Brainwashed Kashmiri youth

After the NDTV show last night on the Cauvery water dispute in which I appeared, I asked Barkha Dutt about the situation in Kashmir, which she had visited recently.

She told me that there was considerable radicalization of the Kashmiri youth.

I said that these youth had been brainwashed by the separatists like Geelani, Yasin Malik, etc.. I also said, which I had said earlier also on facebook, that if it could be demonstrated that azadi will result in raising the standard of living of the Kashmiri people I will support the demand. After all, the test of every system is whether it raises the standard of living of the people or not. Azadi is not an end in itself, it can only be a means to an end. The end has to be raising the standard of living of the people, i.e. abolishing poverty, providing large scale employment, healthcare, nutritious food, good education,etc.to the masses.

But the leaders of the azadi agitation never dicuss about that. They never say speak of any plan to provide eemployment, healthcare, etc assuming azadi is obtained. They are only Islamic fundamentalists of the Wahabi type, who will impose sharia law and push back Kashmir into the dark middle ages if Kashmir becomes independent.

As regards the stone pelting youth who follow the separatist leaders, they have been brain washed, just like a large number of Germans were brainwashed by Nazi propaganda in the 1930s, bringing disaster to Germany, and also other countries

My Kashmir has gone with the wind

Though I have not lived in Kashmir ( my wife did, and speaks fluent Kashmiri ) since my ancestors migrated from Kashmir about 200 years ago, I am proud to call myself a Kashmiri, and I regard Kashmiri Muslims as my blood brothers and sisters. Our DNA is the same. Whenever Kashmiri Muslims meet me, they feel they are meeting one of their own. When Kashmiri law students used to come from Kashmir to Delhi they would often come to my Courtroom in the Supreme Court as they felt one of their own is a Supreme Court Judge, and I used to invite them to my residence and interact with them. So I have no enmity with Kashmiris, as that would be enmity with myself.

What I have to say with regret, however, is that my Kashmir, which was Sufi Kashmir, has been radicalised and converted into Wahabi Kashmir, and I hate Wahabis, just as I hate all intolerant religious fundamentalists, including Hindu fundamentalists like Adityanath, Pravin Togadia, Sadhvi Prachi, etc.

Kashmir had an old tradition of Rishis, who included Muslim sufis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishi_order

These Kashmiri Rishis taught tolerance, brotherhood and compassion, like all Sufis.

In my Kashmir Muslims and Pandits used to live in harmony like brothers and sisters, as my wife and her relatives and others tell me. 

But all that has changed. After the Pandits were killed, terrorised, and hounded out of the valley from 1989 onwards ( and many Kashmiris who were not even born at that time have been brainwashed into saying that Jagmohan did it, which is false ), my Kashmir has gone with the wind.

The Kashmir of today is no longer Sufi Kashmir but has become Wahabi Kashmir. The Chairman of the Hurriyat Conference, that feudal buffoon, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, is a hardcore Islamic fundamentalist, and so are most of his associates. 

Many Kashmiri Muslims now express their love for the Pandits, and shed crocodile tears about their departure from the valley, but where were Geelani and his ilk in 1989 ? Did they ever raise their voices against the atrocities on Pandits then ? No, a lock was placed on their lips at that time, when loudspeakers blared from mosques telling Pandt males to convert or get out of the valley, but leave their women behind, when notices were pasted on the houses of Pandits to the same effect, and when Pandits were selectively massacred in many places, often being identified to the killers by their Muslim neighbours. Now of course they are in a denial mode.

The present azadi agitation in Kashmir is being led by such Islamic fanatics and bigots, while the rest of the Kashmiri population is like mindless pawns being used by their chess masters, and the international forces behind them.

That is why I am so sad. My Kashmir has gone with the wind

Thank you Kashmiris, thank you Pakistan

I had said several times that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh must reunite, as the Partition of 1947 was a historical swindle and a colossal fraud by the British on the basis of the bogus two nation theory and the wicked divide and rule policy.

Many people called my idea of reunification only a dream, just as many people called Mazzini's vision of a united Italy a dream, or Bismarck's vision of a united Germany a dream. And I too often wondered, while never doubting the correctness of my belief in reunification, how and when it could be practically achieved ?

Now Kashmiris by demanding Azadi, and the Pakistani Govt. by supporting that demand, have solved my problem.

India must first break up and dismember that fake, artificial entity ( I refuse to call it a country ) called Pakistan, by sending arms and other supplies on a large scale to Sind, Balochistan and NWFP, whose people are sick and fed up of Punjabi domination, and rightly and legitimately want azadi.

Thereafter India should persuade these independent countries i.e. Sind, Balochistan and NWFP to voluntarily join India, in initially a confederation, and later, if they so wish, a union, under a secular govt. which while guaranteeing freedom of religion to all does not tolerate religious extremism and bigotry. This govt. of reunited India must then rapidly industrialize the country and ensure a decent life with employment, healthcare, nutritious food, good education, housing, etc to all its citizens.

So thank you Kashmiris and Pakistanis. You have solved my problem, and have shown the practical path to reunification

To the Kashmiri Youth

I am a Kashmiri. I regard not only Kashmiri Pandits but also Kashmiri Muslims as my flesh and blood. Therefore I grieve over the sufferings of all Kashmiris, whether Pandits or Muslims, and want it to end. I condemn killings of Kashmiris, and am sad about the recent events in the valley.

Nevertheless I believe that the Kashmiri youth in the valley who are supporting the agitation for azadi are totally misguided, and so I am presenting my views. Please consider them coolly, and if you disagree feel free to criticize me ( but in polite language and giving your own reasons ).

1. Many of you want azadi from India. But azadi can only be a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end must be raising the standard of living of Kashmiris. I have repeatedly said that if it can be demonstrated that azadi results in raising the standard of living of the Kashmiri people, i.e. creating large scale employment for the Kashmiri youth, providing for healthcare for Kashmiris, abolishing poverty, providing nutritious food, etc I will support the demand. After all, as I have repeatedly said, the test of every system and political act is one and only one : does it raise the standard of living of the masses ?

But it is certain that the azadi you demand will lower the standard of living of Kashmiris, far from raising it.

Azadi for Kashmir will result in Islamic revivalism, imposition of Sharia law in Kashmir, etc which will be disastrous for Kashmiris as it will drive Kashmir into the dark middle ages. The mentor of the separatist leader and Chairman of the Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani was Abdul Ala Maududi, who propagated Islamic revivalism, and strongly opposed secularism and womens' emancipation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abul_A%27la_Maududi…

Geelani's ideology, and that of other separatists, appears to be the same, otherwise why do they not disclose what is their plan for raising the standard of living of Kashmiris assuming azadi is achieved. They are totally and deliberately silent about that.

Burhan Wani was turned into a hero by many Kashmiris. But to my mind he was only a pawn being used by certain vested interests ( see my blog http://justicekatju.blogspot.in/…/the-kashmiri-separatist-m… ). What was Burhan Wani's ideology ? Was it Islamic fundamentalism ? What were his plans for raising the standard of living of Kashmiris once azadi was achieved ? Did he even think about this ? Umar Khalid of JNU compared Burhan Wani with Che Guevara. But Che had an ideology ( whether one agrees with it or not ). What was Burhan's ideology ?

I have repeatedly said that in view of the tremendous diversity in our sub continent only secularism can hold us together ( see my blogs in this connection ). Religious fundamentalism will drive us back into the middle ages and make us poorer, whereas our goal must be to modernize and spread scientific ideas among the masses. That is the only way to raise the standard of living of our people and give them decent lives.

2. Kashmir is too small and economically backward to survive as an independent state. So azadi, even if it is achieved, will soon thereafter result in Kashmir coming under the Pakistani military jackboot and imposition of the feudal, outdated Sharia law and Wahabiism. Have you seen what is going on in Pakistan, of which you will then become a part ? It is true that there is communalism in India too, but it is nothing compared to what is happening in Pakistan. Ahmediyas, Shias, Hindus, Christians, etc are regularly killed there by the religious bigots. Recently a Hindu doctor of Karachi was killed. What was his fault ? That he was a Hindu. Blasphemy laws are applied to victimize innocent minorities. Recently about 70 people were killed and over 100 injured in a bomb blast in a hospital in Quetta, many of them lawyers and journalists.http://www.reuters.com/arti…/us-pakistan-blast-idUSKCN10J0I7

Journalists who write independently are regularly killed. People are afraid of speaking out openly in Pakistan, which has become a Jurassic Park. Do you want to be a part of that ?

3. Many Kashmiris claim that Kashmir was never part of India. This is untrue, and the truth has been explained in detail in my blog http://justicekatju.blogspot.in/…/the-false-claim-of-kashmi…

4. Kashmir has a large handicraft industry, and a huge market for it is in India. In almost every town in India there are shops of Kashmiris selling carpets, shawls, and other handicraft items. When I went to Kovallam beach in Trivandrum, Kerala I found 3 Kashmiri shops there. All this huge market will be destroyed if Kashmir separates from India, and the workers and owners of these handicraft industries will become unemployed. Have you ever thought of that ?

5. Some people talk of U.N. Resolutions. But these were passed a long time back soon after independence in 1947 when our leaders were inexperienced and under tremendous pressure of powerful nations who had their own axes to grind. It is well known that the U.N. is dominated by powerful nations which have their own vested interests. Why should we bother about what happened so long back, and under pressure ?

6.So what should you do in the circumstances ? You must give up the slogan of azadi and instead raise the slogan of reunification of India and Pakistan ( and Bangladesh ) under a secular government which does not tolerate religious bigotry or extremism, whether Hindu or Muslim, and crushes it with an iron hand. Such reunification will automatically solve the Kashmir problem. For my detailed reasons see my blog

http://justicekatju.blogspot.in/…/04/india-and-pakistan.html

The Kashmiri separatist militancy

Burhan Wani, who was killed recently, is being hailed as a hero by many people.

But I regard him as only a pawn who was being used by some people. But which people ? Some say it was the Pakistanis, but in my opinion it was the Chinese. So let me explain my views.

The separatist Kashmiri militants are obviously getting arms, supplies and other kinds of help from some government. Arms and supplies do not fall from the sky. The question is which government ?

Now here we have to rely on some conjecture. We obviously will not get direct proof. But we can draw logical inferences and put two and two together. After all, apart from direct evidence there is also circumstantial evidence.

Pakistan had earlier allied itself to America, but after Modi took India firmly into the American camp, Pakistan had to seek a new sponsor. The only second super power in the world today after the collapse of the Soviet Union is China, and so now Pakistan has allied itself to China.

Today the established super power of the world, USA, and the rising super power, China, are on a collision course, as is evident from their disputes over the South China Sea, etc. The question is : who will control South Asia, with its markets, raw materials and cheap labour ?

Politics is concentrated economics, and so to understand politics, we must go behind it and see the real economic forces at work.

After years of economic growth, China has gone down from being the world's chief growth engine to becoming its biggest risk factor. While the Chinese still claim a growth rate of 6% in their GDP, more reliable sources say that the real growth rate is about 3%---a far cry from the double digit figures of growth of the Chinese economy for over a decade.

So to relieve their distress, China desparately need more markets for their goods, and cheap raw materials to lower their cost of production.

Of the two super powers, China is more dangerous to world peace. A rising super power is always more aggressive and expansionist, than an established one. For example, Hitler Germany, being a rising super power in the 1930s and 1940s, was more dangerous than the Western powers.

Today, China has a huge foreign exchange reserve, estimated at 3.23 trillion dollars in January 2016. This is a huge amount of hot money, hungrily looking for investment opportunities, markets to infiltrate and capture, and cheap raw materials, and indeed it has grabbed many in Asia and Africa, including some in India. So the victim of imperialism upto 1949 has itself become an imperialist now.

The dispute between USA, which is facing a recession, and China, whose economy has slowed down considerably, for control over South Asia, is now spilling over into India and Pakistan.

Modi has taken India firmly into the American camp. His recent visit to USA is only a culmination of the process started earlier.

So China is making its own counter moves. It is dominating Nepal, has come closer to Pakistan, and is arming the anti-Indian insurgency in Kashmir and the North East, in an attempt to carve out of India an area of its own influence and control.

Earlier, Pakistan was under the grip of Americans. But now that Modi has taken India firmly into the American camp, the Pakistanis, too, must find a new master, and the Chinese have decided to take a grip over Pakistan.

The Chinese-Pakistani trade, which was only of a few hundred million dollars a year upto the year 2000, has gone upto 16 billion dollars last year ( though heavily tilted in China's favour ).This was no doubt facilitated by the Free Trade Agreement between China and Pakistan which came into effect in January 2007. Also, today 47% of all Chinese international arms sales are to Pakistan.

In April 20, 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping visited Pakistan in what the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif self-flatteringly called a “historic occasion”. During this visit, Xi announced the Chinese plans to invest 46 billion US dollars in Pakistan’s transport and energy infrastructure, including the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that will connect Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang region with Gwadar Port in Balochistan over the next 15 years. Since that announcement, several high-level Chinese government officials and top executives of several Chinese companies, have visited Pakistan, and have shown keen interest in setting up Chinese industries in Pakistan.

The militants who keep committing terrorist acts in Kashmir, are obviously getting arms from some power. The only logical inference is that they are getting them from China, via Pakistan. Similarly, the militants in the North East appear to be getting arms from China. It is evident that China is on an expansionist path, as Japan was in the 1930s and 40s. But America too has its economic interests in South Asia to safeguard. So a collision is inevitable.

Of course,the Americans and Chinese will not fight each other themselves. They are both nuclear powers, and have too much invested in each other's economies for that. But there is nothing to stop them fighting proxy wars, which they will. And India ( and Pakistan ) are directly in the frontline.

I therefore have strong reasons to believe that the Kashmiri militancy is being covertly sponsored by China, though via Pakistan.

Of course Burhan Wani and many other separatist Kashmiri militants may not be aware of this, but when does a pawn know of the man who really moves it ?

Umar Khalid of the JNU has called Burhan Wani another Che Guevara. But Che had an idelogy ( which one may or may not agree with ). What was the ideology of Burhan ? Was it Islamic fundamentalism ?

I have said in an earlier post that if azadi for Kashmir will result in raising the standard of living of the Kashmiri people I will support it
. But the Kashmiri separatists never talk of this. They never discuss how azadi will result in raising the standard of living of the Kashmiri people. All they talk of is azadi. What they forget is that azadi can only be a means, not an end itself. The end must be raising the standard of living of the people, i.e. abolishing poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, corruption, price rise, lack of healthcare, etc

Kashmir Violence

I am deeply sad at the recent incidents of violence in Kashmir after the killing of Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen commander.

I am myself a Kashmiri, and I have always condemned atrocities against Kashmiris, whether Pandits or Muslims. The fact that presently Kashmiri Muslims are being killed or injured makes no difference. Their DNA is the same as mine.

However, I would like to express my views here.

The test of every system or political act is whethe...r it will raise the standard of living of the people.

Many Kashmiris demand azadi from India. If they can demonstrate that such azadi will raise the standard of living of Kashmiris I will support their demand. But Kashmiris never seek to demonstrate that. All they demand is azadi.

Kashmiris forget that azadi can only be a means to an end, not an end itself. The end must be raising the standard of living of Kashmiris. But Kashmiris never discuss how that will be achieved in an azad Kashmir ( assuming it is created ). 

Moreover, the pro-Pakistani slogans blared out from loudspeakers of nearly all mosques in Kashmir, and the call to wage jihad, makes me very suspicious as to who is really behind this ' azadi ' struggle ?

So called ' freedom struggles ' having a religious colour e.g. the Sanyasi Revolt in Bengal in the late 18th century ( which is the historical background of Bankim Chandra's reactionary novel ' Anand Math ' ), Ayatollah Khomeini's movement, Muqtada al Sadr, ISIS, etc. tend to divide and weaken the peolple. 

If azadi is achieved in Kashmir, will the outdated feudal Sharia Law be imposed there ? And if azadi means azadi from India but joining Pakistan, will the jackboots of the Pakistani army not fall on the necks of Kashmiris, replacing one jackboot by another ?

Real azadi is azadi from poverty, malnourishment, unemployment, hunger, lack of health care etc. Did Burhan Wani and his comrades ever think of this, and how it will be achieved in an azad Kashmir ? Have the 'brave' JNUSU and Jadavpur University students who supported this demand of azadi for Kashmir ever thought of that ?

It is not enough to be brave, it is also necessary to have brains, but about this I have my doubts