The V.P. Singh government is utterly realistic in dealing with one aspect of the Kashmir problem, however unrealistic it may be otherwise. It has been remarkably quick to recognise that the Hindu refugees from the valley are wholly irrelevant in the determination of its future and has, therefore, decided to treat them with the indifference they deserve by virtue of their irrelevance and helplessness.
This is not a tongue-in-cheek statement. On the contrary, it is an expression of my new-found admiration for V.P. Singh and his aides. For, as a student of history, I know that great leaders do not waste time on those who cannot fight for themselves, as the Kashmiri Hindus cannot. Great leaders tackle great problems such as issuing warnings to Pakistan; they do not concern themselves with such petty issues as the plight of refugees.
Having been bogged down in the mire of sentimental humanism, on the one hand, and Indian nationalism, on the other, it did not occur to me, indeed it could not have occurred to me, that we the people of India have finally given ourselves rulers who are so self-possessed, in the style of great Yogis, that the suffering, humiliation and helplessness of thousands of men, women and children obliged to leave their ancestral homes cannot possibly make the slightest impression on them. But we have performed this miracle. We can certainly depend on our duly elected rulers to stand firm in both their apathy towards the refugees and in their war (of words) with Pakistan.
In the steadfastness of his apathy towards the Kashmiri refugees, V.P. Singh enjoys the full support of his cabinet colleagues, some of whom are otherwise not known normally to agree with him. The evidence in support of this proposition is irrefutable. Up to the time of writing (April 5), no minister has found time to meet the Kashmiri refugees in Delhi, not even those among them who happen to be employees of HMT, a public sector undertaking, which has not been in a position to pay them for months, ensure their security and keep the factory in the valley open.
You may call this behaviour on the part of our government callous. But then you must be a BJP man, or at least BJP supporter, if not a member of the dreadful RSS, to think so and say so. Much of the intelligentsia does not indulge in such communalism and petty mindedness which would prevent it from recognising the government’s behaviour for what it is – not only heroic but also secular in the finest traditions of this modem Dharma.
There is, however, one snag which must divert attention from this superb performance, if something so spontaneous and uncontrived can be called performance. The snag is that Rajiv Gandhi and his imperial court (in temporary exile as its members believe not without some justification) have put up an even more impressive show.
In addition to their indifference towards the Kashmiri Hindu refugees, they have put on public display an impressive array of weapons (of course verbal) which they think can be depended upon to overwhelm the Kashmir problem. Of course, they cannot be blamed if there is a trickster named L.K. Advani who, as Rajiv Gandhi mouthpiece K.N. Singh has told us, has managed to wreck the weaponry known as ‘national consensus’ and thus held up the march towards victory in the valley.
The competition is, however, by no means over. After all, Fernandes is not called George the giant killer for nothing. And if Rajiv Gandhi has an ‘ace’ in the shape of Farooq Abdullah up his sleeves, George Fernandes has ‘genuine’ Kashmiri leaders hanging in the backyard, if not yet quite in the bag. The contest is, of course, a friendly one, the number of FIRs filed by the government with the avowed objective of getting Rajiv Gandhi notwithstanding. But a contest is a contest even if the rivals belong to one large family – the family of secularists.
Indeed, the large family stands just behind the friendly contestants, with some of its more enterprising and perspicacious members yelling away that the Kashmiri Hindus are refugees by choice; that they have not left because they were threatened by the determined upholders of Kashmiriat or even felt threatened; that they, on the other hand, conspired with Governor Jagmohan so that the Kashmiri Muslims could be maligned and subjected to a reign of terror which he has, in any case, unleashed with the support of the BJP (never mind that it is not even in the government); that those who may not have conspired with Jagmohan and availed of the military trucks supposed to have been provided by him for the journey to Jammu, have been attracted by ‘greener’ pastures in the rest of India.
It would obviously be mean-minded communalism to question such self-evident truths and to suggest that most of the refugees show strong signs of having left in panic inasmuch as they have come without their belongings and that they present a study in contrast with the affluent Kashmiri Muslims who have fled to places like Delhi and Bombay. No all that is fiction invented by Hindu chauvinists.
The secessionists in the valley are believers in Kashmiri ethnicity; they do not regard Islam as an integral constituent of this ethnicity; a Kashmiri is a Kashmiri for them, whether he is a Hindu or Muslim; they are opposed only to those Kashmiris who have helped Indian agencies, especially the intelligence agencies, and oppose their plans of either merger with Pakistan or independence.
Surely, it is another matter that the Kashmiri Hindus are first to attract their suspicion on the first count and hostility on the second. Surely, that cannot be called communalism! Surely, communalism is what persuades some organisations and individuals to worry about the Kashmiri Hindu refugees and look after them to the extent they can on the basis of such limited resources as they are able to mobilise!
The ease with which the government, the opposition and a section of the articulate intelligentsia have managed to dispose of the problem of the Kashmiri Hindu Refugees should help end the talk of Hindu revivalism and backlash. For their response would, without doubt, have been quite different if a Hindu upsurge had acquired the kind of power and sweep it is supposed to have. The argument is incontrovertible, with the result that there is little room for the belief that the BJP’s electoral success in the Lok Sabha and the vidhan sabha polls is an expression of Hindu upsurge, or backlash, or whatever else this ‘phenomenon’ is called.
It would be wrong to deny the rise of a Hindu sentiment among a section of the Hindus. But it would be equally wrong to exaggerate its importance. It is a highly limited phenomenon. More important, it cannot be otherwise. The Hindus are locked in what is essentially an intra-Hindu struggle. The BJP is being held back not so much by the Muslims as by the so-called other backward castes (OBCs). The contest is between the BJP’s Hinduist ideology called Hindutva and the rural elites’ determined search for power and status for themselves. The Janata Dal is their organisation and the Janata Dal leadership is more than anxious to come to terms with the Congress, only if the Congress obliges by removing Rajiv Gandhi as its leader.
To return to the issue of Kashmir, it is pointless to say anything more about Rajiv Gandhi’s attitude. He has decided to be totally irresponsible, perhaps partly because he is so made, and perhaps partly because he sees himself in competition with V.P. Singh for the Muslim vote. And, indeed, if V.P. Singh can treat Imam Bukhari, of the Jama Masjid, as an influential adviser and select a maulana, regarded as a fundamentalist in his own Janata Dal circles, as a party candidate for election to the Rajya Sabha, it is ‘unreasonable’ to expect Rajiv Gandhi not to try and match him.
V.P. Singh is not equally well placed. He cannot avoid altogether the responsibilities the office of Prime Minister imposes on him. He can afford to be indifferent to the plight of the Kashmiri refugees because he does not need to fear a non-existent and non-feasible Hindu backlash, or even an angry response by the BJP for the obvious reason that the BJP cannot normally wish to bring down the government and thereby facilitate the task of its opponents who are anxious to promote an anti-BJP front. But he cannot ignore the fact that with the flight of the Hindus from the valley, the secessionists have already won a major victory and that the official apathy towards the refugees represents acceptance, even if by implication, of that victory.
As it is, the dice in connection with a ‘political solution’ has been heavily loaded against the government; or to put it more accurately, the government has loaded the dice against itself by being seen to be desperate to establish contacts and discussion with the secessionists who have shown no such anxiety. In such matters, the logic of the ‘chicken game’ applies. Of the two motorists deliberately heading towards a collision, the one who blinks first loses out. By this reckoning, the government had shown signs of chickening out ever since the explosion of terrorist violence in the valley. Its attitude towards the refugees shows that it has in fact chickened out in the moral sense.
I do not have the slightest hesitation in arguing that the government has seen to it, wittingly or unwittingly, that the talks with the secessionists, if and when they materialise, can begin only with an ‘offer’ by New Delhi which goes well beyond Article 370 of the Constitution. And I find it difficult to accept that V.P. Singh and his minister for Kashmir affairs are not at all aware of this irresistible logic of their policy and actions. But if, indeed, they are unaware, let this serve as a warning. They have seriously weakened their position by the display of undue and premature anxiety for ‘resumption of the political process’ and of apathy towards the victims of terrorism.
In contrast, Benazir Bhutto is showing herself to be a superb player of the power game. By setting up a Kashmir fund with an initial government contribution of Rs 10 crores, she has provided enormous encouragement to the secessionists without taking an undue risk of an armed conflict with India. New Delhi can issue one ‘stern warning’ every day. But it is not likely to cause much concern in Islamabad. For Islamabad, the critical issue is the morale of the secessionists and it has taken steps to keep it high. Similarly, by recalling her father’s talk of a thousand-year war with India for the sake of Kashmir, she has relegated the Simla agreement to the backburner without repudiating it.
Benazir Bhutto’s strategy is, of course, determined by the competition with the Punjab chief minister and the opportunity which the terrorists have created for Pakistan in the valley. Her task is also simple. It does not take much by way of skill to incite further violence once it has broken out in an organised manner, especially if you hold the levers, as the Pakistanis do in the present case. But it cannot be seriously denied that the Pakistanis, taken together, are playing their cards with skill and aplomb. The Benazir-Nawaz Sharif contest too fits well in this game.
On our side too, the pieces can easily be put together to complete the jigsaw puzzle. To be candid they constitute a frightening picture. I am particularly concerned that the Congress should be so determined to undermine the authority of Jagmohan and the government so reluctant to be seen to be backing him fully. Mercifully, Rajiv Gandhi’s spokesmen have not yet started maligning the paramilitary forces. But that job has been taken up by some others.
Last week I concluded the discussion on the stalemate in Indian politics with the observation that the BJP and the CPM-CPI combine alone hold the potentiality of breaking it, though right now they do not appear adequate for the job. This time I would conclude by saying that in addition to the BJP, the two communist parties are acting responsibly in Kashmir, as they have been doing in Punjab, for years.
It deserves to be noted that the Punjab CPI leader Dang has, despite the pressure of the mounting danger in his own state, written to the Governor asking for immediate steps to look after the Kashmiri refugees who have arrived in Amritsar, many of them penniless. Dang wrote after the explosion by the terrorists in Batala killing at least 40 and injuring many more. No more need be said for him and his colleagues.
Sunday Mail, 8 April 1990