It is darkest before the dawn
Shoeb Hamid
A cursory observation though, New Delhi and Islamabad of late have been engaged in an intense narrative war, on Kashmir and other issues. Their minions have hardly left any space or opportunity to score a point over the other by claiming what is not even theirs in the first place. But that is just their usual business of poking nose into affairs of others. Whether they see Kashmir as an unsettled and unfinished project whose contours were drawn when these fraternal twins were split and thrown off the womb, as a dogfight over territorial ownership and strategic dominance, as a payback to some Bangla smackdown, or what their tie-collar graduated monkeys call bilateral tissue – it is up to them, you can teach monkeys to mimic, nothing more. For the people of Kashmir and its leaders, politicians excused and excluded, Kashmir issue is an end in itself. It is more like a one-way journey on which Kashmiris set off soon after the Dogra paramountcy and ‘Sale Deed’ rule ended, due regards to Her Excellency, the Empress of India till 1947. There is no turning back, and it can’t be undone. As the Imperial Power culminated in the sub-continent, the so-called ‘Princely Rule’ was abolished, there can’t be a double standard over it – abolish colonial raj in India but keep it in case of Kashmir in the form of some instrument of accession. The Maharaja had no authority over Kashmir and its people by then. Accession would have made some sense had the ‘princely sahukar’ had the support and good Will of the people. But that was not the case for the sahukar who had bought Kashmir like real estate administered it no better than East India Company, even worse. The transition from sahukar to sarkar needs no mentioning – that bag of lies, treachery and deception should rest as shut and closed for the moment.
If in 1947, and even before that, a Kashmiri wished for freestanding it is the same in 2015 and it will be the same in 3015. Self-determination is an idea, and after it is conceived it is only to be realized, people cannot un-conceive this idea or get rid of it conveniently or inconveniently. So there is no point in worrying over it, the leaders must be assured that it is not as has been misinformed by conjurers and snake charmers a simple act of incitement.
Bilateral Tissue
Cells make tissues and tissues make organs. Indian and Pakistani states are two organs of a kind of people whose ancestry is hybrid of australo-dardic-mongloid-caucasian beings. These organs which developed in 1947 and have failed to grow to maturity even after 60-70 years, believe that after the break of their umbilical cord some tissue got left behind. Now they call it bilateral tissue because it touches their epithelial walls. It is embarrassing when they lay their claims on this tissue disregarding the fact that there are cells that make it which can’t be isolated from it. It would be the height of stupidity in a civil world where science had replaced all superstition.
Pakistan goes a step further and calls it its jugular vein. Given the history of hostility and violence between them, the two organs, they are full of antigens and antibodies, virulent to each other to the extent that if continental drift were possible and in their hands they would have put a full polar distance between them. To cut all hypocrisy the two states just hate each other, with some reservations. After witnessing their antipathy, which their tie-collar monkeys most often try to hide, I believe if there were only India and Pakistan in the world one or the other would have constructed an H-bomb in say 1948 if possible and dropped it over the other without a second’s delay and thinking. Thanks to Almighty who has also given us the white folks and pale-faced international janitors, we are able to live the day.
Their attitude, however, has changed a bit in last several years. All movies produced in India where lead actor is some Khan becomes a hit, reason – lot of Indians as well as Pakistanis are watching them. Lot of Pakistani singers are an instant hit in India, reason – well they sing better and sing the non-sanskritized songs that most people in India are able to understand. This phenomenon is called the Hindustani rendition. It is only official communiqué by some Indian politicians who in an attempt to bring their conceived national flavour to the message speak in a language that is hardly understood by 30 percent of native speakers of India. Try to speak some Sanskrit words before a Tamil or a Kannad, and they would just stare at you with blank eyes. That’s difference though; on we do same-same things you also find the oversized inflated busts trying to show off who has got it better. So, one prima donna brags, do you know how awesome I am, I will build a road from the land of Changpas to Gujarat to the land of Nagas. The other prima donna retorts, from Shinjang to Gwadar, now pronounce this in Sanskrit X.I.N.J.I.A.N.G. Then they say, that‘s cool, let’s forget Kashmiri, Sanskrit, anandmath and anachronisms for a while, let us do business, I will send an envoy and chests laden with trinkets you do the same. But remember, at home mum is the word.
So their business and views on bilateral tissue, their minions and trinkets, their differences and receptive tandavs do not mean much to a Kashmiri. For the people of Kashmir, the Valley is in itself a universe, which though exists in a larger universe has its own individuality, its own ways of life, its own eyes to look at the world outside, its own opinion and perspective regarding its people and what they aspire. Nothing can change that, and no deal by any party other than the people of Kashmir can change the freestanding of the people.
Leaders and the criticism
Like other Kashmiris, I believe in the leaders, the leaders of Kashmir and pin my hopes on their doing and directing. We often show our impatience and immaturity too, but we are one when it comes to the ‘collective thinking’, the children of the Hurriyat. We have every right to criticize, lecture and lambaste our leaders because we all belong to the family which they are heads of. It might be that we will prove ourselves as brats or that the heads of our family might be temporarily losing direction, but that is our family business. No minion, monkey or any prima donna should cast its eye or poke its nose in our family business. Leaders of Kashmir support their people and the people support their leaders. In doing so sometimes they may fail. It is normal and there is no constituency, no society, no nation, no state or abode where it does not happen. In India politicians like those of Congress and of BJP both of whom would claim to be their nation’s patriots and leaders would like to see each other be eaten by rats, alive I am sure. In Pakistan, it is the same, as they would love to see rival fellows blown away. That is India and Pakistan, and their leaders and their patriots. People as well as leaders of Kashmir in my opinion are far more tolerant, accommodating and forgiving; and both India and Pakistan should take it as a lesson on tolerance. What is needed is to admit the weaknesses and constraints, make course corrections and support each other with a firmer grip. If history of last few centuries has taught us anything, it is that the idea of what is right and what is true cannot be dislodged for long. Ernest Hemingway in his ‘Old man and the sea’ describes it aptly ‘Man can be destroyed but not defeated’. The ‘Old Man’ is personification of an idea, the Will. India and Pakistan may send their minions to mars or to moon from where they would babble in half-intellect, but the Will will not be defeated.
Feedback at shoebhamid@gmail.com
