The Role of Right-wingers in Transforming Heaven into Hell – Kashmir

Jaf­fer Abbas Mirza

First of all, I would like to con­grat­u­late India and Pak­istan because Kash­mir dis­pute is now a part of Guin­ness Book of World Records for being cat­e­go­rized as the largest mil­i­ta­rized ter­ri­to­r­i­al dis­pute cur­rent­ly on the plan­et. Both coun­tries have fought three wars but the preva­lent stand-off over Kash­mir will con­tin­ue for cen­turies, if the two rivals keep stick­ing to a non-resolv­ing approach. Arguably, pres­sure groups play an impor­tant role. Right-wing group, in both coun­tries, are con­sid­er­ably a big obsta­cle in the res­o­lu­tion of Kash­mir dis­pute.

In India, the ris­ing hard­line nation­al­ists are becom­ing threat to its own sta­bil­i­ty and ide­ol­o­gy – sec­u­lar­ism. In 1923, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his pam­phlet ‘Hin­dut­va: Who is a Hin­du’ argued that a Hin­du state should be estab­lished in India to pro­mote the polit­i­cal, cul­tur­al and reli­gious suprema­cy of Hin­duism. By fol­low­ing Hin­dut­va, Rashtriya Swayam­se­vak Sangh (RSS) — a Hin­du extrem­ist par­ty – dis­sem­i­nat­ed rad­i­cal­ism in world’s largest democ­ra­cy. Con­sid­er­ably, it is the par­ent orga­ni­za­tion for hard­lin­ers in India.

The cur­rent prime min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­date, Naren­dra Modi was an ex-mem­ber of RSS. Bharatiya Jana­ta Par­ty (BJP) is high­ly influ­enced by RSS’ ide­ol­o­gy (Hin­dut­va). BJP vowed to abro­gate Arti­cle 370 of the Indi­an con­sti­tu­tion which grants spe­cial autonomous sta­tus to Jam­mu and Kash­mir. Inte­gra­tion of Kash­mir has become dog­ma for BJP. It claimed:
“Jam­mu & Kash­mir’s inte­gra­tion with India is an essen­tial part of the ide­ol­o­gy of Bhar­tiya Jana Sangh and now the BJP”.

It has been pres­sur­iz­ing and attack­ing var­i­ous peo­ple who pro­pose Kashmir’s solu­tion. The recent attack on Aam Admi Party’s (APP) office is evi­dent when Prashant Bhushan pro­posed a ref­er­en­dum for demil­i­ta­riza­tion of Indi­an-occu­pied Kash­mir. How­ev­er, BJP denied all alle­ga­tions while con­demn­ing Prashant’s pro­pos­al.

In Pakistan’s case, right-wingers have always per­ceived Kash­mir dis­pute through the scope of reli­gion rather than tak­ing it only as a ter­ri­to­r­i­al issue. Jamat-i-Isla­mi (JI) is the promi­nent right-wing par­ty which always sways the mass­es uti­liz­ing its rhetoric on Kash­mir for decades. JI has always been unsuc­cess­ful in win­ning the major­i­ty of seats in elec­tions but, it has nev­er failed to sab­o­tage Kashmir’s peace process.

Coun­ter­ing Indi­an oppres­sion in Kash­mir, Pak­istan adopt­ed the pol­i­cy of state-spon­sored Jihadism. It patron­ized var­i­ous mil­i­tant groups such as Lashkar-i-Tai­ba, Jaish-e-Muham­mad and oth­ers to achieve its strate­gic goal of dri­ving out Indi­an forces present in Kash­mir. Lashkar-i-Tai­ba is noto­ri­ous for con­duct­ing ter­ror­ist attacks in India. More­over patron­iza­tion of mil­i­tant groups has result­ed in the rad­i­cal­iza­tion of Pak­istani soci­ety because when you grow vipers in your back­yards then you are sure to get bit­ten some­day.

One can­not ignore the role of right-wingers of both coun­tries in sab­o­tag­ing peace process in Kash­mir. They should real­ize that they are jeop­ar­diz­ing the lives of mil­lions of inno­cent Kash­miris. In the end, it is a com­mon Kash­miri who is pay­ing the price of their impru­dent deci­sions and pol­i­tics.
Arguably, Kash­mir dis­pute is now beyond the sphere of civil­ian gov­ern­ments in both states. Appar­ent­ly, right-wing pres­sure groups, usu­al­ly with the sup­port of respec­tive armed forces, want ani­mos­i­ty to flour­ish and wish to keep this dis­pute unre­solved. In the pres­ence of these pres­sure groups, I do not see the pos­si­bil­i­ty of any pos­i­tive devel­op­ment. For a major break­through, shift in mind­set is sine qua non for Kashmir’s peace process.

The author is a researcher at The Pak­istan Insti­tute of Inter­na­tion­al Affairs and he tweets @mirzajaffer.