Kashimiri
Identity
By Navnita
Chadha Behera
Himal Magazine
27 June, 2003
The Kashmir problem has dominated
the news from the Subcontinent for half a century, and the headlines
have been fast and frequent since 1989 when separatist violence and
military crackdown became the order of the day. While the Indian government
buys time with standard promises of discussing the "quantum of
autonomy" to be provided the people of Kashmir, Pakistani politicians
use the Kashmir issue as a bully pulpit to prove their own nationalist
credentials and to arouse passions against India, in their view the
"occupying power".
Lost in the Indo Pak rhetoric
and the breathless coverage of the militancy is the root cause of the
problem, which has to do with recognising and legitimising a people's
identity. And in Kashmir, there is actually more than one layer of identity.
First, is the identity of the Kashmiris of the Valley, whose grievance
against the Indian state forms the core of the present phase of turmoil
in the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Then there are the numerous
sub-identities within the state, which do exist, and whose proponents
have their own set of grievances against Srinagar, and who complain
that their problems have been eclipsed by the high profile demands of
Kashmir Valley.
A resolution of the Kashmir
problem is not possible if national level politicians fail to take account
of the cultural self image of Kashmiris. By the same token, peace will
not arrive within J&K if Srinagar based politicians do not understand
the regional aspirations in the state's constituent unitsJammu
and Ladakh. Thus, the Srinagar leadership which holds high the banner
of Kashmiri cultural identity (Kashmiriyat) will be challenged in its
turn to grant an adequate "quantum of autonomy" to the sub
regional groupings.
The state of J&K is presently
ideally placed to resolve both its external and internal problems at
one go. For the first time after seven years of Central rule, the state
has an elected government under Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, who
seems sensitive to the need of the hour. In the same breath in which
he demands self rule for J&K within India, since his election he
has promised autonomy for Jammu and Ladakh. The future of J&K, it
seems, will be decided upon the ability of Farooq Abdullah to deliver,
which will in turn be partially determined by the understanding and
support he receives from New Delhi.
Kashmiri and/or Muslim
Gulab Singh, a Dogra from
the Jammu region, was made Raja of the State of Jammu by the Sikh ruler
Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1820. Within the next two decades, Gulab Singh
conquered Ladakh and Baltistan. In March 1846, for his neutrality during
the First Anglo Sikh War, the British under the Treaty of Amritsar granted
Gulab Singh dominion over the Valley of Kashmir. Thus were the fates
of Jammu and Kashmir first linked, as parts of a Dogra ruled princely
state. Under the rule of the Hindu Dogras, Kashmir Valley's Muslim population
faced religion-based discrimination. Their mosques and shrines were
taken over by the government and they were treated as a subject race.
The Valley's peasants were not allowed proprietary rights over land
and had to provide forced labour. Taxes on the peasantry were high,
and the oppressive bureaucracy was manned by outsidersDogras and
Punjabis. Muslims were excluded from the military and from state services,
and commerce was dominated by Dogras. Low level jobs went to the indigenous
Brahmins, known as Kashmiri Pandits.
The discriminatory state
policies promoted a sense of solidarity among the Muslims against the
Hindus and a territorial consciousness among the Kashmiri Muslims against
the Jammu Dogras. Over the course of a century, therefore, a sense of
separateness based on ethno religious alignments developed'Dogras
versus Kashmiris' and 'Muslims versus Hindus'. The year 1931 saw the
first organised mass agitation against the Dogra Maharaja Kashmir's
Muslims. Although the political movement had socio economic roots, the
Kashmiri articulated the all pervasive feeling of injustice in religious
terms: the 'Muslim' majority being oppressed by a 'Hindu' Maharaja.
The clarion call of "Nara Takbir, Allah o Akbar, Islam khatre mein",
warning of the danger to Islam, activated the mass. The religious cleavage
was further sharpened as the exhorted the Maharaja to crush the rebellion.
It was the British, however,
who moved decisively and forced the Maharaja to suppress the 1931 agitation,
which made the Muslim leaders realise that Hari Singh was but an instrument
of the colonial power. They saw that the exploitative nature of the
state had less to do with the ethno lineage of the Maharaja and more
to do with British colonial interests. This understanding acted as a
catalyst in the construction of a new 'secular' and 'regional' Kashmiri
identity comprising of the oppressed sections of society irrespective
of their regional and religious affiliations vis a vis autocratic Dogra
rule and British imperialism. Accordingly, the Muslim Conference, the
grouping which was leading the fight against the ruler, converted itself
into the All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference in June 1939. In
the mid 1940s, Sheikh Abdullah launched a "Quit Kashmir" movement,
and articulated the National Conference's demand for responsible and
representative government in J&K. The movement sought an end to
Dogra rule and insisted on the right of the people rather than the Maharaja
to decide on the future status of what was till then a princely state.
Sheikh Abdullah now formulated
the people's right of self determination in terms of a "cultural
nationality" even though earlier he had conceptualised it in regional
and more secular terms, roping in "all communities in the State
including Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs". The Kashmiri self-image promoted
by Sheikh Abdullah, however, was not the only player in the field. The
aboriginal Muslim identity continued to provide an alternative rallying
point for those who believed that Hindus and Muslims were two separate
nations. In the early 1940s, a revived Muslim Conference demanded, among
other things, the reservation of services for Muslims in proportion
to their population, the abolition of laws prohibiting cow slaughter,
withdrawal of the Devanagari script from state schools, and amendment
of the Hindu Personal Law of Inheritance.
This tussle for primacy between
the Kashmiri and Muslim identity was still on when the British transfer
of power and the Doctrine of Paramountcy left the fate of J&K state
in the hands of Maharaja Hari Singh. According to the Doctrine, after
the British transfer of power to India and Pakistan, the British suzerainty
over the princely states lapsed and all rights surrendered to the paramount
power would revert back. This allowed the states, for one thing, to
decide their own future course of action in relation to Partition. Before
Hari Singh could decide on the question of accession, raiders from Pakistan
invaded Kashmir in October 1947. The Maharaja sought India's military
help and after signing the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947,
New Delhi sent troops to Kashmir. A military confrontation ensued and
a ceasefire line has since divided the state of Jammu and Kashmir into
two parts.
Incomplete Without Kashmir
The 1947 division of Jammu
and Kashmir also marked the territorial bifurcation of the two contending
identities. The Mirpur, Muzaffarabad and Poonch areas, strongholds of
the Muslim Conference where the Islamic identity was most ascendant,
came under Pakistan's control. Kashmir Valley and the Jammu region,
where the Kashmiri identity was popularised by the National Conference,
was retained by India. This division also had linguistic and religious
dimensions. Punjabi was the main language in Mirpur and Muzaffarabad,
whereas the Valley Muslims mostly spoke Kashmiri. While Kashmiri Islam
was eclectic and had Sufi leanings, Muslims outside the Valley were
mostly traditional Sunnis. All too quickly, the Kashmiri and Muslim
identities also got closely linked to the 'national' identities of the
two countries created by PartitionIndia's secular nationalism
and Pakistan's Islamic ideology. For India, Kashmir served as a powerful
symbol of its secular nationalism, by showcasing a Muslim majority region
choosing to live and prosper within a Hindu majority country. Conversely,
Pakistani nationalism saw Kashmir as integral to its Islamic identity:
if a Muslim majority area contiguous to Pakistan remained in India,
the original justification for a Muslim state would be weakened. Since
each country considered itself to be 'incomplete' without Kashmir, the
ideological conflict lingered over the decades.
As for the Kashmiri leadership,
led by Sheikh Abdullah it opted for India. The democratic, federal and
secular nature of the Indian state was more compatible with the Kashmiri
vision of their own state as conceptualised in the Naya Kashmir manifesto
than the feudal, autocratic and religiously driven Pakistan. The manifesto,
which had been released by the National Conference in 1944, proposed
a blueprint to fulfil the vision of a "new Kashmir".
Sheikh Abdullah realised
that Jawaharlal Nehru's concept of a pluralistic Indian identity offered
much better political space for protecting and nurturing a Kashmiri
identity, whereas the Pakistani leadership had made it clear that any
ethnic or linguistic aspiration would have be to be subordinated to
the Pakistani state's Islamic personality. This was a discussion the
National Conference itself had transcended years ago. Nehru, for his
part, was keen to retain Kashmir within the Indian Union in order to
establish his thesis of an Indian nationalism that was independent of
religion. This served to counter both the "two nation theory"
of Pakistan and Hindu nationalism at home. In those early years after
Partition, and with no inkling of the continuous turmoil that would
visit J&K, Sheikh Abdullah and Pandit Nehru supported and reinforced
each other.
Homo Indicus
After 1947, in the Indian
context, the dialectic of Kashmiri self image evolved not only in relation
the 'national' Indian identity but also in relation to the budding regional
and religious sub identities of the Dogra Hindu majority Jammu, and
Tibetan Buddhist majority Ladakh. With the abolition of Dogra rule,
the seat of political power in the state of J&K shifted to the Valley
and Srinagar town. However, unlike the Valley population, the leadership
of Ladakh and Jammu favoured a full integration with India. They resented
what they saw as an inadequate share in the J&K's new political
dispensation. The two regions did not have independent political representation
(except through National Conference channels) in the state's Constituent
Assembly, which created a political structure with power concentrated
in the Valley.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pandit as Kafir
The new secessionists also succeeded in changing the basic character
of the Kashmiri identity and distinguishing between 'Kashmiri Muslim'
and 'Kashmiri Pandit'. There was no security for the latter once the
Hizbul Mujahideen announced their goal of creating a Nizam i Mustafa
(Islamic state) in the Valley, and the mosques issued the ultimatums
to Hindus, "Agar Kashmir mein rehna hoga, Allah Allah kahna hoga"
(If you want to continue to live in Kashmir, you will have to pray to
none but Allah). Targeting the Pandits who manned the Central government
offices, the Jamaat i Islami party declared a war on "Kafirsthe
Batta, the first symbol of India in Kashmir". Batta is a local
word for 'Brahmin' and is used derogatorily to refer to Pandits.
The Indian government's inaction
or inability to provide security to the Kashmiri Hindus and its acquiescence
to their leaving the Valley, only facilitated the divide. The result
of Hindu baiting by the militants was the exodus of 260,000 Pandits.
Their experience has now, on the rebound, politicised Kashmiri Pandits
along religious lines. In seeking the support of political groups in
Delhi and elsewhere, they now characterise themselves as the original
indigenous people of Kashmir. They present newly revived accounts of
centuries of religious, linguistic and political persecution by Muslim
rulers and quote from the Rajatarangini, a 12th-century work on Kashmir's
history. They claim that the original Sharda script of the Kashmiri
language was destroyed when the language was forcibly Persianised. More
recently, says the Pandit leadership, successive State governments have
delimited election constituencies in such a way that it is impossible
to send a Pandit candidate to the State Assembly. In order to secure
their distinct identity, therefore, the Pandits have placed a demand
for a separate homeland for the Kashmiri Pandits. This Panun Kashmir
(Our Homeland) would comprise areas to the east and north of river Jhelum
in Kashmir Valley. The Pandits seek Union Territory status for this
homeland, with full application of the Indian Constitution.
Jammu and Ladakh
Ever since the failure of
the Praja Parishad movement in the early 1950s, the religious identity
of Jammu's Dogra population has been subdued. Instead, it is their regional
aspirations which are being put forward through different political
platforms. Balraj Puri, a contemporary of Sheikh Abdullah's, has since
the 1950s been pleading for more internal autonomy for Jammu. His Jammu
Autonomy Forum, which was a secular organisation, argued that while
the special status for J&K should be retained, the unitary structure
of the state must be scrapped as it was the root cause of intra regional
inequities. The Forum proposed a five tier constitutional setup in the
state that would include regional, district, block and panchayat levels,
with a high degree of internal autonomy conferred upon each tier.
An alternative proposal,
supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has been put forward more recently,
to set up a statutory Autonomous Regional Council for Jammu along the
pattern of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. The Council would be
a democratically run political agency to guide the socio economic development
of the Jammu region. Meanwhile, a new political organisation called
the Jammu Mukti Morcha has recently raised the demand for a three-way
division of the State into Jammu, the Valley and Ladakh. Some analysts
believe the Morcha is a creation of the Central government, to be used
as a bargaining chip in its negotiations with the Kashmiri leadership
on the overall question of the state's autonomy. The Jammu region is
fractured by yet one more layer of sub regional ethno lingual identities.
The Gujjar are a predominantly nomadic Muslim tribe who form the third
largest community in the state after the Kashmiri Muslims and Jammu
Dogras. Gujjars were first politicised in the 1970s when Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi cultivated them and propped them up as a possible counter
weight to the Valley Muslims. The first step in this direction was the
recognition of the Gojri language and allocation of time on J&K
radio for its programmes. The Gujjars' quest for a Scheduled Tribe status
under the Indian Constitution, which provides recognition and some privileges,
however, took a long time to achieve and was finally granted only by
the Chandra Shekhar government, in 1991.
The coddling of the Gujjars,
in turn, provided the stimulus for the politicisation of the Pahari
speaking population in Rajouri and Poonch districts. This time, not
one community but a mix of Rajput Muslims, Kashmiri Muslims, Hindus
of different castes and Sikhs have come together under a single linguistic
banner. They seek recognition of their common Pahari language, and Scheduled
Tribe status for all its speakers. In the meantime, the six million
Dogri speaking Dogras of Jammu district continue their long standing
stir to seek inclusion of their language in the Eighth Schedule. In
Ladakh, whose Tibetan culture is even further removed from Kashmir Valley
than the various communities of Jammu, the politicisation of the regional
identity started soon after the transfer of power in J&K to the
Valley's leadership in 1948. At various times, the Ladakhis demanded
union territory status or centrally administered rule like the one which
existed for the North Eastern Frontier Agency.
Sheikh Abdullah's response
to these autonomy demands was to try and divide the Ladakhis on the
basis of religion. He created two districts, the Buddhist majority Leh
and the Shia Muslim majority Kargil. This helped politicise the religious
component of the Ladakhis' identity and later created a communal divide
between the Buddhist and Shia Muslims which shook the roots of Ladakh's
centuries-old legacy of co existence. Leh's Buddhist leaders charged
the Kashmiri Muslims with proselytising in Ladakh. The Kashmiris' domination
of the tourism and handicraft trade was also greatly resented. In 1991
92, the Buddhist population came out vociferously against Kashmiri Muslims
and pointedly enforced a social and economic "boycott" against
them.
At the same time, Leh's leaders
felt that Kargil was getting favourable treatment from Srinagar, and
the State government, in turn, used the Kargil population as a counter
weight to the Buddhists' demand for regional autonomy. When the Kargil
Muslims opposed the Leh Buddhists' demand for Union territory status,
the latter imposed a social and economic boycott of Shia Muslims. The
movement spearheaded by Buddhist youth turned violent, it seemed, because
they saw it as the only means of drawing the Centre's attention to their
situation. In October 1993, the Ladakh Buddhist Association dropped
its demand for Union Territory status in favour of a tripartite agreement
for constituting a popularly elected Autonomous Hill Council for Leh
district. The Council was finally established in May 1995, while the
district of Kargil is yet to make up its mind on the issue.
Job for Farooq
Elections for J&K's State
Assembly were held in August September 1996 after a long gap of nine
years, and the National Conference of Farooq Abdullahthe Sheikh's
sonwon with a comfortable majority. These elections, and a previous
exercise which elected six MPs from the state to the national Parliament,
now provide a viable political mechanism with which to tackle the Kashmir
issue. The moment is also propitious as militancy is at its lowest ebb
since 1989. The National Conference has always stood for Kashmiriyat
and its unqualified victory in the Assembly elections may well mark
the beginning of the marginalisation of the religious component and
re assertion of the Conference's cultural ethos. However, the Chief
Minister faces great odds; first and foremost, the challenge posed by
the political leadership of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, which
rejected the polls, and the militants who could wreck the best intentioned
plans. Besides, the bitterness among the Kashmiri Pandits against Kashmiri
Muslims runs deep.
It also remains an open question
whether Farooq Abdullah will be able to overcome the political resistance
within the Valley to his plans to provide internal autonomy to the Jammu
and Ladakh regions while keeping them within J&K. However, he has
made a start. On 19 October, he announced his plan for "equal and
judicious" power-sharing among the three regions of Jammu, Kashmir
Valley and Ladakh, to be implemented within a year. The Chief Minister
has also set up a committee headed by Karan Singhthe philosopher
politician who happens to be the son and heir of Maharaja Hari Singhto
examine the whole gamut of issues relating to political autonomy at
the sub regional, regional and state levels. Besides the question of
Srinagar's relations with the regions, is the all important matter of
building bridges between the Kashmiri identity and the Indian identity.
Both, Srinagar and New Delhi face a difficult task but this may well
be their last chance to try to work out a formula. Farooq Abdullah is
India's best bet in J&K. His position on J&K being an integral
part of India has been unequivocal and consistent throughout his political
career. Within the Valley, he still enjoys the people's support as the
leader of National Conference, the only party with a grassroots support
base. The Centre must, therefore, without further delay honour its commitment
to grant maximum internal autonomy to J&K. There is, after all,
near total national consensus in India on the matter, with the exception
of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Autonomy is crucial not only to re establish
the credibility of Farooq Abdullah in J&K state politics but also
that of the Indian state among the Kashmiri people. While analysing
what it means to be Kashmiri, it is also important to take a second
look at what it means to be 'Indian'. For, 50 years after Independence,
the Centre and the 'establishment' which sets the national agenda must
learn to be comfortable with the fact that India is a mosaic of often
overlapping cultures, populated by people who tend to have multiple
identities. The political expression of regional aspirations in such
a country, therefore, cannot be seen any more as a threat to national
unity. Finally, there is the Indo Pak factor which tends to keep the
Kashmir issue hostage. New Delhi must realise that Kashmir cannot serve
as a symbol of secularism if the Kashmiris are being kept within India
against their will. Islamabad should understand that Kashmir's accession
to Pakistan will hardly justify its Islamic ideology, for when it comes
to the crunch Kashmiris identify more with their ethno cultural identity
than with Islam.
State Policy
There are, thus, three levels
of inter linking identities at play on the Kashmir stage. The national
'Indian' identity, by not giving adequate political space to the Kashmiri
'regional' identity, sharpens the latter's sense of self awareness.
While the Kashmiri identity seeks 'maximum' political autonomy from
the larger Indian identity, it is reluctant to share that political
space with the 'sub regional' identitiesthose subsumed within
Jammu and Ladakh. This, in turn, sharpens the self image of the people
of Jammu and Ladakhi. The circle of inter linkages becomes complete
when the sub regional identities in Jammu and Ladakh seek to align themselves
with the national ("Indian") identity. In all this, it is
the policy of the statein the first instance, that of the Indian
nation state and then that of J&K statewhich provides the
key variable to this making and unmaking of identities.
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N.C. Behera is with the Centre
for Policy Research, New Delhi.