Iffat Malik, Kashmir:
Ethnic Conflict, International Dispute
(Karachi; Oxford UP, 2002), pp. 392. Price. PKR 450/--.
There are so many books on Kashmir that one may be forgiven for one’s first reaction on seeing this one---which is, ‘oh No! Not again!’. But if one reads on, as this reviewer did, it becomes clear that it was precisely this kind of comprehensive well- researched and balanced book which was needed. Indeed, when one finishes the book one’s reaction might well be: ‘why didn’t someone write this before?’
Iffat Malik’s basic argument is that Kashmir is both an ethnic conflict and an international dispute. While everyone refers to the religious dimension, hardly anybody invokes ethnicity to explain the Kashmir issue. Moreover, both Pakistani and Indian authors (and, for that matter, Alistair Lamb) focus much more on the India–Pakistan dimension of the dispute than on any other.
This author begins with a brief history of ethnic identifications in Kashmir. She points out that there are several ethnic groups and sub-groups in the Kashmir Valley---to say nothing of the multi-ethnic former state as such --- of which the Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits are the most significant. They had some common identity traits which some writers call Kashmiriyat. However, according to the author, the differences between Hindus and Muslims, though less acute then in the rest of India, were not completely absent. Indeed, they were potentially disruptive because the state, which was ruled by a Hindu Dogra ruler, favoured the Pandits and impoverished the Muslims. As the Vale has over 90 percent Muslims, this impoverished community was easily mobilized to resist Dogra rule in the early twentieth century when the whole of India was getting politicized. The Pandits, who had been favoured, now became alarmed. As soon as the state got its Muslim premiers after 1947, the Pandits lost their prominence and felt themselves to be a vulnerable minority. When the militancy began in 1989, the Pandits were gradually forced out of Kashmir and now live in refugee camps in Jammu. They now blame not only the militants but the Muslim community in general for supporting the militant movement.
The Muslims, though they followed Sheikh Abdullah initially because they had been oppressed economically and socially, became disillusioned with the corruption and nepotism of Sheikh Abdullah’s family. In response to this they supported the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in the late nineteen eighties which wanted freedom (Azadi) from India. Soon, however, the JKLF was overshadowed by militant groups favouring the accession of Kashmir with Pakistan and the struggle became more militant, more Islamized and more pro-Pakistan than before. However, many Kashmiris resent the religious groups earlier patronised by Pakistan and still favour an ethnic identity (Kashmiriyat) which rejects both India and Pakistan. Such people do not tow the Indian line. Incidentally, most Pandits and Muslims are drawing apart as they do not interact much with each other and are in the process of consolidating separate religion-based ethnic identities. Some of the Pandits want to carve out their own homeland in Kashmir for their ethnic group.
Apart from the ethnic aspect, Iffat Malik also looks at the history of the international dispute with which we are more familiar. Her history is not radically different from other writers but it is more detailed and comprehensive. She tells the reader about there being two religious leaders: the Mirwaiz of the Jama Masjid in Sinagar and the (lesser) Mirwaiz of the Khanqah-i-Moalla, the shrine of Syed Ali Hamdani. Besides these, there emerged the secular leadership of Sheikh Abdullah from the 1930s onwards. Abdullah created the Muslim Conference but this split because, while Mirwaiz (Hamdani) supported it; the Mirwaiz (Srinagar) supported its breakoff faction. This made Abdullah’s politics more secular and the Muslims did not have a unified voice on the future of Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah named his faction as the National Conference in 1939 while the Muslim conference, brought back to life in 1941, had Mirwaiz Yusuf Shah and Chaudhri Ghulam Abbas as leaders. Now, while Abdullah emphasized Kashmiriyat; the Mirwaiz emphasized the Islamic component of the identity.
The actual partition of India and the events leading to the de facto partition along the line of control of the state of Jammu and Kashmir are well known and Iffat Malik, quite rightly, does not give too much space to them. She does, however, give a lot of space to political developments in Kashmir after 1948. She tells us that Sheikh Abdullah abolished the huge landed estates by an Act of 1950. Most of these estates belonged to the Pandits so they saw this as an example of Muslim rule. He also reached an agreement with Nehru’s government that Kashmir should have a special status in the constitution. This also alienated the Hindus---especially the right wing ones who wanted India to be one and the same. Within Abdullah’s own cabinet there were people, like Bakhshi Ghulam Muhammad, who favoured complete integration. By 1953 Nehru had been convinced that Abdulah would take Kashmir out of the Union and he had him arrested. Bakhshi, who became premier, provided economic development and, by 1958, integrated the state with India. However, Bakhshi was corrupt and the people resented him. In 1963 he too was removed. By this time Kashmiris had expressed resentment against their rulers by agitating several times. Finally Nehru released Abdullah in 1964. However, Nehru also died that year.
In 1967 elections were held and the State Congress party---and an Indianized venison of the National Conference headed by G.M. Sadiq---won through rigging. It was only in 1975 that Sheikh Abdullah was again allowed back into Kashmir’s politics. But now his government was seen as being so corrupt that he soon alienated ordinary Kashmiris. Abdullah died in 1982 but his son, Farooq Abdullah, remained in politics after 1983. After 1987, when Farooq Abdullah won the elections, the public protest increased sharply. The JKLF started planting bombs, assassinating public figures and abducting people (such as Rubaiyya Sayeed, doughter of Home Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed). In 1989 Abdullah resigned and Malhotra Jagmohan was appointed Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. He cracked down on the JKLF and the militant movement become even more stronger and radicalized.
Apart from this history, the author has given a very convincing account of why Kashmir is important for both India and Pakistan. The major insight which emerges from this account is that the religious right wing in both countries has appropriated the Kashmir issue and made it, so to speak, almost an article of faith. Malik further adds that the Pakistan army’s corporate interests, and perhaps the threat-perception of senior military decision-makers, is such as to keep the Kashmir cause on the forefront. Pakistan’s wars in 1948, 1965, on the Siachin Glacier where India had intruded first in 1994, and in Kargil in 1999 show its military’s obsession with Kashmir---an obsession which is generally supported by the people even if many of them do not actually want a war. In India too Kashmir is seen as a test of secularism, nationalism and justified resistance to Pakistan’s militant incursions in 1965 and 1999 (Kargil) to say nothing of the crossing over of guerrillas to carry out a proxy war with India troops.
Iffat Malik has dealt with the issue of the infiltration of militants very bravely and with scholarly objectivity. She concludes that the Pakistan Army and the Inter Services Intelligence helps, abets or at least knows about it. However, she also points out that there is genuine resistance in Kashmir against Indian rule and that, to begin with, the anti-India movement was indigenous. To take such positions is not easy in either Pakistan or India. It requires much scholarly courage and is to be commended without reservations.
The book has a rich bibliography with a fairly large list of interviews. Unfortunately, but understandably, interviews of Indian leaders and surveys of Kashmir are missing. What is less pardonable is that interviews of present army and ISI decision-makers are also missing. As for the theoretical perspective, it is fairly well documented. However, quite unaccountably, some well known books on Pakistan’s ethnic and linguistic politics are missing and there are hardly any references to Urdu sources on Kashmir or surveys about public opinion towards Kashmir conducted in Pakistan or India. Such surveys are available and should have been referred to.
Apparently this is a long list of omissions but, in fact, they do not amount to any really substantial error or misjudgment. They reduce the scholarly richness of the book but they do not vitiate any of its arguments. Actually the book is so balanced, brave and objective as to fulfil a long-felt need of providing a comprehensive and scholarly introduction to the Kashmir issue. I believe it will remain a landmark in Kashmir studies for a long time to come.
Dr. Tariq Rahman