By Aparna Pande
This article in Indolink on August 7, 2006
On the eve of their 59th Independence Day, Indians would do well to be a bit introspective. India’s greatest strengths are its democracy and its secularism. Any example where democracy and democratic ideals have been sacrificed on the altar of trying to maintain our secularity, or vice versa, should be causes for concern.
Since 1947, Kashmir has been cited as the keystone of Indian secularism. But we may have lost the support of the Kashmiri people in our attempts to keep the Muslim-majority state as part of our largely Hindu country. India may have ended up alienating the very people it called its own, pushing some of them into the arms of the ‘foreign hand’ that is blamed for the militancy in Kashmir.
With whom does the fault lie – with the person who commits an offence, with the person who instigates him or with the person who actually causes the circumstances under which the crime occurs? And what about the punishment – does it need to be proportionate to the crime? If that is the case then is it justified to excommunicate a 17 year old girl from her village and also sentence her to forty lashes while being tied to a tree?
That is the fate of Pamposh, a young village girl from Kashmir. The village council has decreed that as the punishment befitting her crime – that of falling in love and becoming an unwed mother.
Living in a small village near the Line of Control, Pamposh helped her father herd goats during the day. Her version of the story is that one day she met this young man, a foreigner, who had recently come to stay in the village. Being the youngest child, with married sisters and older brothers, this man was the only person who actually found time for her and brought her gifts.
Then the inevitable happened. Pamposh’s lover vanished one day, never to return. However, he left behind something. Pamposh was pregnant, an unwed mother in a patriarchal society. Her parents asked her to quietly drop the child or marry someone else so that no one would find out. But she refused. For her the child was a symbol of her freedom and she was not ashamed of it. The village council ruled against her and she was tied to the tree.
There is no one called Pamposh and this story is fiction; but a fiction that reflects reality. Pamposh epitomizes Indian Kashmir and the plight of the girl is the plight of the innocent citizens of that state. The question to ask in the trial of Pamposh is how much was she to blame and how much were the circumstances. Similarly when we look at Kashmir what do we see? India prides itself on its secular image and Kashmir is an integral part of this image. A Muslim majority province becoming a part of the Indian state in 1947 was crucial.
Pamposh talked with the boy and spent time with him because her own family never talked to her, never asked her what her problems were and believed that they had the right to decide what was best for her. The rise in the insurgency in Kashmir, especially post 1989, is because of the apathy of the central government towards the needs of the people, the attempts at manipulating elections to suit their needs and the mockery of democracy in the state.
Sheikh Abdullah was the most popular Kashmiri leader in 1947 and a major voice demanding that Kashmir join India. However, what was his fate? A democratically and popularly elected leader was put in jail off and on for the next three decades only because his views did not agree with the powers at the centre. Promises were made and accords were signed only to be broken.
In 1947 after centuries of autocratic monarchical rule in Kashmir the masses were informed that they would get democracy. Powers and rights granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution pertaining to more autonomy to the state were gradually eroded on the grounds of the need for integration with the rest of India. Perhaps, if democratic institutions had been set up, elections had been held on time and dismissal of Chief Ministers and Governors had not been so frequent this centralization would have been seen in a different light.
Yes, Pamposh was to blame for being innocent and naive, for believing in the young man and for becoming pregnant. But was she alone to blame or did the circumstances also play a role? Yes, the young men who join the insurgency or who support it through other means are to blame but don’t the circumstances also play a role. Yes, Pamposh needs a punishment but is it for being too naive or for breaking society’s taboos and becoming an unwed mother.
And what is the right punishment for her crime – talking to her, explaining to her where she went wrong or giving her 40 lashes. Yes, the young men and their supporters need to be brought on the right path and maybe even punished but in which way. Is putting them in jails or torturing them and their families, or making examples out of them, the right way. Or will it instead lead to more young men following the same path because though we have punished the person we have not eliminated the context which led to the crime.
Pamposh felt alienated from her family, from her village and from her people. That is why the ideas and views of the young man influenced her. Maybe if there are opportunities for young people to voice their opinions they too will feel part of the system. Maybe if instead of being so focused on keeping Kashmir as a part of India, by any means, so as to justify its secular image the politicians and leaders had understood that all they needed was democracy. It was democratic India that the Congress had championed; it was democratic India that the 35 million Muslims and other minorities saw as their only guarantee against ‘Hindu’ rule; it was democratic India that was the sole guarantor of every other right and freedom, including secularism and the right to religious freedom.
The ordinary citizens of Kashmir, after 59 years of Indian rule, still feel alienated from their government. In the name of democracy they only witnessed rigged elections and dismissals of elected Chief Ministers by the central government. If they do not feel a part of the system, if they do not believe that the government works for them, then it is natural for them to turn to someone who will listen to their grievances and show them a way out of it. When there is a system by which ordinary citizens can express their opinions, by which they can vent their grievances and by which they believe they have the power to cause change; then there will be very little recourse to violence.
India has always maintained that Kashmir is an integral part of the country. Yet successive governments, both under the Congress and other parties, have given into the temptations of power to subvert democracy and only alienate the Kashmiri populace and its leaders. Instead of letting the people decide who is better for them, the central government, under fear that an unfriendly (read non-submissive) party might come to power in the state, has always exerted right to dismiss governments and rig elections. The massively rigged 1989 elections caused the present violent phase of the insurgency to spread and gain support among the populace.
The need to win the argument against Pakistan in the international community and to make Kashmir an integral part of India so that it could not be separated also led to the increasing centralization and control over the state. The rising insurgency, blamed on the ‘foreign hand’ (i.e. Pakistan) was dealt with an iron fist and led to increased police and paramilitary presence in Kashmir. Kashmir became the symbol of Indian secularism, instead of Indian democracy. That is where the fault lay. In trying to maintain the secular fabric of the country, the democratic fabric was lost.
Pamposh and her story may be allegorical but the idea behind it is not. If India truly wants to live up to its democratic ideals then it needs to act on them. The true test will be winning the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri populace.