Death of Conscience in India

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Kashmir is restive at the moment and for the past three days there is information blockade in the valley as people are not able to watch TV channels of their choice, nor can they access internet. In the absence of free flow of information the only thing which get strengthened and spread is rumour and very unfortunately the government which claims to bring ‘openness’ to our lives, is doing such things which endanger national security. So far three lives have been lost in the protests against hanging and the valley is completely directionless. You cannot control the people through your army and military might as political issues will have to be resolved by political dialogues and Indian state has shown no such will power to do so. It continue to treat Kashmir issue as a law and order problem based on the whims and fancies of the Hindutva gangs who shout out daily about Kashmir our ‘pride’ and play the politics of Kashmir in their respective election campaigns.

The attack on Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001 was an act of terror which wanted to create chaos and anarchy in this country and therefore all those who mastermind the entire ‘project’ deserved severest of the penalty. Those who physically participated were gunned down by the security forces. Afzal Guru also went through the process and finally the Supreme Court too could not find direct evidence against him but based on circumstantial evidence felt that it was ‘rarest’ of the rare cases and hence he must get death penalty. The problem does not end here. Number of people has written about Guru and his engagement but my point is not whether he is innocent or not. An attack on Indian parliament deserved to be condemned without any ambiguity. But there is an undelaying fact the Afzal Guru was neither the leader nor the important functionary of the movement which is trying to destablise India and wanted to create anarchy. He was a mole, a small worker who might have been used as a courier for some purposes or other. The real masterminds roam around, issue threats and our government neither has power to capture them, nor will to control them hence Guru’s hanging will not halt their nefarious designs but isolate Kashmiris more than anyone else. The issue is actually of the ethics of the entire process though I do not believe that there cannot be a mistake in Supreme Court judgment but over the years the poor and marginalized people are easily becoming simple tool to use spread the communalized and fascistic nationalism and the ruling party is fast responding to these issues in a competitive mode so that it does not have to face charges of being ‘anti national’.

The problem in India is the growth and strength of upper caste Hindu nationalism which is being named as ‘collective consciousness’ of the country. It is they who are fixing up agenda of the country and pushing the others to more marginalization. Media remain the cunning fox in the entire game and serving the interest of their corporate God fathers and religious grand- fathers. There is no doubt that the country need to look inward in its whole approach towards terrorism, crime and communal issues. The fact is communalism is nothing but terrorism but since communalism’s main beneficiaries are political people with great ambition hence it is not taken that seriously as the issue of terrorism. In the past 50 years millions of lives have been affected with the dangerous virus of communalism but trace a record and we will find nothing has been done to punish those who instigate such violence. The end result is that it gives rise to communal feeling, dejection, and isolation which are detrimental for the health of the nation.

In India the problem does not lie with right and wrong but purely politicization of everything which pay good dividend to the rightwing forces. In the attempt to look more patriotic the current regime is taking hasty decisions which will divert attention from the real issues. There is no doubt that Afzal Guru’s execution case would have become a major political issue but then the ruling party is not capable of providing any logical answers and hence it repeatedly followed what the Hindutva gangs have been saying and trying to satisfy them so that the issue does not haunt them in the general election. The major problem that the Congress Party finds is basically because the bases of both these parties are upper-caste Hindus. By executing Kasab and Afzal fast, it send a message that it is serious about ‘terror’ threats and by keeping silence and secretive it want to assuage Muslim feelings that it is not ‘celebrating’ the execution. But such overly political game plan never work and the Muslims too have realized these dangerous games but what to do as Congress have always enjoyed the vacuum created by its leaders. Today, the party does not have the courage to take on the right wing lunatics and hence the party, in its bid to attract all and to create ‘win-win’ situation end up in appeasing the fundamentalists of all religions. The direct result of this competitive communalism is the common Muslim who is fighting his battle for survival in India. These are attempts to push the Muslims on defensive so that they do not raise their issues of ‘participation’ in political powers and economic backwardness which haunt them even today. For years, Muslims had to pay the price for ‘partition’ of India as their leaders were submissive and opportunistic too. When the things started coming to normalcy, the issues of Shahbano and then Babari Masjid kept them in perpetual confrontation with the state machinery. The government, the political parties rarely understood that and played competitive communalization. Muslim became the victims of symbolic appeasement which the Indian state and its political parties always believed in. Hence, support for Imam Bukhari and his deals became ‘appeasement’ for Muslims and hence a Damocles sword was always hanging over their head when the Sangh Parivar continued to raise the issue of Muslim appeasement. The congress promised to rebuild Babari Masjid but does not even talk about that. As a rule of law before the Ayodhya case settles, it is time to maintain status quo ante 1992 but is that possible without constructing the mosque.

According to Hindutva brigade, Indian governments is ‘soft’ in dealing with ‘anti national’ elements and hence it should have shown some offense in dealing with the issue of Muslims in India. The Congress government dutifully obliged to their Hindutva counterparts. First Kasab and now Afzal Guru became the issue of political debate. After government hanged Kasab, it was clear that the Sangh targeted for Afzal Guru and the government quickly complimented with such a secretive operation. Let us see how both the parties respond to Hindu terrorism and how many of them would be send to gallows. Is it not a fact that both the Tamilnadu Assembly and Punjab Assemblies have passed resolution against the death sentences to the killer of Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh? Both the government feels that hanging will create tension in their state but the fact is that they want to tap the popular sentiments of the people. How come the popular sentiments of Kashmiris are not taken seriously here?
The government wakes up when the middle classes comes in the Delhi streets but can easily target those who it is no comfortable when they come to protest in the streets of Kashmir valley. As I write, reports are coming in that the Army did not allow a pregnant woman to be taken to hospital and finally she succumbed to the pressure. Is this the way how we operate our system? Kashmir was coming to normalcy and needed a soothing balm but the competitive politics of Hindutva has damaged the cause of the nation. In the war cries, we need statesmen who could speak with courage of conviction.
The matter here is not that Afzal was right or wrong but the procedures that followed are shocking. How can the state be so secretive that it does not even inform the family of the accused? It is said that the last wish of the accused is always fulfilled but Afzal’s wife and children were not allowed to speak to them and meet him. Where was the need to bury him in secrecy when his family whereabouts are known, then it is the duty of the government to inform the family well in advance and allow them to perform his last rites?

The rarest of the rare cases in India are increasing and the ‘collective upper caste conscience’ of India will not demand execution of those terrorists who planted bomb at Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta Express. This selective collective crying is meant to change the agenda of the nation and deviate from the original issues of the people of India. It is shameful that a man who is responsible for killing of 3000 persons and who still haunt the Muslims of Gujarat is still being projected as the future ‘prime minister of the country. We do not hear demand for executing those who masterminded different riots and that is why there is a growing alienation of the people in Kashmir. The difference of opinion is so high that a majority of Kashmir parties feel that the execution was completely unwanted ad uncalled for; the nationalist parties in Delhi are united in their common upfront against the act of ‘terror’. Modi and Thackarey got rid of tight grip of law as the ‘collective conscience’ of their people voted in their favor so they got legitimacy to rule. Why the same argument is not applied in Kashmir and elsewhere. Now, Kashmir is completely paralyzed for the past four days on the hanging of Guru and we do not say that the ‘collective conscience ‘of Kashmir does not consider Afzal Guru, a terrorist but a victim. But it is our verses them syndrome in India. When the caste Hindus protest that reflect the collective conscience of the country but when Muslim protest that is communalism and separatism. It is this kind of mindset that we have to fight more and with much vigor now which threaten to destroy the basic human values of our constitution which provide us right to life and right to choose our political thought as well as freedom of expression.
Afzal Guru is hanged and with this the valley is burning. It is time that the government must think of abolishing the death penalty. Crime does not end with execution. Neither will terrorism be over with the hanging of Afzal. Terrorism is an ideology and must be countered by ideological minds. It is time; we look the entire Kashmir issue from the perspective of Kasmirirs and not make Kashmir a symbol of India’s ‘secular’ consciousness. Let Kashmir be freed from this bondage of Islamic Kashmir or secular Kashmir. Let it enjoy the freedom like any other state. It is beyond doubt that Kashmiris today feel that they are being put on ‘test’ under ‘Indian nationalism’ which has very little to do with the issues in Kashmir.

This case also questions our judicial process. We always used to say that judges are very technical. I know in many places the cases are dismissed on hyper technical ground without ever giving the opportunity to the parties. Only power elite and the powerful forces in the government can be correct in terms of ‘papers’ and ‘technicality’ and that is why a common man can never really expect judgments in his favor as even that come, the authorities will trap him in the ‘technicalities’. The Tihar followed the ‘procedure’ by ‘informing’ the family of Afzal Guru through speed post which has now reached Kashmir and one can see the language of the communication which is so dry and insensitive that it would be difficult to imagine whether attempts are made to really assuage the feelings of the people. The government notifications are in the form of warning. Afzal Guru was a criminal declared by the court and without even doubting whether the trial was fair or not, he deserved a better treatment in death. If the Lashkar and Jaish are uncivilized and brutal in killing people, the state’s operations cannot be a replica of them but better ones so that people have faith in them. His family and child had right to know and meet him before death. It is shameful that our state apparatus is so afraid of doing so that it has to carry out an execution in such a way. One can understand that the government might have wanted to make the case low profile but the way the government and authorities are going all around with big bang it is assumed that we will witness more such execution by the year end so that by next year’s election Congress remain the ‘champion’ of Hindu nationalism and not the Hindutva ‘brigade’.

How can we keep Indo-Pak relations free from prejudices

Reproducing from my archive in the interest of a positive India-Pakistan relationship.


Review Article

A Khakhi version of Indo-Pak relations

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Indo-Pak relations have been subject of intense discussion for many in the subcontinent including the ‘security hawks’ and hate mongering foreign ministry experts. General K.M.Arif held important positions in the Pakistan army under different presidents and was particularly closer to General Zia-ul-Haq. Like many Pakistanis he also think that the stories on the Indo-Pak wars had been a one sided affair so far as only Indian versions have come out and Pakistan government has unnecessarily put restrictions on such publication. This is a lament by no less than a general that Pakistan should be an open society and that military should better concentrate on its professional duties rather then meddling into the political affairs of the country on the regular basis. This will, he argues, affect military capability to fight the external enemy i.e. India.

It is interesting to note the different intrigues that Pakistan polity face and the reasons sited by the General to justify military rule in Pakistan, though he must be complimented to put the internal security situation in Pakistan in a very clear perspective but the general has really been parochial and conventionalist when writing about India. His entire thesis on India shows how military in Pakistan and India both the countries have prejudices and bias about each other. The Pakistan army therefore does not hide its communal leaning in terming India as a Hindu state while Pakistan as a Muslim country. The general terms Nehru as a Hindu leader who had a vision for the country while Pakistan after the first round of leadership of the likes of M.A.Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan lacked a second ranking leadership. We sitting in India when analyse the Pakistan situation and its reason of military leadership lack the understanding of internal intrigues of Pakistan army and so-called democracy.

The general says that the 1965 Indo-Pak war was an unintended war in which ‘each side reacted disproportionately to the perceived provocation by the other and in the end lost control’. But he nevertheless blames India for the aggression quoting an known Jansangh leader Mr U.M.Trivedi in the Lok Sabha that the Indian army must go to ‘ right up to Lahore to bring Pakistan to its senses.’ Even the socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia wanted India to over run Pakistan. Of course, many in Indian think the same way as the general says but such opinion exist the other side of the border and it would be better for saner people not to give legitimacy and justification to such rhetoric. The General then pat the novice Pakistan leadership under Ayub Khan and quotes him as saying: If Pakistan wanted to commit aggression it would have chosen a better area than the mud flats and also a better time when the Indian forces were on the run after their defeat at the hands of China.

The author then goes on comment on the crisis that erupted in East Pakistan now known as Bangladesh. Though unlike many other Pakistanis he admit the fault of Punjabi dominated bureaucracy and leadership to ignore the claims of Bengalis in Pakistan’s national-political life. He says that since most of the Punjabi’s and Sindhies were educated enough hence they had a major share in bureaucracy but unfortunately Bengalis did not have the ‘ trained manpower’ and most importantly they were culturally dominated by Hindus who had a grudge against Pakistan. There was a slanderous campaign about uneven treatment given to East Pakistanis. And according to General Khan, Pakistani leadership should have acted in a much-matured fashion to diffuse the crisis. It is interesting to note that the general blames the illiteracy and untrained Bengali leadership for their under representation in the services and leadership and feel that it was overreacted by the Awami League president Sheikh Mujeeb who was conspiring against the Pakistanis with clear support from the Indian ruling establishment.

The process of Bangladesh was very old and began with the opposition of Urdu language in East Bengal where students were adamant that Bangla should be their mother tongue. Here the learned General supports Jinnah for supporting Urdu as the link language of the country and relates Bengali as a clearly Hindu dominated language, which un-necessarily swayed the Bangla Muslims. In the 1970 elections held for Pakistan’s National Assembly, Awami League won 160 seats out of 162 reserved for East Pakistan while Pakistan People’s Party of Z.A.Bhutto won 81 seats from West Pakistan out of 138 seats reserved for them. Clear enough Awami League should have been allowed to form the government but larger than life ego of Bhutto never really allowed this to succeed. According to the General, since both the parties were regional hence they should have formed the government jointly but he did not say that if there was no consensus than the democratically elected largest political party i.e. Awami League should have been invited to form the government in Pakistan. But then the general only justified this by his earlier saying that though East Bengal has a majority of seats and population, it did not have a ‘merit’ like the Punjabis and Sindhies and hence could not be filled in the respective quota. This itself is an argument which many of our upper caste fellows in India gives regarding the Dalits on the grounds that they don’t have required merit and hence they should not be allowed to come up with the general category boys. The argument regarding Urdu language is the same as that we face here in India regarding Hindi when states like Tamilnadu could go the extent of threatening to secede from India but then Nehru has a greater vision to run India and the foundation of Pakistan was on a very dangerous precedent. If Islam were the only thing that united all the Muslims of the subcontinent then Pakistan would not have so many internal problems for which blame is given not to Indian establishment but Hindus. This is a dangerous theory like Islam being presented globally as a religion of sword. The fact presented here reflects clearly that every community wants to preserve its culture and language. Nothing could be far from the truth when we say that religion decide culture. The proximity between Bengali Muslim and Bengali Hindu is much more than a Bengali Muslim and a Punjabi Muslim. It is true for all other cases.

Writing about Mohajir problem in Pakistan the author makes these points: “These people had settled in Pakistan but could not emotionally disengage themselves from the Ganga-Jamuni culture. Instead of merging themselves with the social and cultural environment of Sindh to create a new and enriched blend of distinticitve identity for Pakistan, they endeavored to practice their UP culture in the desert of Sindh and hoped that their cultural identity would also be adopted by the old Sindhis. This attitude brought them in conflict with the local nationalists power centers who were themselves no less possessive and proud of their own ancient language, distintictive dress and rich cultural heritage.” Interestingly, the general does not say that Pakistan itself became a victim of its own identity problem and that Muslim League a party of rich peasantry and migrants from UP had to ultimately bow to the pressure of local ethnic identities, though he suggest that Military interventions in Pakistan came because of a virtually corrupt and defunct political leadership and army being a nationalist organizations could not have allowed the country to go like this. Appreciably, the general still points out that Army is not the final answer for Pakistan’s problems but it is the democracy which will make Pakistan a strong nation and he lament how the vision of a democratic, plural and progressive Pakistan was lost due to the lure of power by the powerful feudal elite in Pakistan who usurped everything in the name of democracy. He says, “ Military dictators were not the sole spoilers of the democratic order. Many elected leaders in the country were in fact only democratic in name but autocratic in their conduct and behavior. They promoted a brand of sham democracy to further their personal interests and for reasons of political expediency. Such persons contributed no less in eroding Pakistan’s nascent democratic order.”

Paying tribute to Nehru as a great visionary, the General has made a post-mortem of Pakistan’s various military juntas who ruled the country under the pretext of democracy. In a remarkable show of clarity and sobriety he says: “ In their respective tenures in office Ayub, Yahya, Bhutto and Zia wore two hats each, one, that of the Chief martial law administrator, and the second, of the President of Pakistan. It was an administrative, legal and diplomatic requirement for the country to have a head of the state. However, in the spirit of law, this designation was misnomer. The four presidents of Pakistan were in reality about absolute military rulers who did not derive their authority either from the constitution, which was abrogated or suspended, or from the Parliament, which did not exist. They ruled by the gun and wielded absolute power without any institutional system of accountability.”

The author must be complimented for bringing out the most intriguing factors of Pakistan polity and its armed forces and he no doubt admits that in the power game it was West Pakistan, which dominated despite East Pakistan’s majority. Terming Z.A.Bhutto, former Pakistan prime minister as ‘ a feudal by birth, a socialist by his own declaration, but a capitalist at heart’, he says that Bhutto’s downfall was ultimately his own creation. The democratic institutions were considerably weakened during his period. That was a fact also in the cased of Nawaz Sharief which paved way for the intervention of army under General Parvez Musharraf. The general gives version of what Musharraf gave to Pakistan and does not try to give the other side of the story. He says that since the Institution of army was under threat hence Musharraf had to intervene. In an interesting inner revelation, the general says that General Zia was not interested to step in when Bhutto’s personalized cult touched a nadir in Pakistan. It was Bhutto, who wanted to divide the army and the army declined to fire on the protesters against the Bhutto administration which Zia feared would divide the only saved institution of Pakistan and that’s why he unwillingly imposed Martial Law in Pakistan. He however could not hide his military bias when he says that it was not military which gave death sentence to Bhutto but the courts and that Zia ultimately gave his consent for final hanging under public pressure. Given the cult of Bhutto in Pakistan, even today, one can only laugh at this that the president did not give pardon to a former prime minister because the people welcomed his persecution. The fact is that Zia went against a very large number of international appeals for an amnesty to Bhutto and hanged him so that he could rule Pakistan uninterruptedly because after Bhutto’s death Pakistan was plunged into a political crisis.


In the Epilogue of the book, the author speak about the Kargil war and how the ‘freedom fighters’ occupied the Kargil-Drass sector and surprised India’s military command. However, if this was the case of ‘freedom fighters’, then one wonder as the why the author is petting the Pakistan army for giving a run to India and finally Pakistan submitted because of the American Pressure.

This book has an interesting narration and many new things for the students of south Asian politics and army interventions in Pakistan. Perhaps, this is for the first time that a Pakistani general has openly given his viewpoint on the polity of the country. It is also good that a general of his caliber support democratic set up in the country and want the army to be out of the day-to-day politics of the country. However, there are many things which need to be introspected by the Indians and Pakistanis both, which is about our shared history and culture. It is here where the army men need more concentration, otherwise how could one justify comment from General Arif about Mohajir’s practicing
‘Ganga Jamuni’ culture in Pakistan was against the new identity of Pakistan. Why the general think that everything that Indian is dangerous for the identity of Pakistan. How could those who created Pakistan ( Mohazirs were in the forefront of it), forget about their culture and language. After all, the same general justify Urdu language as being declared as the national language of Pakistan despite the fact that it was not a language of any province in Pakistan. After all, Urdu itself is a ‘Gangajamnui’ language and has a great cultural legacy. Pakistan and India are two sovereign nation and have to remain neighbor for ever and it is therefore necessary as both work together to achieve peace and prosperity in the region and for this shared cultural legacy must be brought forward, rather than creating a fear psychosis of alien culture in the minds of our people which our political-military leadership had been doing in India and Pakistan. Ganga-Jamuni culture is not a bad culture and would definitely do better for Pakistan society than any other culture, which has divided the society. The hegimonistic Hindu India or Muslim evil Pakistan, as our army men would make us believe should now become a matter of past. This book must be read by all particularly Indians as it gives the ‘other’ side of story. It is an informative work and gives us ample scope to introspect and the author has full marks when he repeatedly speaks of a viable democracy in Pakistan free from religious fanaticism. Such thought gives us hope that military leadership in Pakistan will one day realize that ultimately it is democracy, which will bring laurels to Pakistan and not the army.

Name of the Book: Khaki Shadows: Pakistan (1947-1997)
Author: General K.M.Arif
Published by: Oxford University Press, Karachi
Year: 2001
Price: not mentioned
Pages: 450