Sloganeering in Srinagar
Posted April 23rd, 2008 by Tarique AnwarArticles
Indian Muslim By Yoginder Sikand, TwoCircles.net
'Hindi is the other name for Indianness', declares a
slogan in Hindi on a board put up on the otherwise
bare wall of a makeshift chamber that one passes
through as one makes one's way out of Srinagar's
heavily fortified airport. An odd way, surely, for the
Indian state to stress its claims to genuine respect
for cultural and linguistic pluralism and to seek to
'win the hearts of the Kashmiris' as the tired and
trite phrase goes—heavily Sanskritised Hindi of the
Government of India's variety not only being a totally
alien tongue in Kashmir but also being seen as a
potent symbol of Hindu chauvinism directed against
Muslims. Is it then any surprise that the hegemonic
version of Indian nationalism that this slogan
represents has few, if any, takers in Kashmir?
Equally shrill slogans greet one as one drives out of
the airport through Srinagar's suburbs and into the
heart of town. 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai', 'India is one,
from Kashmir to Kanyakumari', 'Hindustan Zindabad',
'Kashmir, the Crown of India', 'CRPF, the Keepers of
Peace' and so on scream these slogans, painted on
bunkers located at road-crossings, behind which stand
gun-totting soldiers guarding the Indian flag. Few
Kashmiris, needless to say, take these slogans at all
seriously, and the visitor from Delhi is still
referred to as having come from India, for despite the
obvious decline in violence in the region, for many
Kashmiris India is still a foreign country and its
armed forces an occupying power.
'Thanks to Smt. Sonia Gandhi For Nominating Jenab
Ghulam Nabi Azad and Chief Minister of J&K State'
announces a sprawling billboard just down the street
from the Tourist Reception Committee in the heart of
Srinagar. It was obviously hurriedly put up just in
time for Sonia Gandhi's visit to Srinagar earlier this
month, when she came to inaugurate a tulip park in
town. Care was taken that Ms. Gandhi be duly informed
about the man behind this outpouring of loyalty to
her, his name, picture and his designation as the
President of the Jammu and Kashmir Youth Congress
being prominently displayed in the centre of the
board. Is one to understand, as the board seems to
suggest, that the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir
owes his position not to the people of the state, but,
rather, to the munificence of a woman from outside who
clearly has no mandate to do so?
The tulip garden which Ms. Gandhi flew in to
inaugurate was greeted with much indignation in large
sections of the Kashmiri press, although, obviously,
this was carefully left unmentioned by the Indian
media that reported about it, which exulted in the
claim that this was yet another sign of the
conflict-torn region returning to 'normalcy', with the
flowers back in bloom. The sprawling gardens,
extending over several dozen acres and located in the
lap of thickly-forested hills of Zabarwan on the banks
of the scenic Dal lake, was a brainchild of the Chief
Minister, and has obviously cost the public exchequer
an enormous amount of money. Ghulam Nabi Azad,
needless to say, strategically chose to name the
gardens after the late Indira Gandhi and to invite her
daughter-in-law to inaugurate it. Obviously, the
choice of the name found little or no support among
the denizens of Srinagar, most of who, in any case,
cannot afford the hefty entrance fee, and who were
also understandably upset over newspaper reports that
government officials were literally forcing school
students to visit the park.
'Inaugurated by the Vice Chancellor', announces a
granite slab at the foot of a pillar that forms part
of a new boundary wall that has come up at the
entrance of Kashmir University. The man who managed to
have his name inscribed therein is, thankfully, no
longer in-charge of the university, but before he left
he obviously made it a point to commemorate himself
for the sake of posterity despite the fact that he was
not known for his academic achievements, my university
friends describing him charitably as even less than
mediocre.
With elections in Kashmir round the corner,
sloganeering politicians have been seeking to make
waves by raising issues that they generally promptly
forget once polls are over. So, as the Kashmiri press
reports, some have demanded that Pakistani currency be
allowed to be used in Kashmir, others have called for
free trade across the Line of Control and all of them
are branding the others as having betrayed the Kashmir
cause and as allegedly working as Indian or Pakistani
agents or even both as the case might be.
Heated sloganeering also shrouds the raging
controversy over a report recently released by the
Srinagar-based Association of the Parents of the
Disappeared (APDP), which claims that over a thousand
unidentified graves located in the border tehsil of
Uri in Kashmir's Baramulla district might be those of
innocent civilians done to death by the Indian armed
forces and then branded as 'terrorists'. The Indian
authorities, predictably, have sought to hush up the
issue, while human rights defenders continue to insist
that stern action be taken against the perpetrators of
these crimes.
The truth, however, seems somewhat in between. On a
visit to the mountain village of Bijhama, located
seven kilometers from the Line of Control, I was
informed that while the APDP report speaks of some two
hundred unidentified graves in the village graveyard,
just thirteen of these are of men labeled by the armed
forces as 'militants', mostly intruders from across
the border, while the rest are actually of local
inhabitants who died natural deaths. That, of course,
is not to deny the reality of fake encounters in
Kashmir involving the Indian armed forces, but, as a
human rights activist pressed upon me, if the authors
of the APDP report are not to lose their
carefully-built up credibility they ought to have done
their research more carefully.
Two weeks in Srinagar, and, as usual, I've been
subjected to a heavy over-dose of sloganeering. We
drive down to the airport, although I, as always, have
mixed feelings about leaving the place that I love so
much. We stop at the Iqbal Park to take a photograph
of the poet Iqbal (adored by many Kashmiris
particularly because he was of Kashmiri origin) set
against by a strawberry pink board. Below his picture
is a verse from him in Persian which talks about
Kashmir as being the rose in a garden. Below that, in
English, the board declares, 'Make your own world from
the clay of India'. If that is meant to be a
translation of the Persian verse, it is obviously
erroneous and misleading. But then the board has been
put up by the Central Reserve Police Force, and so,
presumably, no one can dare question it.
The airport is abuzz with activity. Plane loads of
tourists and soldiers are heading back to Delhi.
Srinagar airport is unique. In no other airport in
India is one forced to submit to lessons in Indian
nationalism. 'We are Hindis and Hindustan Is Ours',
'India is One' and so on scream slogans painted on
little blue plastic boards haphazardly placed all over
the waiting hall.
Slogans galore, but then that is part of what the
whole war over Kashmir is really all about.
Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye
The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping
The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping
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