To win Muslim Goodwill India Needs to Correct its Narrative

What is history? A fable agreed upon, said Napoleon. By its very nature, history is always a one-sided account because it is written by winners. When two cultures clash, the looser is obliterated, and the winner writes history books - books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe (Dan Brown).

In 1947 India and Pakistan clashed on Kashmir. India emerged victorious taking the lion’s share of Kashmir State, and subjugating Kashmiris. And, in order to justify the subjection of “the other” the Indian State constructed a historical narrative that was meant to fortify its claims while maligning its opponents. According to this narrative India asserts that they entered Kashmir under compulsion to save the people of Kashmir from invaders that had been let loose by Pakistan against them. But for their timely intervention, the raiders would have wiped Kashmiris out of existence.

Furthermore, according to this narrative, the Indian state did not nurture any expansionist designs on Kashmir. On the contrary Pakistan state harboured expansionist plans to capture Kashmir to which purpose they sent Tribesmen to Kashmir and with their help captured a large chunk of Kashmir State territory. They are now occupying it illegally, says India.

The Indian State wanted the people of Kashmir to decide their own future but Pakistan didn’t recognize their right to self-determination. For that reason they refused to withdraw from occupied territories when United Nations asked them to, so that a vote of self-determination could be taken.

Since Pakistan sabotaged plebiscite India was constrained to stay put in Kashmir for the sake of security of Kashmiris.

With Article 370 India ensured a place of honour to Kashmir in the Constitution of their country. This provision of their Constitution conferred the boon of autonomy on Kashmir that no other Indian State was allowed to enjoy.

Moreover, India has committed itself to liberate for Kashmiris those parts that Pakistan illegally occupies. Also India is committed to liberate that territory occupied, with Pakistan’s complicity, by China.

India, though a peaceful country, was invaded in 1962 by China to snatch more territory of Kashmir. India suffered this belligerence for the sake of Kashmiris.

Pakistan ceded Kashmir land to China that it had no right to do. Therefore, Pakistan is an enemy state. It invaded India in 1965 to snatch Kashmir. It is an unreformed belligerent. It harbours sinister schemes against pacifist India which is the world’s largest democracy and upholder of human rights and freedom of peoples.

The more the Indian State stresses this narrative, the more do Kashmiris (read Muslims) hate India, love Pakistan, and admire China.

Instead of being thankful as India would wish Kashmiris to be, Kashmiris took up arms against the Indian Sate and built an alternate historical narrative. India may call this counter narrative as one-sided, foreign instigated and foreign funded but this same narrative could function as a counterpoise to balance the India’s lopsided narrative.

The harsh and loud Indian State propaganda may muffle Kashmiri’s voice but Kashmiris still hope to produce a dent on the latter.

India, the largest democracy, never really allowed any fair elections in Kashmir; and imposed rulers of their own choice. It did not spare any effort to pulverize Kashmiris during the 26 years of armed revolt that is still going on. India made arbitrary arrest, detention under lawless laws, torture, killing in custody, disappearing people forcibly, killing in fake encounters, molestation and rape of womenfolk, etc., the prevailing order of these two and a half decades.

India put an iron curtain on the Jhelum Valley Road, the only natural line of communication Kashmir had with the rest of the world. This measure converted Kashmir into a virtual prison. Kashmiris could move only at Indian State’s whims. India refuses to issue passport, the international travel document, to many Kashmiris.

India invaded Pakistan in December 1971 and broke the country in two halves. They did this to weaken Pakistan so that the latter could not dare to talk of Kashmir Dispute in future. After that India said that Kashmir was not a disputed state. Only Pakistan controlled Kashmir was. (Kashmiris wonder at this. Only the other day, an Indian parliamentarian, Pawan Verma, described, on a foreign policy debate on TV, Pakistan controlled Kashmir as an “internationally recognized disputed area where China had no right to invest economically”. He conveniently overlooked that the whole former Princely State of Kashmir was an internationally recognized dispute).

India not only attacked Pakistan in December 1971, they also attacked Junagarh, using a non-state militia called Junagarh liberation army which was headed by M. K. Gandhi’s nephew Samaldas Gandhi, in November 1947; Hyderabad the next year; Tawang in 1949; Goa in 1961; and captured all these areas in addition to annexing Sikkim 1974.

Pakistan attacked India in 1965 because India had made constitutional changes in Kashmir to merge it with India; and Chinese invasion in Ladakh was to implement 1899 boundary line (Macartney-MacDonald Line) between Kashmir State and Sinkiang. Pakistan never ceded any territory to China because Shaksgam and Aksai Chin, that India accuses them of having ceded to China, were never part of Kashmir State.

India is not concerned about getting back Kashmiris’ lost territory. It is interested in getting Kashmir recognized as Indian territory. During Kashmir State’s “independence” period (August 15 to October 27, 1947) the Dogra rulers of Kashmir proceeded to ethnically cleanse Jammu Province of its Muslim population. At the same time they instigated armed attacks on Pakistani villages to provoke the latter. Pakistanis fell into the trap. They decided in September 1947 to send Tribesmen into Kashmir to settle scores with the ruling junta. The reports that Provincial Governments of West Punjab and NWFP were preparing to send armed men into Kashmir reached the then Prime Minister Nehru immediately. Instead of informing Maharaja Hari Singh about the imminent danger to his State, Nehru advised his Home Minister to be ready to capture Kashmir in name of saving it from invaders (Patel’s Correspondence).

And since then they have been telling the world that they entered Kashmir to save Kashmiris. During the crisis of 1947, when killing the members of other communities was condoned and looked upon as an act of heroism, the Hindu rulers got thousands of Muslims killed in Jammu Province and kicked out even more. But Kashmiri Muslims refrained from killing members of Kashmiri Panidt minority.

In 1989 Muslim militants killed 5 Pandits and in 1990, the year of their migration, they killed 97 Pandits. The figures of Pandit killings rose to 209 upto 2007. India has blown the figures of Pandit killings out of proportion seldom bothering to mention that tens of thousands of Muslims got killed in Kashmir since 1989; and at the same time ignoring Jammu holocaust of 1947. While the Pandit migration from Kashmir Valley is being blamed on Kashmiri Muslims the emigration of Jammu Muslims remains forgotten. Even when India intervened in Kashmir in October 1947, the killing and ouster of Jammu Muslims continued apace.

When India finally captured Kashmir, its forces hunted out opponents, jailed them, and pushed them across the borders into Pakistan. The talk of saving Kashmiris from tribal invaders is a hoax and so is the talk of granting autonomy to Kashmir under Article 370. Kashmir had been autonomous even during British times. It was “independent” from August 15 to October 27, 1947. It was autonomous even after the fugitive King of Kashmir signed Instrument of Accession of Kashmir to India. So the question of Article 370 granting autonomy to Kashmir did not arise.

On the contrary, this provision of Indian Constitution was a device to erode that autonomy and to sideline plebiscite to which the Instrument of Accession was subject. Plebiscite could not be conducted because India did not allow Maharaja Hari Singh to appoint a Plebisicte Administrator; not because Pakistan did not withdraw from its occupied territories. Pakistan was supposed to withdraw only after the appointment of Plebiscite Administrator who would keep those territories under his surveillance. Not only was Pakistan required to withdraw its forces from Kashmir, India was also required to withdraw bulk of its forces. India did no such thing. If Pakistan had withdrawn before the appointment of Plebiscite Administrator, India would have swallowed those parts of Kashmir also.

Indian narrative has been anti-Pakistan and anti-Kashmir, hence anti-Muslim. India accuses Muslims of having caused the partition of British India in 1947, deliberately downplaying the role of Pandit Nehru and M.K. Gandhi in sabotaging the 1946 Cabinet Mission Scheme of a United India which was accepted by Muslim leaders across party lines including Quaidi-Azam Jinnah of Muslim League and Moulana Azad of Congress.

India accused its own Muslim citizens of indulging in terrorism. But the truth is that terrorism in India was the handiwork of Abhinav Bharat cadres like Colonel Prasad Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and their cohorts (“Who Killed Karkare” S. M. Mushrif).

Even the Indian claim that they arrested one of the perpetrators, Ajmal Kasab, in Mumbai on 26/11 is debatable. There is a conspiracy theory that he had been arrested by Nepal Police in 2006, and handed over to Indian Army. According to this theory, the Indian agencies planted him in Mumbai on 26/11 in 2008. If only 6 persons had arrived in the terror boat via Arabian Sea, where from did the others come whom India claimed to have killed during Mumbai encounter.

And this is beyond any pale of doubt that Kashmir Police had asked Afzal Guru to accompany a certain person to Delhi who later died in the Parliament Attack on December 13, 2001, along with others. Afzal was not a pro-Pakistani terrorist as India claims.

Indian version about Asiya and Neelofar is that they died because of drowning in the Ranbiara stream. Kashmiri version is that they were raped and murdered on May 29, 2009 by men in uniform.

When the Indian state distorts facts then even those people feel disgusted who would otherwise be India supporters. If India wants to earn goodwill of Kashmiri Muslims, it would have to correct its Kashmir narrative. Or it will remain asking the question: “Why do they hate us?”