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Retrospective Consent And Elections In Kashmir

By Umar Lateef Misgar

18 November, 2014
Countercurrents.org

The idea of 'Retrospective Consent' was brought to light by Franklin
Giddings, a renowned sociologist, in his bloated yet unignorable
thesis Democracy and Empires. The book is a comprehensive and
loathsome thesis justifying the existence and necessity of 19th
century North American and Western European empires. I first stumbled
upon this fascinating idea while going through Edward Said's Culture &
Imperialism. The essence of this idea is that the subject people (For
Giddings, Indigenous people of the colonies) be first subjugated and
then assumed to have consented to their enslavement, sometime in the
past. This derogatory principle was an essential tool employed by
imperial powers to ensue their reign of exploitation.The 'fictional
consent' of native populations has always been used by foreign
occupiers to legitimize their rule and undermine the resistance of the
natives. Indian occupation in Kashmir is no exception. In Kashmir,
retrospective consent is periodically given a new breath under the
disguise of elections.

The retrospective consent has two basic elements-Subjugation and then
Legitimization.

It doesn't take a rocket-scientist to determine the level of
subjugation that Kashmir has been facing under Indian occupation, be
it political, economic or military. Kashmir, the hot-bed of
central-asian and sub-continental trade, has now been economically
isolated from anything other than what comes through 'India'. The
people have intentionally been made dependent on the institutions,
regulated and maintained by Indian state, for their economic survival.
Agriculture sector has also faced a significant setback during the
past decades. The increasing or let's say artificially increased
unemployment rate is directly propotional to the percentage of votes
being cast in the elections.A classic example of retrospective consent
in action.

In political realm, subjugation is carried out by infinite
means.Enactment of draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers
Act, disregard of basic human rights, even right to life, creates a
paranoia within the populace.This usually works in absolute favor of
people contesting elections. The contestants, disguised as saviors,
successfully deceive vulnerable natives in believing that they have an
absolute authority over actions of state when they themselves are mere
sentinels of occupying state. Another addition to voting-percentage.

Militarily, the subjugation is more than evident. More than half a
million SLRs, M-16s and AK-47s roam in Kashmir with absolute impunity
granted to them by Indian state. The nozzles are sometimes directly
employed to forcibly escort Kashmiris to polling booths. Highly
productive for voting-percentages.

Subjugation successful, now come to Legitimization part.
Legitimization is relatively easy because it's only an act of
exhibition. 'Successful elections', flaunting of 'polling percentages'
and 'elected government' fulfills this purpose and whenever the native
population resists, which mostly happens in immediate future, the
retrospective consent (elections) is thrown at their faces and at the
faces of handful of conscientious objectors. The fact that the whole
process of elections was first accomplished by creating this morass of
political, economic and military subjugation is largely ignored.

This cycle has been continuing untamed since Indian state buried its
teeth in Kashmir and is bound to continue unless the so called
'elected representatives' or in other words collaborators dissolve
into thin air. To use this instrument of retrospective consent and
devoid Kashmiris of their political rights is akin to colonialism or,
in words of Dibyesh Anand*, is sort of an informal post-colonial
imperialism.

*See Professor Anand's paper -
China and India: Postcolonial Informal Empires in the Emerging Global
Order at www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08935696.2012.635039#preview

Umar Lateef Misgar -From Islamabad Kashmir and undergrad student of
Political Science at Aligarh Muslim University

 

 




 

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