Kashmir, a failed mission

The film plays a lot on the fact that Sanjay Dutt, a Kashmiri Muslim, is married to a Hindu. What better example of communal harmony can there be? Indeed, the movie seems to imply that there lies the "secular" solution for Kashmir (in the end we see the symbolic sinking in the mire of the triple image of Jesus, the Koran and Laxmi). But what is the reality? Most Hindu women who have married Muslims (like Sharmila Tagore) have converted to Islam — the reverse is rarely true. And what about the Hindus who lived peacefully with their Muslim brothers for centuries? There were a million of them in 1900. Today they all have been made to flee through intimidation and terror. And the few who stayed behind are still massacred episodically.

Furthermore, there are no "evil" Kashmiri militants, as the film wants us to believe. If you see photos of Muslim separatists killed or caught by the army, you will notice that most of them are very young, poorly dressed, and they often look scared. Jackie Schroff also makes a ridiculous caricature of the Pakistani militant who masterminded the burning of Chrar-e Sharif (which is the scenario which the film should have copied — and not a hypothetical attempt to blast Harzatbal).

Lastly, and this is a misconception the film shares with Indian politicians, it is a total folly to think that the Kashmiris only want peace and are ready to be good Indian citizens, provided their just grievances are met. The truth is, at least 95 per cent of Muslims in Kashmir, from the retired judge to the shikara boatman, wish to become part of Pakistan, as they feel Islam will assure them of a better deal. The problem is not with Muslims, who are as good human beings as Hindus or Christians, whether in Kashmir, UP or Kerala, the problem is with a religion which is foreign to India and teaches its devotees to look westwards towards Mecca, in a language which is not Indian, towards a theology which is culturally alien to Indians, and teaches them to loathe anything which is not Muslim. As long as the Koran, written in medieval times for a medieval mentality, does not adapt itself to modern times and tone down some precepts, such as the injunction of jihad on infidels, there will be problems with Muslimfundamentalism the world over.

Ultimately, the movie’s major fault is that at no time, except fleetingly (the three shadow men who pull the strings and themselves are manipulated by Bin Laden), does it evoke Pakistan. Yet, Kashmir is the most glaring consequence of Nehru and Gandhi accepting the dividing of India on religious lines. If you look closely at India’s woes since 1947, whether Ayodhya, the Bombay blasts or Kargil, many seem to have sprung from the shame of that division, which most Indian political leaders accept as a `fait accompli’. But the mistake is to think that there exists a solution to Kashmir. There is no solution: India rightly considers that Kashmir has been part of its territory for millennia and will not let go of it — it could signal the balkanisation of the country; and Pakistan has a point when it says that in the (mad) logic of Partition, the Valley should have reverted to them.

Everywhere we see an attempt at unity, not fragmentation: the two Germanies have reunited; so have the two Vietnams; and tomorrow the two Koreas will follow suit. So why not India and Pakistan? And are not Pakistan and India part of the same soul? Are not Pakistanis and Indians of the same colour, culture, ethnic stock? Have they not the same food habits, the same customs in many ways? In truth, you cannot really differentiate one Punjabi from the other Punjabi, or one Sindhi from the other Sindhi, except for his religion. So what if they worship two different gods, which are but two names for the same Infinite Reality? Why should India and Pakistan go on spending billions of dollars and even risk a nuclear holocaust?

When this possibility is accepted by both sides, half the reunifying work will be over, Indian Muslims will feel at peace and the problem of Kashmir will solve itself naturally.

There are no `evil’ Kashmiri militants, and there is no Kashmir solution