Legal fraud in Kashmir

Preceding August 5, 2019 that will add to the burgeoning catalogue of dark days in Kashmir, there was a foreboding sense of an intrigue in works. Sending of additional troops to an already the most militarized zone in the world and more ominously the very selective evacuation of tourists from everywhere in Kashmir in midst of a pilgrimage season didn’t make sense unless one were to imagine the worst. And with stripping away of not only the autonomy enshrined in the Indian constitution but also the entity of the state, what the extremist right wing Indian government did was worse than the worst. 

Armed even with a bigger majority than before in the elections of May 2019, the Modi government went around surreptitiously to commit a legal fraud to render the article 370 of the Indian constitution that governed the relations between the union and state and article 35a that protected the state from alien incursions through purchase and employments ineffective. They went even one step further by decreeing the nullification of the existence of the state itself by its bifurcation into two and downgrading the status of the two emerging entities into that of appendages of the federal government. All this was done after incarcerating the entire population of Kashmir through strictest enforced curfew by armed to the teeth Indian security forces supplemented by concertina wires. People in Kashmir have been forced to suspend their biology till India consolidates its grip on the region.

Prior to the day when the Indian government issued that draconian decree and presented to the Indian parliament for rubber stamping, a kind of fatalism had taken hold in Kashmir. People in general refused to contemplate such a possibility as they believed too much, which now turned to be a completely misplaced, in the provisions of the Indian constitution. The truth has been that the successive Indian governments have used those very constitutional provisions to strip away the autonomy and freedoms using salami tactics of one at a time. The adherence to constitutional guarantees and rule of laws are subject to the very acceptance by the people who are in power. Those human made laws unlike laws of nature can and are subject to capricious violations if lawless persons become in charge.

Modi steeped in the fundamentalism of extreme right wing ideology was never going to be the one bothered by constitutional restrictions. To overcome those legal limitations, Modi and his wily protégé Amit Shah coopted the Hindu population of the country into  the project of smothering the rule of law. The announcement of the decision about abrogation of the Jammu and Kashmir as an entity was greeted by celebrations by the Hindu majority. Even the opposition parties in the parliament barring a few individual exceptions were tepid in their objections to the changes that were  brought in by the government. The opposition parties actually saw defections from their ranks as some figures rushed in to congratulate the government for the measures to strangulate the entire population of Kashmir.

The constitutional coup by the Indian government vis-a-vis Kashmir far from being a culmination rather marks the first step of their cherished mission of humiliating and subjugating the population of Kashmir into submission for having defied the inalienable right of India over the province or specifically right over the lands and lakes of that pristine valley. Their next logical step would be to jig electoral boundaries to give an ascendency to Jammu region over Kashmir followed by attainment of a majority for the Hindu right wing in the assembly of now an inferior territory to be ruled directly by diktats from the Indian capital. In historical terms, the step is akin to arrest of Yusuf Shah Chak instead of being treated sovereign by the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Since that time Kashmir has been unable to throw off the yolk of foreign occupation-domination.

Modi, Shah and Kashmir

Ascension or rather re-ascension of Modi and Shah, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic doppelgänger, has caused unlikely flutters at the unlikeliest of places. In Kashmir, suddenly both separatists and collaborators have come together in fawning of the criminal duo in the Delhi durbar. The paeans seem to be flowing uninterrupted and the two of them, who in a civil world would be spending their time in hard labor wearing prison outfits, are being praised for their vision and virility. The scene has a feeling of been taken straight from A Tale of Two Cities, where Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! 

On the collaborator front that boy wonder Omar Abdullah, over the objections of his own father, seems to be leering a stitch up with Modi-Shah. One wonders how early the amnesia strikes the shameless tribe, otherwise that dimwit would remember the humiliation that visited Muftis after their Faustian bargain with Modi. What could be more discomfiting than the people shunning the funeral of Mufti Sayeed in his own home? Or is that Omar Abdullah doesn’t want too many attendees if and when his father leaves this world? One could never be sure about the devilish plans of a progeny. 

Why would suddenly separatists start seeing light in that thuggish duo, who essentially captured the throne in Delhi based on the atrocities unleashed on Muslims in Gujarat during riots of 2002? And Amit Shah as the state home minister was put in jail for orchestrating stage managed encounters. But then we do live in a post truth world or else we have crossed an alternate dimension and no one told me about that, but about one thing I am absolutely sure, Modi and Shah will have nothing but malice towards Kashmir. Sooner that hard fact is understood, better it would be for all concerned.

Dark cave and a monster

Just before the Indian election results were out on May 23, 2019, there was a spurt of articles in international media highlighting the true nature of Modi’s personality, divisive and polarizing, given to hyperboles, with an intrinsic hatred for anything intellectual, unapologetic Hindu nationalist, with scant respect of either truth or decency. It was not that international media had suddenly turned against Modi but rather analyses were based on observations of the person who built his entire life on total deceptions where his frequent claims to contradictory version of his own life didn’t add up to a logical truth. But given that in the five years of his first term he multiple times obliterated the borders between myth and history, unintentionally or intentionally distorted the history and historical figures, it hardly surprises anyone that he would add layers to his arid life built on tunnel vision that would not add up. 

While it would be hard to not acknowledge the gargantuan scale of his win yet it would be, at the same time, hard not to understand the power of his singularly divisive agenda of fear and hatred, inculcation of victim hood in Hindu psyche and priming it for retribution against what they call as a millennium of foreign domination, in relegating the real issues of governance to the background. From north to south and east to west, people voted for Modi for creation of a Hindu nation and assigning his massive victory to anything else simply doesn’t count, it’s an out loud message to minorities and dissenters that notion of an inclusive India had gone far too long. 

The image of Modi as savior of Hindu didn’t built up in last five years of his rule. The foundation of that image was laid when he went on air on that fateful day of the Godhra train burning and demanded charred bodies brought back to the state capital of his Gujarat; then he let hell loose on the Muslims of the state in the following days. The camps set up for the escaping Muslims were out loudly described by Modi as children producing factories and Hindus of the state roared in approval and the rest of the country’s majority people took a notice of him. From that point on it was a potent mix of business and ultra Hinduism.

His dominant government in Delhi since 2014 might have not fulfilled many of the promises, but he didn’t waver in his vision of division and cruelty. He maintained a steadied silence when his followers embarked on lynchings and killings overtly on the basis of religion; he unleashed a down right economic cruelty when he made 86 percent of people’s money redundant and famously made fun of it. Steve Forbes called that act as awful and immoral but nothing Modi ever did could be termed as Moral. How many people can forget a desperate call by Ahsan Jaffry to Modi when Hindu marauders attacked the Muslim dominated area during the 2002 riots in Gujarat only to be taunted? The only issue on which Modi remained steadfast in past years was to show the minorities their place and to strangulate all institutions of secularism, turn education and history into farce, fill scientific conferences with sessions on mythology.

The people voted in overwhelming numbers through the breadth and length for Modi, as a brilliant analyst called, they bought his vision of Hinduism hook, line and stinker; anyone trying to cloak it with a patina of vision probably doesn’t understand the term visionary. Nehru was a visionary, who built the edifice of democracy in a country full of contradictions yet didn’t become an autocrat. India might survive another five years of total domination of Modi, it will emerge a different place with scathed minorities. Five years is a long time and given his propensity for bluster and awol at the time of attacks on minorities, the country for now is headed  into a dark cave without knowing where it does end. Those from the majority who voted for Modi with gusto should not get too complacent, strong men need to feed their egos and find scapegoats for failures and never hesitate to turn their hoodlums  on anyone. It’s like you created a Frankenstein’s monster.

Exit polls of hatred

It is likely that those exit polls were mere wishes of the bootlicking media or perhaps an exercise in enriching themselves through stock market manipulation. On the latter account, the international situation might have rained on their aspirations.

But one cannot discount the possibility of those exit polls being true. One just has to imagine the ramification of that reality. This was not an election where sinister motives were cloaked under a blanket of progress and inclusiveness.

Communalism of the worst kind was in open display; the hatred particularly against Muslims was the theme of the entire campaign. Maligning of history and progressive historical figures remained foremost on their agenda.

If Modi wins that means Indians will have voted for that unhinged hate and bigotry without any excuse. Not that they voted for anything else in 2014. Lest they forget, the worst dictator in the history was approved by his people repeatedly for his zealousness for violence against the vulnerable. That didn't stop from him from ending ignominiously.

Unraveling of a malevolent clown

Modi has lost his mind or to put in simple terms, he has become mad; he’s behaving on the campaign trail like a panic stricken barmy nut. The most crucial phases of the current elections are almost; the question is why all of a sudden he has become so pathetic? Not that he was not always pathetic but there’s a symptom in his rantings that alternate with his self-pitying groveling. That has all of a sudden become a comic spectacle.

At this point, it wouldn’t matter much whether he wins as everyone has witnessed him into turning a complete lunatic. The metamorphosis of Modi from an authoritarian kook to a raving lunatic remains a mystery or perhaps not or maybe he knows something that we don’t; maybe the truth is about to catch up with him and five years of deceitful fudging of economic data were not enough to save him from falling in an abyss. Truth be told, he dragged everyone into the abyss with him. Surprise remains, why everyone is surprised?

Didn’t he use deceit to evict his predecessor to become the chief minister in Gujrat? Didn’t he incite and preside over genocide in the aftermath of Ghodra tragedy and didn’t he create an atmosphere of fear and terror during his time in Gujrat? Didn’t as the prime minister in last five years usher in an ambience of hate and criminality? Didn’t he choose to not utter a word when his followers unleashed lynching in the name of cow? Didn’t he remain silent when intellectuals opposed to him were murdered? Then, surprise to what end? We might as well enjoy the spectacle of his mental unraveling; the malevolent clown might yet win to continue his vision of hatred and deceit.           

Low life cretin

It was in June 2017, Modi attended the St. Petersburg International Forum meeting and for that occasion, Megyn Kelly from NBC was there to interview Vladimir Putin. During the course of that meeting, at one point  Putin, Modi and Kelly were walking together. Modi started drooling like a louche at flamingly blonde Megyn Kelly and told her, with a shamelessly grinning open mouth with all yellowish dark teeth, suitable for an underworld thug, that he had seen her profile picture with an umbrella on Twitter. Megyn Kelly responded with a characteristic nonchalance, "Oh really! Are you on Twitter?" Modi with his foolishly still open grinning shook his head in affirmative in manner of a famished dog being offered a bone. 

One would assume him from that incident him to be a docilely anodyne but foolish person but in reality Modi throughout has been a sinister human with a dark soul without a trace of any compassion, who manipulated himself into power through unethical machinations and unbound duplicity. It's his record in the government throughout and in particular as prime minister that reflects on his lowliness as a human being. His every action has been aimed to spread in hurt in the most vulnerable sections of the society. 

However, the worst in him comes from the fear of losing power and being voted out of power. And for that reason the electioneering brings out his inner darkness in him. No depth is too deep for him. Last time, fearing loss in Gujarat, he spread canard that the former prime minister, his predecessor, Manmohan Singh, a saintly scholar was hatching a conspiracy with Pakistan to win those elections.

Fresh in the midst of the current elections, he once against stooped that low that any human being would find it gross. Fearing loss to Rahul Gandhi, he resorted to attack his dead father. Rajiv Gandhi was blown to pieces by a Sri Lankan terrorist during an election campaign in 1991. But then Modi had also called Sonia Gandhi a Congress widow and characterized Rahul and Priyanka as autistics. Surprise is not that Modi acts like an ugly cretin, the unfathomable facts remains that there exists people who support such a creepy cretin. 

How do such people get themselves up in the morning and look into a mirror and not think of Akhlaq and Pehlu Khan, who were lynched by very thugs of Modi and who never uttered a word of remorse? Those were not the only people killed during the five years of Modi. There remains a long catalogue of heinousness that will grow in his next term. 

Conman

The man, who used disingenuous schemes to oust his predecessor from his own party and then used his office to foment, ignite and incite the worst riots against Muslims in the country went on to use that notoriety to tighten the stranglehold on the state in parallel with running a mafia like government indulging in extrajudicial methods to eliminate any potential rivals or to implicate the official who dared to stand up to him, ultimately conned overtly communalized population of the country to put him power at the center and that power he brazenly used to empower the worst of the worst in the country and in worst of the cases played havoc with education and research with precedent given to obscurantism; inflicted the pain on the most vulnerable through misguided and ill intentioned demonetization; damaged reputation of the country through hair brained policies in managing external affairs; almost started a war against nuclear powered neighboring country; he’s out there once more making attempts to get re-elected, which given gullibility of electorate could very well happen. That’s the story of the conman, Modi and that’s the story of India heading into oblivion.

To the brink and back

The two countries India and Pakistan armed with nuclear arsenal almost went to war and then returned from the brink; the danger might not be yet completely over. Or maybe be it will never be. The circumstances that triggered those crisis emanated from a suicidal detonation on a main highway in Kashmir that killed over forty Indian security personnel, which involved Adil Ahmed Dar in his late and the vehicle that he rammed into a convoy was laced with huge amounts of explosives. 

That attack sent shock through the entire region followed by nationalist hysteria throughout the India with calls for boycott of Kashmiris and launch of hostilities towards Pakistan. The Indian reaction was predicated on the inference about culpability of Kashmiri with abetment and support from Pakistan. That all started within a time span that would be under any normal circumstances and in saner societies considered too short for acquisition of any irrefutable evidence to make a leap of accusation on Pakistan. But then India under current political dispensation can neither be considered normal nor rationale. 

And rationality never formed any part of Indian thinking in dealing with Kashmir. It would be foolhardy to overlook the background of the person who committed the suicide attack on the Indian security convoy in the first place. He belonged to a region in Kashmir that has been embroiled in a virtual war, particularly since India under Modi embarked on what it called a 'muscular policy'. And almost like all Kashmiris, had been a victim of excesses perpetrated by Indian security forces in the region that could be in various forms ranging from every day humiliations to outright tortures.  

To be continued....

Rajiv Kumar

A tale of two braggadocios cuckoos

One of the most common themes that joins populists of all hues is their ability to indulge in fact free bragging. They do it with aplomb and convince unthinking gullible with an élan and that's how throughout the history populist with authoritarian outlook have been able to ride to power only to indulge in wanton misuse. Present day world is awash with such populists holding and abusing power. The sustenance for continued power requires manufacture of the fictitious issues and crisis and pretense of having solved those problems that did not exist to the applause of the gullible followers and self-congratulations.

Modi and Trump exemplify classic cases of personae indulging in fact free hyperboles and patting themselves in the matter of every second sentence they utter. Modi erupted on the national scene of bragging since 2013 and in the process has run India almost into ruin. Trump on the other hand has been in business of bragging for a long time but was never considered anything more than a clown until he landed into the presidency of the United States. Ever-since assuming the office, the biggest achievement of Trump has been to concoct facts, things and crisis that don't exist. And then of course a daily dose unmitigated lies and bragging.

What happens when these two braggadocios cuckoos run into each other? The outcome will of course depend who happens to be the bigger braggart and as it turned out Trump chewed Modi like a chicken cartilage during his reality show like cabinet meeting. Modi, the braggart, has been bragging to the biggest braggart in world about the library he built in Afghanistan. Not only both Trump and Modi are braggarts who hate dealing with facts but they both also happen to be cuckoos.

-Rajiv Kumar

Iqbal Khandey

This morning I read the news about demise of Iqbal Khandey. That news with tinge sadness also brought back nostalgia of the days, which would be very hard for anyone to fathom in this age. I must have become acquainted with Iqbal around 1974 through an extended clan of Ganais of Mattan. I remained focused on friendship part of the familiarity rather than to understand complex relatedness of Ganais. Iqbal at that time was studying in Amar Singh College while I was in the Government Degree College Anantnag. He would frequently visit our college mainly to meet our common friend Gulzar Ganai, who as I understood was also closely related to him. One occasion that has stuck in my memory for the reasons that perhaps underscore the essence of those times was that we, Iqbal, Gulzar and I, were standing outside the main gate of the college in 1974 and wanted to go to the town in a horse driven ‘tonga’ as none of us was ready to undertake that journey of about two kilometers on foot. But there was a cache: the ‘tonga’ ride would cost 25 p per person but we three persons combined did not have 75 p on us. That was nothing out of ordinary; not having any money was a rule not an exception in those halcyon days. Somehow I salvaged us from the predicament when I spotted an acquaintance who borrowed me a weathered one rupee note and we merrily took a ‘tonga’ ride to the town.

In 1975 we both graduated from our colleges and joined the university. Iqbal went to the English department and I after certain detours ended up in Chemistry. We never interacted in the university and Iqbal didn’t stay there for a very long and left his masters course to pursue IAS, which he cleared after 1975. I always had perceived him as an academic not a bureaucrat, but then academia in those days, that too in Kashmir, was a kind of last resort for failed careers. I did later meet Iqbal on a few occasions subsequently. On the eve of the 1983 elections Kashmir, I together with Gulzar went to see Iqbal in his office. He was, at that time, the Deputy Commissioner Anantnag. He was in some meeting and it was a while when came out and the first thing he uttered was that the official machinery has been directed to intercede on behalf of and in favor the National Conference in polls, which the latter went on win with a thumping majority. Last time I met Iqbal was in 1992. Owing to my sabbatical trip to Germany and dislocation, the university had held back my salary for almost a year. Iqbal was by then a secretary of some important government department. I went to see him at his official residence in Jammu and he then walked with me to the residence of Ajit Kumar who at that time was secretary education department. It was during that short walk I realized the folly of having approached Iqbal for a personal matter. Not that there was any change in his demeanor; he was as usual courteous and affable. It was my personal aversion to everything bureaucratic.

On a day in 1974, Iqbal together with a few Ganais came to my place and he picked up ‘Summer of 1942’ book from my shelf to borrow and to never return. That was the point when I resolved to never ever lend a book come what may. And thanks to Iqbal, I can boast of a personal library of over a thousand books made several times over in different places in different countries. 

Iqbal was always fun with a nasal accent that belied steely resolve; he was deeply erudite with eclectic knowledge; despite everything, he was a romantic at heart.