Skip to main content

Breaking will of Kashmiris to fight


Jagtar Singh

Unlike militancy in Punjab, the struggle in Kashmir has two dimensions.
The  political struggle was triggered to maintain status quo under Article 370 that accorded special status to what earlier was the state of Jammu and Kashmir that acceded to India under treaty of accession. The Assembly elections rigged by Delhi over time to install stooges and in 1989 in particular was one of the reasons that sparked the armed struggle as the second dimension.
In Punjab, the armed struggle initially was for the implementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution of 1973 on which the agitation had been launched on August 4, 1982 by the Shiromani Akali Dal and taken over by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The two struggles were going on in different political spaces.
In Kashmir, despite the fact that Article 370 has not been the agenda of militants, the struggles have been complementary.
Despite other avenues available and the last minute talks, the army attack on Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) complex code-named Operation Bluestar in the first week of June 1984 was ordered to break the will of the Sikhs by insulting and humiliating them.
It was planned in such a way that the generals at the top who executed this design of the Indian State were the Sikhs.
A strip was pasted on the historic gat of Darshani Deodi of Darbar Sahib with three words written in caps- UNDER ARMY OCCUPATION- after the operation was over on June 6. (Jagtar Singh: Khalistan Struggle A Non-movement, p 7)
The ruling Congress strategized the humiliation of the Sikhs first in November 1982 during Asiad in Delhi. The Sikhs, men and women, passing though Haryana from every side were subjected to insults and humiliation. This is a matter of record.
The Sikhs in the border areas faced humiliation in the aftermath of Operation Bluestar during Operation Woodrose under which search operations were launched in the countryside by the armed forces. Entire village would be made to stand out in the open under hot June sun as part of the search operations. Most of the young Sikhs crossed over to Pakistan during that period.
The Sikhs, however, had never taken the position that they were not Indians.
It is different in case of Kashmir. It was the so called mainstream leadership propped up by Delhi that was of Kashmiri Indians. It is that very leadership that has now been detained, pushing them to the camp of the Azadi demanding Kashmiris.
There might be several statements of these leaders including Farooq Abdullah supporting the cause of Hurriyat. But then so was the case with Parkash Singh Badal in Punjab whose statements are on record in favour of the militants. He also signed the memorandum demanding Khalistan submitted to the United Nations.
The mainstream political leaders sailing in two boats as part of the tactics to survive in the states where such struggles are going on is normal.
Armed struggle in Kashmir is backed by mass support and it is in this context that the strategy to break the will of the people comes in.
Kashmiris have been subjected total domination by the security forces since August 5. Although denied by the official spokespersons, reports have appeared of the way people have been subjected to humiliation. Offering lollypops after humiliating them is unlikely to achieve the desired results.
India witnessed massive development by way of railways and highways under British rule. One section of Indians sided with the rulers and that has happened in the history of this region all along. Development is not the anti-dote to political ambitions of the people.
Kashmir continues to be far from normal despite the claims of traffic jams by a section of the pro-government media.
The unfortunate part of this narrative is that majority of people in rest of India (except Punjab) are virtually celebrating what can be described as the subjugation of Kashmiris.
It is only when ‘normalcy’ is restored that it would be known whether the will of the Kashmiris to fight has been broken or not.
At the level of the human rights, however, Kashmir is getting globalised with total support from the radical Sikh organisations.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Damage to institution of Akal Takht symbolising Sikh sovereignty more important dimension of current crisis in Sikh domain

  Ideological Damage to Akal Takht most important dimension of Akali Crisis Ground Zero By Jagtar Singh The Sikh religio-political discourse entered a new phase on Baisakhi 2025 — the historic day on which Guru Gobind Singh, in 1699, created the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib, completing the ideological foundation laid by Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of the Sikh faith. Significant developments emerged from the well-attended Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) conference held at Takht Sri Damdama Sahib on April 13. It was the first major public appearance of Sukhbir Singh Badal since his re-election as party president on April 12, marking his return to the helm after a brief interregnum. Sukhbir, who first succeeded his father, Parkash Singh Badal, as party president in 2008, resumes leadership of a party long dominated by the Badal family—an influence that has spanned over three decades, the longest in the SAD’s history. For months, the religio-political landscape of Punjab has remained i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Strategic polarisation by BJP has potential to dislocate social secularism in Punjab

  Strategic polarisation by BJP has potential to dislocate social secularism in Punjab Jagtar Singh Chandigarh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Dera Sachkhand Ballan in the Doaba heartland—an area where Dalit social and religious formations wield considerable influence—has once again revived the debate on the role of deras in Punjab’s complex religio-political landscape. Punjab, a border state that has historically witnessed alternating cycles of violent and remarkably peaceful mobilisations over more than a century, continues to remain politically sensitive and socially layered. This is typical Punjab whose political discourse has invariably been dictated by the Sikh religio-political discourse, at least till recently. This dominant Panthic religio-political discourse has now got fragmented over the period, thereby yielding space to new permutations and combinations in the state’s religio-political matrix. It can safely be said that Punjab is in a flux. The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Akal Takht intervenes to reset Sikh religio-political discourse

  Akal Takht intervenes to reset Sikh religio-political discourse Ground Zero Jagtar Singh Chandigarh, Dec 8: The Sikh religio-political domain has the tendency to dictate religio-political discourse of Punjab whose polity is different from other regions in the country. This is the state where a national dynamic minority is in majority. This minority was the third entity in all the political negotiations leading to India’s independence. What happened in Punjab on December 2 has to be reviewed in this backdrop as this development is going to have far-reaching impact not only on the future of the Shiromani Akali Dal but also the political tendencies at several levels. It is pertinent to mention at this stage itself that the Sikh religio-political discourse is presently affecting even India’s geo-politics, especially in the American sub-continent in the context of the activities of a section of the Sikh Diaspora. December 2 was unprecedented in the history of more than a c...
Post a Comment
Read more