Rahul’s ‘non-political’ Kashmir visit

No ‘uncomfortable’ questions were allowed to be put to the visiting dignitaries!

Statecraft 

BY HAPPYMON JACOB

The recent visit of the Congress scion and Member of Parliament Mr. Rahul Gandhi to the Kashmir University with a delegation of prominent Indian businessmen is indeed a welcome step, but an inadequate one at that. The fact that Mr. Gandhi managed to convince top industrialists such as Ratan Tata, K.M. Birla of Aditya Birla Group, Rajiv Bajaj of Bajaj Auto, Deepak Parekh of HDFC, and Ashoka Reddy of MindTree to accompany him to Kashmir and speak to the students at the University auditorium deserves praise. I have no doubt in my mind that the likes of Mr. Tata and Mr. Birla will live upto the promises they made to the young Kashmiris. Some of them have even promised to make a comeback visit to Kashmir sometime later. So far so good.

That said, my concern is not really about the utility of such moves intended to improve the economic conditions of people, but about Rahul’s technocratic approach to addressing political issues. Again, I do not doubt the fact that Rahul is a well-meaning gentleman and a sincere politician. But over and again, he has proved to be unable to view and understand political issues through political lenses. Rahul, for instance, was nowhere to be seen when the Kashmir valley was up in flames in 2008 and 2010. We did not hear him offer any solutions to douse the fire nor was he reaching out the Kashmiri youth during those days. But then why blame him alone? Even Kashmir’s own politicians had gone into hiding when the valley was burning.

Rahul Gandhi’s three monkeys
Rahul seems to be going by the slightly modified version of the principle embodied by the three wise monkeys “When in Kashmir, see no politics, hear no politics, speak no politics”. What else can explain the fact that Rahul was unwilling to discuss any politics during his visit to the campus? Apparently, his organisers had stage-managed the show to such an extent that no ‘uncomfortable’ questions were allowed to be put to the visiting dignitaries! Does he think that students in university campuses are not mature enough to discuss politics? Does Rahul think that it is not their job to discuss politics in the campuses and that they should just do their studies and go home? While bringing economic prosperity to Kashmir is good, Rahul should also have shown the political vision and guts to answer the ‘uncomfortable’ political questions of the Kashmir University students. 

Moreover, Rahul should have reminded his close friend Omar Abdullah that the latter’s government should take the trouble to conduct DNA profiling of the 2,156 dead bodies in around 38 graveyards of Kashmir. A year ago Omar had claimed that his government would make sure that the DNA tests are conducted and the families of at least some of the missing persons will finally have a sense of closure. His government has now gone back on that promise saying that a) it is not possible to conduct DNA profiling of all bodies and, b) only terrorists are buried in those graves. Even more curious is the argument that “The families of the disappeared should identify the particular graveyard and the grave where they believe their family member might be buried. Only then after acquiring proper permission DNA test of that particular grave would be carried out.” For heaven’s sake, how can the families of missing persons ever manage to do that? Forget justice for a moment, can Omar Abdullah’s government please stop making fun of the Kashmiri people? 

Economic opportunities are good, but bringing justice to those whose kith and kin have been killed is even more important. And if Mr. Rahul Gandhi thinks that bringing Tata and Birla to Kashmir will compensate for the blood spilled by thousands of Kashmiris, he has not even begun to understand the conflict in Kashmir. 

Let us face it, economics is not politics and hence any attempts by anyone to resolve political issues through economic means is unlikely to be successful in the longer run. Indeed, using economic means to address political questions is not something that New Delhi is doing for the first time: this is a standard practice in state-led conflict resolution initiatives. And these economic means come in many shapes and forms: economic rebuilding, job creation, infrastructure development and sometimes straightforward bribing. But then a symptomatic approach is not designed to address the deeper political questions and that is precisely its problem. 

What is interesting to note is that while Rahul and Omar show reluctance in addressing political questions using means that are truly political, their grand fathers Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdulla, respectively, used to be exactly the opposite. They reveled in politicizing everything that happened around them. They had absolutely no hesitation in discussing deeply distressing political questions right in the middle of their people. Elderly Kashmiris would remember how the Sheikh and Nehru used to make impromptu speeches at Lal Chowk addressing important political questions that Kashmir faced then: Kashmir faces the very same questions even now but the grandsons of Sheikh and Nehru seem to fight shy of addressing them. Why is a political approach important? Notwithstanding the fact that a political approach is often a comprehensive one, it is also useful in bringing justice to those who have been deprived of it. More so, an economic approach can only help ‘hide’ a political problem and so an economic solution provides no guarantee that the conflict will not come back to hurt us again.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, October 7, 2012. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Oct/7/rahul-s-non-political-kashmir-visit-5.asp )