a hagiographic mode replete with stories of the alleged miraculous feats (karamat) of the saints, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. For many younger generation Kashmiri Muslims who have had the benefit of modern education such texts appear to exercise little appeal. This explains, in part, the greater popularity among such youth of alternate forms of Islamic literature, such as published by the Jama'at-i Islami, that propagate an understanding of Islam that appears as strictly rational. The declining appeal of Sufi forms of Islam is also to be attributed to growing awareness of exploitative practices associated with the custodians of the Sufi shrines (mujawirs, pirzadas, sajjada nashins). To add to this is the widespread feeling that Sufism, as it
is popularly practiced, is 'other-worldly', and not concerned with the actual real-world concerns of the people. For many younger generation Kashmiris the cults of the Sufis are further suspect because of what are regarded as un-Islamic beliefs and practices associated with the cults of the Sufi shrines.
In this context, what possible roles can the Sufi tradition play in helping bring about a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir conflict, countering radical Islamism and promoting more accepting notions of people of other faiths? I believe that although the possibilities for this are rather limited, it is certainly an important form of civil society action that needs to be promoted. Clearly, one cannot expect any miracles to follow from this because, despite the progressive theological resources contained in the Kashmiri Sufi tradition that stress respect and love for people of other faiths, clearly, as a whole, it has been unable to effectively resist or radical Islamist groups that speak the language of hatred. Many Kashmiri Muslims I have met who are associated with the Sufi tradition say that they are simply to scared to speak out, against both the Indian army and Islamist militants, for fear of their lives. The matter is further complicated by the fact that many Kashmiris who
describe themselves as followers of the Sufis do also support the political aims of militant groups-freedom from India, independence or accession to Pakistan-while not necessarily subscribing to their particular theology. This is clearly apparent, for instance, in the case of many Kashmiri Muslims who might deeply revere the Sufi saints, but at the same time might support the attacks against Indian armed personnel by militants associated with the vehemently anti-Sufi Lashkar-i Tayyeba, which is associated with the Ahl-i Hadith school that regards Sufism as 'anti-Islamic'.
Yet, while keeping in mind these factors that clearly limit the possible role of Kashmiri Sufi tradition to help promote a peaceful resolution of the conflict, I feel that civil society groups could play a valuable role in this regard. One way is by helping to promote a new genre of writing in Urdu and English on Sufism, particularly on the Kashmiri Sufis, that focuses on the social roles and ethical teachings of the Sufi saints, rather than on the miracles popularly associated with them. In this regard, particular stress should be given to the role of certain Kashmiri Sufi saints in promoting inter-communal harmony based on an expansive understanding of Islam. Such texts should take the form of booklets rather than, as is the rule, scholarly tomes, and should be modestly priced. In addition to new forms of Sufi writing, seminars on Sufism and its contemporary relevance could be organized at Kashmir University, to which scholars of masters from India and elsewhere could also be
invited. Likewise, seminars on Kashmiri Sufism could be organized at Indian universities, where a total ignorance prevails about the rich cultural heritage of the Kashmiri Muslims.
In helping to promote a peaceful resolution to the Kashmir dispute, I believe that Indian Muslim civil society groups have a very crucial role to play. If such groups have not been active in Kashmir it is not because of any insensitivity to the plight of their co-religionists in the region, but, rather, because of the fear of being accused as 'anti-national' simply because of being associated in any way with Kashmiris. This, I believe is tragic, not only because as citizens of India they too have the right and the duty of trying to do what they can to help promote peace in Kashmir, but also because they are uniquely positioned to do so. As a marginalized and increasingly threatened minority, the Indian Muslims, as a whole, see a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute as essential for their own survival and progress, for the continuing conflict in the region only further helps Hindu fascists in India in their anti-Muslim campaign. As such, then, the Indian Muslims have a vital
stake in peace in Kashmir.
Indian Muslim organizations and leading 'ulama continue to exercise a profound influence on vast numbers of Kashmiri Muslims. Almost all the Islamic literature available in bookshops in Kashmir is published by Islamic groups in India, particularly Delhi. In recent years a number of madrasas have opened in Kashmir, and almost all of these are associated with larger madrasas in India itself, particularly of the Deobandi, Barelwi and Ahl-i Hadith schools. Some of the teachers in these madrasas are from north India (mostly Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh). Most of their higher-level teachers have graduated from leading madrasas in India, and still maintain links with their alma maters.
Given this, I feel that Indian Muslim organizations and 'ulama could be encouraged to play a more active role in helping to promote peace in Kashmir. With the respect that they command among large sections of the Kashmiri Muslims they could prove to be particularly effective. A number of Indian Muslim groups and individuals have been involved in promote inter-faith dialogue and communal harmony in India, through practical work along with people of other faiths as well as through their scholarship and literature. I believe that they need to be encouraged to extend their activities to Kashmir as well. This would also be a test of their sincerity. If they are consistent in their insistence that Islam envisions a just peace and harmonious inter-communal relations, this should hold true not only in a context of Muslim minority-ness, as in India, but also in a situation where Muslims are a majority, as in Kashmir.
In this regard, I feel that a valuable purpose could be served if Indian Muslim activists who have been involved in promoting inter-faith dialogue and communal harmony in India could visit Kashmir on a regular basis and interact with local Islamic and social activists. I believe leaders of three Islamic groups in India have a particularly crucial role to play in this regard: the Jama'at-i Islami Hind, the Markaz-i Ahl-i Hadith-i Hind and the Dar 'ul-'Ulum madrasa at Deoband. This is because Pakistan-based organizations sharing a common understanding of Islam with these three groups respectively, [the Jama'at-i Islami Pakistan, the Lashkar-i Tayyeba (associated with the Ahl-i Hadith Pakistan) and the Jaish-i Muhammad (associated with one wing of the Pakistani Deobandis)] are key players in the Kashmir conflict today. The Indian Jama'at, as well as several Indian Ahl-i Hadith and the Deobandi 'ulama have adopted, on the whole, a markedly divergent position from their Pakistani
counterparts on religious, including Islamist, extremism, stressing the need for inter-communal harmony and a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute. I do not think it should be difficult to encourage them to take a more pro-active role in Kashmir, and since they exercise an important influence on the Kashmiri Muslims in different ways their intervention can prove to be invaluable.
To conclude, I believe that promoting alternate visions and understandings of Islam that are more accommodative of people of other faiths and that stress peaceful means of conflict resolution is an essential and necessary, although not sufficient, condition for a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir conflict. This said, I must also insist that more accepting and open understandings of Hinduism and of Indian nationalism, are an absolute necessity as well in this regard. Islamist and Hindutva militancy feed on each other, and the one cannot be combated without consistently struggling against the latter as well.