If Not Now, Then When?

Hussain, a teacher I met in Tangdhar on my visit there last week, remarkedhow Indian NGOs and corporate houses had responded generously in the wake of thequake in Kutch and the Tsunami in south India, and contrasted this with theirreaction to the quake in Kashmir. He had a point when he noted that thisindifference probably owed to the fact the victims of the quake in Kashmir werealmost all Muslims, and Kashmiri Muslims at that.

A neighbour in Bangalore had virtually slammed the door on my face when Iapproached him for clothes that we were collecting for the victims of theKashmir quake. 'They are all Muslims, so it is not our problem', he told me,shamelessly. I heard similar explanations from several other people I hadapproached, who all uniformly declined my appeal.

The fact that most of the few people in my locality who sent me material forthe victims happened to be Muslims saddened me, because it provided moreevidence that the quake was seen by many in essentially communal terms, by bothmany Hindus, of course, but also by many Muslims, several of whom may not haveresponded to a similar tragedy with similar enthusiasm had it strucknon-Muslims.

Yet, this is hardly surprising. For many people in my largely middle-classand 'upper' caste Hindu locality in Bangalore, the Kashmir quake was not a humantragedy but, rather, simply a Muslim affair. One of my neighbours was sobrutally frank as to tell me that the quake victims deserved their fate forallegedly supporting terrorism and advocating secession from India.

I do not wish to make any generalizations here. I know of several Hindus whohave done yeoman service in rushing relief to Kashmir and even going therepersonally themselves to help out in the relief work. But, overall, one cannotbut help remark on the sheer indifference of ‘mainstream’ Indian civilsociety to the tragedy in Kashmir.

Such deeply-rooted communal prejudices also probably account, in no smallmeasure, for the fact that few Indian NGOs have responded to the quake at all.While several Muslim organizations, from Kashmir as well as from other parts ofIndia, in addition to some Christian groups and larger international NGOs, areactive in providing relief in the quake-affected parts of Kashmir, one gets thedistinct impression that the victims of the quake are not a pressing priorityfor most Indian NGOs. This explains their virtual absence in the ongoing reliefefforts in the region.

Tarring all Muslims with the same brush, branding allMuslims in Kashmir as 'terrorist sympathizers', little do my bigoted neighboursand others like them know that the militant movement has hardly any supportamong the people living in the regions most badly affected by the quake, Uri andTangdhar. This is, of course, not to argue that the urgency of providing themhumanitarian assistance would be any less if their political proclivities weredifferent. The vast majority of the inhabitants of these remote parts of Jammuand Kashmir are Punjabi/Pahari-speaking Muslims, ethnically and culturally quitedistinct from the Muslims of the Kashmir Valley.

As numerous army personnel I met in Tangdhar themselves stressed, militancyhas failed to take root in the region despite the fact that it straddles theLine of Control, on the other side of which live people of the same ethniccommunities. In fact, I was told, many locals have actively assisted the Army incombating infiltration from across the border, and several families also havemembers working in the Army.

That the vast majority of the locals have stayed away from involvement in theongoing militancy in Kashmir owes to various factors, including awareness, dueto living along the Line of Control, that the economic conditions on the Indianside of the Line are considerably better than across; the role of the Army insustaining the local economy; the fact that the locals have Backward Classstatus, which has enabled a number of them to secure government jobs; and thefact that the non-Kashmiri communities of the state, non-Muslims as well asMuslims, tend to see the militant movement as a means to sustain and promoteKashmiri domination.

Arguing that the victims of the quake do not deserve relief because they areallegedly supporters of 'terrorists' is not just inhuman. It is also factuallyincorrect and only reveals the ignorance of those who make this claim.

In contrast to the dismal response of the NGO sector,the Army has played an active role in providing relief to hundreds of families,particularly in the immediate aftermath of the quake, as many locals I metstressed with gratitude. And herein lies a lesson for my neighbours back home inBangalore and others of their ilk, who insist that Kashmir is an inalienablepart of India but at the same time refuse to help the Kashmiris in this hour ofneed, with tens of thousands of people rendered homeless and helpless in theface of the oncoming harsh winter.

It is now that the rhetoric of 'winning the hearts of the Kashmiris' is beingtested, and if Indian civil society continue to respond to this humanitariantragedy of gigantic proportions with indifference the result of that test isobvious. What better way, one must ask, can there be to win the hearts of theKashmiris than to respond generously to the victims of the quake, whosecontinued plight has been completely invisiblised from our imagination?

This is precisely what victims of the quake who managed to secure some reliefthemselves testify. As Ahmed, a man I met in Uri whose house was destroyed inthe quake told me, 'Had it not been for the Army, many more lives would havebeen lost'. Or as a man from Parada village near Tangdhar, said to me, 'We havegot some aid from NGOs and from the Army, but across the Line of Control inPakistan-administered Kashmir scores of villages have received no assistance atall from their state or their Army'.

This initial goodwill generated by the efforts of the Army and the few NGOsactive in the area urgently needs to be built upon. To do otherwise, to ignorethe plight of more than one hundred thousand people in Kashmir whose houses havebeen destroyed and who are faced with the very real threat of death andstarvation this winter, would only strengthen the hands of Islamist radicals,who would bandy it about as yet another 'proof' of Indian or Hindu perfidy andalleged hatred of Islam and Muslims.

We simply cannot allow one hundred thousand people tobe made into willing recruits for Islamist militants for no fault of their own,because if the Indian state and civil society do not reach out to them now toprovide them the relief that they urgently require militant Islamist groupsmight well might do so, as they indeed have done across the Line of Control,where now, according to media reports, the Lashkar-i Tayyeba is playing aleading role in relief efforts. Militant groups in Kashmir are not making reliefwork in any easier for Indian NGOs. When a man I met in Srinagar, who did notconceal his sympathies for the Lashkar-i Tayyeba, bemoaned the fact that Indiancivil society had turned a blind eye to the sufferings of the quake victims, Iasked him why this should not be so when at the same time the Lashkar insiststhat Kashmir must be 'liberated' from India through armed jihad.

If Kashmir is not part of India, as the Lashkar insists, then why, I said,should he hope for Indians to rush to the rescue of the Kashmiris? How, I askedhim, could he reasonably expect Indian NGOs to help the quake victims when evennow Army vehicles and pickets in Kashmir are being attacked by militants on adaily basis? How, I argued, could he hope for Indian citizens to respond withpassion to the plight of the quake victims when, at the same time, the Lashkar,whom he upholds as a model for Muslims to emulate, tars all Hindus with the samebrush, branding them as evil and sinister and even as 'agents of the devil'?

Saturday's devastating blasts in Delhi have added a new dimension to thehumanitarian crisis in Kashmir. It is speculated that these might have beenmasterminded by the dreaded Lashkar-i Tayyeba. If true, it is hardly surprisingthat these blasts come in the immediate aftermath of the quake. It sends out apowerful statement that despite the quake the terrorists are not down and out,that they are still intact and can strike at will.

It is possible that the blasts might make relief work in Kashmir by NGOs fromoutside the state even more difficult. People, like my neighbours in Bangalore,might be hardened in their resolve that the victims of the quake deserve nosuccour at all. Relief teams from other parts of India might think twice abouttravelling to help out in Kashmir for fear of being attacked.

No doubt this is precisely what groups like the Lashkaractually want. Ongoing moves to allow people from the Pakistani side of the Lineof Control to enter the Indian side for relief and medical assistance ornon-Muslim Indian organisations being involved in relief work in Kashmir areobviously complete anathema for groups like the Lashkar, whose very ideology isbased on unrelenting hatred for Hindus and Indian.

Any moves to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan or between Hindus andMuslims are immediately dubbed as an anti-Islamic 'conspiracy' because theyobviously undermine the fundamental postulates of the Lashkar's worldview.Hindus, whether Army personnel or civilians, helping out Kashmiri Muslim quakevictims would forcefully challenge the militant Islamists' thesis of all Hindusas 'evil', 'mean', and by definition anti-Muslim. This would also expose asarrant nonsense the argument of Sayyed Ali Gilani, chief ideologue of theJama'at-i Islami of Kashmir, which presumably the Lashkar would also echo, that'It is as difficult for a Muslim to live in a Hindu environment as it is for afish to live in a desert'.

One hundred thousand or more homeless people in our part of Kashmir arethreatened with sickness, starvation and death this coming winter. And, becausethese people are seen principally as Muslims, rather than as victims of animmense human tragedy, by Islamist militants and Hindutva fascists, as well asby large sections of the Indian press, our response to their plight has beenpathetically indifferent.

Being framed in communal terms, the continued suffering of the victims of thequake now risks being completely wiped out from our imagination and conscience.What that means for our repeated and tireless profession of concern for theKashmiri people obviously needs no elaboration.

Yoginder Sikand is the author of Sacred Spaces: Exploring Traditions of Shared Faith in India and Inter-Religious Dialogue and Liberation Theology: Interviews with Indian Theologians and Activists