Kashmir: Secularism as Suicide

Mehmood ur Rashid

When Nehru was on his way to discover India as a Hindu imperial construct, Gandhi was experimenting with his Ram Rajya, Iqbal was imagining the future of Muslim civilization in the North-West of the undivided India, Jinnah was advocating the Muslim case, who whispered into the ears of Sheikh M Abdullah to bite into this forbidden fruit, called ‘secularism’.

That was the moment Kashmir lost its politics, and Kashmiris lost the paradise. Mufti M Sayeed and his PDP is the child of that mishap, and how faithfully he carries forward the legacy. Like father, like child.

On Friday, when I looked at the Kashmir based newspapers I was flung into a painful disbelief. On the one hand we have a political power rearing its head in the entire India, ensuring a belligerent display on the streets of Jammu, and on the other hand we have the frontline leadership of PDP observing Dusshehra – a Hindu festival – in Kashmir.

As such there is no harm in sharing the joy of these festivals with other religious communities, in case there is no ethical or doctrinal issue involved.  Also, there is no reason for us to copy the ways of RSS. These are detestable ways, and should be seen as that.

There is no virtue in competing with madness. Why these pictures disturb, is because there is a definite politics tagged to it. If BJP, and earlier Congress, have used brute force to control Kashmir, and have in all ways acted as Hindu, why do we shy away from telling them that we are Muslims. When they look at it from the point of being Hindus, how do we listen to their rhetoric of secularism. And when my whole political existence is based on my being Muslim, what makes us commit suicide by always raising incantations for secularism.

These religious denomination – being Hindu or Muslim – in the context of Kashmir is not a subject of faith. It has nothing to do with religiosity. In Kashmir it’s the Mathematics of Politics. This is exactly how Jinnah understood it in the undivided India, and this is where Sheikh M Abdullah faltered.

Now while PDP preaches ‘secularism’ to us in Kashmir, RSS-BJP family openly displays Hindu extremism in Jammu. Who are then we trying to deceive! Is Mufti, as a political progeny of Sheikh M Abdullah, and PDP as a  political progression of National Conference, oblivious to this. Certainly not.

Why sheikh Sahab felt comfortable in the proximity of Nehru and Congress, is a matter of historical inquiry. It also requires a deeper analysis of Sheikh M Abdullah as a person; the limits of his capabilities and his psychological make up. And it needs a dispassionate research to lay him bare. A point of neutrality that is equidistant to unquestioning-admiration and visceral hatred is first to be marked.

Looking at how we have been conned in the name of secularism, and how our existence as Muslim is increasingly coming under threat, there is a need for a conceptual clarity on this. In west secularism was a result of deep intellectual churning. It was something that was nurtured in the grounds of religious reformation. It then flourished in its societal relationships and political development.

In the aftermath of de-colonisation it was presumed that no nation-state can work successfully unless raised on the foundation of secularism.  But the relationship between Muslims and Hindus in the sub continent disallowed India to stay united and come up as a single- secular-nation-state.

Pakistan declared itself an Islamic Republic, and the debate on secularism in that country went along a particular trajectory. It’s still not resolved. Though India declared itself a secular state, there was a deep dissent among the core constituency of Hindus on this. The rise of Hindutva only goes into showing how deep and wide this dissent was.

If RSS has flourishd in this country and BJP has risen to power, it means Indian mind had never fully accepted the secularism championed by Nehru, and his Congress. It also alludes towards a finer point. Congress itself had left spaces for this dissension, and in case of Kashmir it actually utilised this Hindu-mind to disempower Muslims. Secularism was used just as a ruse.

Sheikh Sahab, and all those who followed him, from Bakhshi to Mufti, were either the victims of this ploy, or willful players of it. May be both!! Secularism, in the context of Kashmir, is nothing but a craftily spread out net to catch this poor creature called Kashmiri Muslim. And watching these ‘Kashmiri Muslims’ observe Dushehra is a despicable sight, to say the least. Secularism is the worst form of criminality in Kashmir, the Sheikh was the father of this criminality and the Mufti as a child of that crime carries on the legacy with a renewed faith.  And this public display of secularism is all sham. Even the staunchest of secularists would turn away from this.

One final note: does it mean that Kashmiri Muslims should turn towards Islamic fundamentalism. No way. Extremism in the name of Islam is as dangerous, and as reprehensible, as as is extremism in the name of Hinduism.