Delhi Common Wealth Games, 2010 have taught us many things. Leave aside the debate on the relativity of the idea of hygiene and the corruption charges; one thing is clear: that India’s peculiar way of doing things – so eloquently and fondly called jugaad – is alive and works even today.
Arjimand Hussain Talib
Most of the world is dumb-struck. A week before the games started, there were few optimists outside the Games’ Organising Committee who believed that the games would be possible at all. For a moment, ignore the goof up, the international humiliation and the unrelenting bad press about the messy day-to-day affairs at the games, the fact is that the games are on. That is what makes jugaad wonderful – and, obviously, beyond the comprehension of a common westerner, who loves to be driven by a definite idea of the goal and the outcome, a set process, precision and attention to detail.
Writing in The Times of India on October 3 in “In defence of Jugaad” Santosh Desai writes, “Jugaad is the name we give to our subversive disdain for reality; we could change its name if it offends us but it would be a shame if we were to lose this unique ability to see the world in a distinctive way.”
So jugaad a civilisational attribute, so to say, which, if talked about by foreigners, may even border racism. In local parlance its negative characteristics are often shrugged off with two cold words – chalta hai.
Jugaad – if we reflect – somehow best explains how Kashmir has been ruled and managed post 1947. This tool explains the micro management of Kashmir’s political and security affairs from New Delhi despite the occasional appearance of ‘democratically-elected’ governments in Srinagar. This tool may also explain the announcement of 8 ‘concessions’ by New Delhi last month, which constitutional pundits say should have ideally been done by Srinagar, as the issues fall easily within the latter’s jurisdiction.
Jugaad basically doesn’t care for protocols or systems. It doesn’t mind political micro management either. It is like being beyond and above everything. So when chief minister Omar Abdullah spoke his heart out in the State Assembly on Wednesday, calling the state’s relationship with the union of India a conditional accession and not a merger, a state of denial persists. Jugaad isn’t comfortable with shocks. That is the reason, we learn now, additional Union Home Secretary, K Sikandan arrived in Srinagar on Saturday to get a CD of Omar’s speech.
Now take the post-APD visit initiative of the appointment of a possible interlocutor by New Delhi on Kashmir. The very terms of reference of such interlocutors seeking engagement with ‘all shades of opinion’ – bypassing basic democratic principles – is nothing but jugaad. The point is: is New Delhi really unaware about the demands and the bottom line of these ‘shades of opinions’?
Let us do not go much into history. Spare me for any dementia issues here, post 90s we have had so many of these interlocutors, emissaries, committees and delegations visiting Kashmir and trying to understand what people actually want here. We have had Ram Jethmalani, the present Governor N. N. Vohra, K. C. Pant, C. Rangarajan, Wajahat Habibullah, O. P. Shah, A. S. Dullat, Justice (Retd.) Sagheer Ahmed, and the recent All Party Parliamentary Delegation (APD). All did the same job. Why start afresh?
The problem, as ever, one need to acknowledge, is with the format and the goals of such exercises. As an example, consider the present Governor N N Vohra’s visit to Kashmir in 2003. As per official records, Mr. Vohra met 36 ‘leaders’ of various political parties/groups and 183 individuals and representatives of various organizations at Srinagar’s Circuit House during nine days. The meeting statistics of the recent APD may be hardly different. And now when a new interlocutor will come, can one expect a different format?
The policy of engaging with minority groups, NGOs, trusts, ‘civil society groups’, student teams, mohalla and village welfare committees and so on of fringe nature has never worked on Kashmir. Tiny minorities cannot help alter any political process because they are disproportionate to the realities on the ground in the real world.
If that were so, 63 years is a very long time to manage a conflict. Seeking to create a psychological condition of diversity of opinion will never work on Kashmir. There is no substitute for a political engagement with the real stakeholders.
It is not that New Delhi needs a fact finding mission every year to understand the mass pulse in Kashmir. Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai in an interview to the latest issue of The Week reflects that when he says, “Though we spend 10,000 crore a year [on Kashmir], you have not been able to win hearts and minds. It is not just development. There are roads; the rail link is coming. [But] we have not been able to reach out to people much. Maybe [we have been] reaching out to the government. There is a subtle difference.”
Then there are hard line voices like that of Shankar Roychowdhury, former Chief of Army Staff. In an article “Reclaiming Kashmir” on October 5 in Deccan Chronicle he writes, “… those in government surely realise that no amount of “Red Cross parcels” are going to win hearts and minds. How much more is the government prepared to concede to “win the unwinnable” in terms of hearts and minds in the Valley…?”
But then there are other realities, which parties like the Hurriyat and Islamabad need to acknowledge as well. A dialogue initiated by New Delhi, like the process of demilitarization in Kashmir, cannot be a one-way affair. There will have to be matching steps of confidence building by New Delhi and Islamabad for a forward movement.
For instance, New Delhi will find it impossible to initiate demilitarization unilaterally without similar steps by Islamabad in its administered part of Kashmir and guarantees by the state and non-state actors on that side that there will be no military campaigns on this side. That is where engagement with Islamabad becomes an inevitable necessity.
And no amount of jugaad can help skirt that.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Kashmir and Ayodhya
New Delhi can capitalise on an environment of compromise
Arjimand Hussain Talib
There is a sixth century fable which tells about a boy playing in the fields, and who got stung by a nettle. The boy ran home to his mother, telling her that he had just touched that nasty weed, and it had stung him.
“It was just your touching it my boy,” said the mother, “that caused it to sting you; the next time you meddle with a nettle, grasp it tightly, and it will do you no hurt.”
There is a key lesson in this story on why embracing a new approach on Kashmir by New Delhi and Islamabad may not be as catastrophic as made to be. Something very significant happened at the end of the week. There are some real openings for hope.
The Allahabad High Court’s verdict on the Babri Masjid demolition case is arguably far from perfect. But the response from Indian masses has been unexpectedly mature – belying the apprehensions about mass unrest.
There is a viewpoint that the reason there was no unrest is because the verdict has been interpreted as being overly favorable to the majority Hindu community. But this viewpoint is questionable. Both the parties to the dispute have already said that they are dissatisfied with the verdict, and, hence, will appeal before the Supreme Court.
The fact is that despite the differing perceptions, the overwhelming public opinion is that of accommodation. There were no mass celebrations or expressions of disquiet from any side. Indian intellectuals are saying that the reason for this attitude is that India has actually come a long way since 1992. The generation that was believed to be driven by religious jingoism and passion seems to have really been subdued by the new culture of accommodation and tolerance. India, there is a widely-held belief, has changed.
One of the classic responses to the verdict was heard from Indian Supreme Court’s leading lawyer Rajeev Dhawan, who called the Allahabad High Court’s verdict as a “Panchayati style justice.” He opined that he saw the verdict based on a compromise solution rather than basic principles of natural justice. Even as he argues that the legal process on the case was supposed to establish the ownership of the land in dispute, and not go beyond the standard legal practice, he acknowledges the decision as “consensual.”
Then there are other viewpoints, which are besides the point here. One being that the verdict is patently unjust with Muslims. Two, that despite the court granting possession rights to the Muslim Waqf Board over one third of the land, in practice the land will be actually used by the Hindus.
There is another opinion which believes that the matters of faith cannot be subject to legal scrutiny and analysis. And that religious beliefs are beyond the worldly legal considerations of proof and legal logic.
People are entitled to have their own opinions, but the point here to make is different. The environment of peaceful consideration of the judgment in India – if not its complete acceptance - makes a strong case for an out-of-box thinking on Kashmir today.
There are always people who have been propounding doomsday scenarios in case New Delhi chooses to think beyond that traditional ‘box.’ The theories surrounding that doomsday scenario may well be a myth if the response to an extremely sensitive issue like the Babri Masjid verdict is anything to go by.
There are compelling reasons why thinking out of the box is a dire necessity today.
The happenings since 2008 in Kashmir in general and those since June 11 this year in particular have changed many things. The gulf between an average Kashmir and the Indian state has deepened considerably. For India, the biggest matter of worry must be the estrangement of Kashmir’s ‘generation next’, whose thinking has gone even beyond what their elders have nursed.
It is very much within the hard and soft power of the Indian state to manage the brewing alienation and unrest in Kashmir. But it needs to come in terms with the reality that it cannot resolve this issue as such. It will always have a crowd available in Kashmir which provides its rule a critical mass necessary to keep things going, but it is unlikely that it will be able to create a respectable acceptance and legitimacy to its current brand of rule in Kashmir.
Then there is the external image factor. India – despite its oft-talked about vices of mass deprivation, caste system and alienated poor communities – is seen as one of the emerging global economic powers, if not a political or military one. It is mostly respected for its democracy and a political culture which are not to be found everywhere. But Kashmir dents its image of being a land of Gandhi and Buddha.
And look how far people are going about this country. An article in Jerusalem Post “Why isn’t India a pariah state?” by Rob Brown on 19 September explains that. Rob wrote “But what the world is never told by The New York Times, nor by most other supposedly liberal organs, is that New Delhi’s response to such civil disobedience has been far more savage and brutal than anything authorized in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, leading in the past to serious armed insurrection (often incited by Pakistan).”
And then there are pragmatic Indians themselves. Consider this thought from a recent essay by Pankaj Mishra, “The killing fields of Kashmir dwarf those of Palestine and Tibet. In addition to the everyday regime of arbitrary arrests, curfews, raids and checkpoints enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers, the valley’s 4 million Muslims are exposed to extrajudicial execution, rape and torture, with such barbaric variations as live electric wires inserted into the p----.”
So let the nettle be held firmly. And sure nothing is going to happen.
Arjimand Hussain Talib
There is a sixth century fable which tells about a boy playing in the fields, and who got stung by a nettle. The boy ran home to his mother, telling her that he had just touched that nasty weed, and it had stung him.
“It was just your touching it my boy,” said the mother, “that caused it to sting you; the next time you meddle with a nettle, grasp it tightly, and it will do you no hurt.”
There is a key lesson in this story on why embracing a new approach on Kashmir by New Delhi and Islamabad may not be as catastrophic as made to be. Something very significant happened at the end of the week. There are some real openings for hope.
The Allahabad High Court’s verdict on the Babri Masjid demolition case is arguably far from perfect. But the response from Indian masses has been unexpectedly mature – belying the apprehensions about mass unrest.
There is a viewpoint that the reason there was no unrest is because the verdict has been interpreted as being overly favorable to the majority Hindu community. But this viewpoint is questionable. Both the parties to the dispute have already said that they are dissatisfied with the verdict, and, hence, will appeal before the Supreme Court.
The fact is that despite the differing perceptions, the overwhelming public opinion is that of accommodation. There were no mass celebrations or expressions of disquiet from any side. Indian intellectuals are saying that the reason for this attitude is that India has actually come a long way since 1992. The generation that was believed to be driven by religious jingoism and passion seems to have really been subdued by the new culture of accommodation and tolerance. India, there is a widely-held belief, has changed.
One of the classic responses to the verdict was heard from Indian Supreme Court’s leading lawyer Rajeev Dhawan, who called the Allahabad High Court’s verdict as a “Panchayati style justice.” He opined that he saw the verdict based on a compromise solution rather than basic principles of natural justice. Even as he argues that the legal process on the case was supposed to establish the ownership of the land in dispute, and not go beyond the standard legal practice, he acknowledges the decision as “consensual.”
Then there are other viewpoints, which are besides the point here. One being that the verdict is patently unjust with Muslims. Two, that despite the court granting possession rights to the Muslim Waqf Board over one third of the land, in practice the land will be actually used by the Hindus.
There is another opinion which believes that the matters of faith cannot be subject to legal scrutiny and analysis. And that religious beliefs are beyond the worldly legal considerations of proof and legal logic.
People are entitled to have their own opinions, but the point here to make is different. The environment of peaceful consideration of the judgment in India – if not its complete acceptance - makes a strong case for an out-of-box thinking on Kashmir today.
There are always people who have been propounding doomsday scenarios in case New Delhi chooses to think beyond that traditional ‘box.’ The theories surrounding that doomsday scenario may well be a myth if the response to an extremely sensitive issue like the Babri Masjid verdict is anything to go by.
There are compelling reasons why thinking out of the box is a dire necessity today.
The happenings since 2008 in Kashmir in general and those since June 11 this year in particular have changed many things. The gulf between an average Kashmir and the Indian state has deepened considerably. For India, the biggest matter of worry must be the estrangement of Kashmir’s ‘generation next’, whose thinking has gone even beyond what their elders have nursed.
It is very much within the hard and soft power of the Indian state to manage the brewing alienation and unrest in Kashmir. But it needs to come in terms with the reality that it cannot resolve this issue as such. It will always have a crowd available in Kashmir which provides its rule a critical mass necessary to keep things going, but it is unlikely that it will be able to create a respectable acceptance and legitimacy to its current brand of rule in Kashmir.
Then there is the external image factor. India – despite its oft-talked about vices of mass deprivation, caste system and alienated poor communities – is seen as one of the emerging global economic powers, if not a political or military one. It is mostly respected for its democracy and a political culture which are not to be found everywhere. But Kashmir dents its image of being a land of Gandhi and Buddha.
And look how far people are going about this country. An article in Jerusalem Post “Why isn’t India a pariah state?” by Rob Brown on 19 September explains that. Rob wrote “But what the world is never told by The New York Times, nor by most other supposedly liberal organs, is that New Delhi’s response to such civil disobedience has been far more savage and brutal than anything authorized in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, leading in the past to serious armed insurrection (often incited by Pakistan).”
And then there are pragmatic Indians themselves. Consider this thought from a recent essay by Pankaj Mishra, “The killing fields of Kashmir dwarf those of Palestine and Tibet. In addition to the everyday regime of arbitrary arrests, curfews, raids and checkpoints enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers, the valley’s 4 million Muslims are exposed to extrajudicial execution, rape and torture, with such barbaric variations as live electric wires inserted into the p----.”
So let the nettle be held firmly. And sure nothing is going to happen.
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