The God Thing

ONE

Eratosthenes worked out the circumference of our planet 2200 years ago. The polymath who lived in classical Alexandria was not equipped with state-of-the-art instruments of the time to do that measurement. Armed with simple sticks, his imagination and his experimental skills, he did a simple experiment to observe whether his vertical sticks cast shadows in his ancient metropolis at noon on June 21, the longest day in a year, after he read that in the ancient Egyptian city of Syene in the south the temple columns cast no shadows on the summer solstice because the Sun would appear directly overhead. When his experimental sticks in Alexandria cast shadows, he realised that the Earth was not flat. From the shadow length in Alexandria, he found that the distance between the two cities is one-fiftieth of the total circumference of the planet. The real distance between Alexandrian and Syene being 800 kms, he deduced that the Earth’s circumference was 40,000 kms. His measurement was incredibly accurate with an error of a few per cent.
Eratosthenes was not unlike all those great geniuses whose experiments driven by their quest for truth have unravelled great mysteries of our universe. Despite their tremendous contributions to humanity, religions and their holy books claim to hold keys to unlock the mysteries, a claim which we uncritically allow them to pass on. Religious faith is always given the privilege of being at a safe distance from the arms of reason and scientific inquiry. We conveniently forget that a religion is a set of ideas and therefore open to critical and scientific examination. If the holy book says that the world has been created in six days, it is definitely a scientific question, unless you believe that it is only an origin myth. If you confront the faithful with the proposition that religious beliefs should be subjected to the test of scientific inquiry, you will be handed out an argument that religion and science are two separate arenas serving different purposes: the one catering to the spiritual needs of human beings and the other trying to explain the physical reality of the universe.
This is an excuse that religious apologists cannot be expected to make if a scientific discovery gives credence to the biblical story of the world's creation in six days. They will be the first to shout from the rooftops that science has validated religion. Since religion rides on the back of people’s credulity, we hardly raise our voice to highlight that religious doctrine and dogmas stand in the way of scientific pursuit. The religions and their practitioners know this well and they always insist (for their convenience, of course) that science and faith are different ways of seeking truth, while the fact is that religion does not seek truth at all but enforce dogma. The advocates of the distinct and mutually exclusive functions of religion and science also conveniently overlook the fact that great scientific inventions that have brought progress and happiness in human life and alleviated pain and suffering have not been inspired by religious faiths. True, individual scientists may have professed their faith in their private life, but their scientific breakthroughs cannot be linked with their religions or scriptures. Human inventions and innovations are always independent of those religious dogmas that forcefully, aggressively and at times violently enfoces their message of one absolute truth or another.
Assuming that there is religion in general, we may be tempted to ask the question what exactly is religion and what its functions are. You can expect a flood of answers to these questions and you can also find people believing in religion because they are satisfied with one or more of these answers. To large number of church-going or mosque-going people, religion and faith in their god is a way of protecting themselves from hell-fire in the afterlife. Faith appeals to the primeval human fear of death and destruction. Religion only maximises this fear psychosis in the faithful. Perhaps a more honest argument is that religion gives a sense of community life. This community identity might have been useful in the past when human life was understood in terms of tribal bond and affinity. In today’s world of freedom and democracy where each individual has his or her rights, this community framework of religion often assumes a tyrannical character and this tyranny is sustained through indoctrination. Every organised religion has its own system of indoctrination of young children. Terming this as child abuse, Richard Dawkins, in his persuasive rebuttal of religion in The God Delusion (London: Bantam Press, 2006) says consciousness-raising is a powerful weapon to fight indoctrination.

TWO

Central to the tyranny of religion is the God Hypothesis which Prof. Dawkins demolishes in his book that sold over 1.5 million copies around the world. According to him, since it is impossible to disprove the hypothesis, it does not necessarily mean that there is a 50 per cent probability of god’s existence.

“None of us feels an obligation to disprove any of the millions of far-fetched things that a fertile or facetious imagination might dream up. I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon, Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further.” (p. 53)

All these ancient gods have vanished from the face of the earth and no one believes in these gods any longer. So, a devout Muslim who believes only in Allah is an atheist about these deities. Islam, in fact, says that THERE IS NO GOD BUT GOD. It is also likely that early Jews, Christians and Muslims were called atheists by their contemporaries because the idea of god each of those monotheistic religions propagated was a total denial of the gods worshipped by the respective societies from which these religions arose. Large majority of believers are also atheists to the extent that they do not, in their daily life, strictly adhere to what their holy scriptures want them to follow. This useful rejection of religion in our personal and professional activities makes us all practical atheists. Majority of people pay no heed to injunctions in their holy scriptures that ask them to kill those who do not believe in their god or those who are apostates. When it concerns practical life, we apply rational thinking to religious doctrines. We reason that killing people for their belief or non-belief is incompatible with the idea of democracy and tolerance and that it will lead to social chaos that hampers our efforts to improve our sense of well-being and happiness. Majority of human beings will be satisfied only with rational explanation in our daily life. If a friend of you tells you that it was revealed to him by an angel that your colleague is trying to do harm to you, you will normally see signs of deep psychological disorder in your friend.
The faithful, however, take the God Hypothesis for granted and excludes it from all rational and scientific inquiry. Prof. Dawkins also shows how the hypothesis suffers from a logical flaw:

“If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent.” (p. 75)

He uses Darwin’s theory of natural selection to knock down the idea of god as a creator of the complex universe. Though a dragonfly’s wing or an eagle’s eye look apparently designed because of its complexity, it is the end-product of an extended sequence of natural causes. If there is an intelligent designer who has designed this complex universe, the designer should be equally complex and leaves the question `Who designed the designer?’ As Prof. Dawkins says, it is naïve to think that complicated things in nature are like complicated man-made objects like a watch made by a watch-maker.
If god has really created this universe and living beings, he is definitely a poor designer. Examination of fossils and the findings of molecular biology has showed that 98 per cent of all the species that have ever lived on the planet have been extinct. We the human beings, created in god’s image as Judaeo-Christian scriptures say, are vulnerable to the threats from lethal germs and bacteria, also god’s creations. An apparently complicated human eye is not at all a perfectly designed eye because it is susceptible to blindness. There are ‘lowly’ creatures whose eyes are more powerful than the human eye. There are people who argue that the symmetry of the solar system shows the hand of a designer. But the idea of the symmetry ignores the instability of the solar system. Christopher Hitchens, in his hard-hitting assault on religion God Is Not Great (London: Atlantic Books, 2007), exposes this fallacy:

“It is, indeed, only because of the frightening emptiness elsewhere that we are bound to be impressed by the apparently unique and beautiful conditions that have allowed intelligent life to occur on earth. But then, vain as we are, we would be impressed, wouldn’t we? This vanity allows us to overlook the implacable fact that, of the other bodies in our own solar system alone, the rest are all either far too cold to support anything recognizable as life, or far too hot. The same, as it happens, is true of our own blue and rounded planetary home, where heat contends with cold to make large tracts of it into useless wasteland, and where we have come to learn that we live, as have always lived, on a climatic knife edge. Meanwhile, the sun is getting ready to explode and devour its dependent planets like some jealous chief or tribal deity. Some design!” (p. 80)

Stumped by these arguments, the religious advocates seek to defend religion by claiming that it is religion which teaches us what is good and evil unlike science which has nothing to say about values and morality. Let us assume that religion is full of prescriptions asking people to do good things. But if I do not kill lest I will face god’s wrath and go to hell in the afterlife, that is no morality at all. I am just refraining from killing because of the divine gift that awaits me. Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith (2004), says that what is good and what is evil is like what is food and poison. There is no such thing as perfect food, according to Sam Harris.
In our day-to-day life we do not derive our moral principles from religion. As Dawkins shows, there can be Darwinian reasons for individuals to be moral, altruistic and generous towards each other. Altruism may be a misfiring of our genetic disposition to be kind to our kin. Extension of this kin altruism of our ancestors towards members in our clan, community, neighbourhood or society is a misfiring in Darwinian sense, just as sexual desire for itself is a misfiring or by-product of the Darwinian sexual urge for procreation.

THREE

“How do you know your husband loves you? Is there a rational way of understanding that he loves you? Is it not a case of belief where you believe that your husband loves you?” Questions like these are part of another line of argument in defence of faith in religion. The argument is that much of human experience is not rational. It is true that much of our emotional experience is not based on reasoning and scientific inquiry. There may not be a scientific way of proving that your husband loves you. Even in our intellectual experiences, belief has its role. Certain things you believe to be true. You believe that you can finish your professional assignment without any obstacle. I believe that I can write this article against the irrationality of belief in god.
However, our sense of certainty in our non-rational belief in matters involving our intellectual and emotional life is always dependent on our reasoning, which sometimes may be based on false premises. You may be wrong in your belief that your husband loves you, but your belief is by no means totally irrational and you will admit that you will not develop this belief if you are not sure about a higher degree of certainty about your husband’s love. In the case of love, certainty is based on all those little gestures showing intimacy and attachment between lovers. Suppose, the person who loves you says he will love you more if you kill someone to propitiate a divine power that inspires love, you will stop being completely overwhelmed by your belief in his love. You will not do what she wants you to do if you are a rational person. So the point is that we may be non-rational in much of our personal experiences, but we are not irrational. Belief in god is irrational because it is not based on a rationally verifiable degree of certainty. Even people believing in god always apply this certainty principle in their daily life. Even they will be prone to be rationally sceptical to someone who claims to have seen god.
The religious apologists often argue that belief in god gives consolation. Religion and belief in god may console you, but what gives you consolation may not be true. If the function of religion is to offer consolation, the concept of hellfire and punishment begs the question what kind of consolation is on offer to the believers. If the consolation involves a believer’s feeling that he or she is fully insulated against the inferno because of his or her faith in god is false consolation. It is false because the consolation is derived from unfounded beliefs. I can believe that some supernatural forces will intervene in my life and make things better and that may give me consolation. But that does not make my belief true. If we can believe in religion based on ideas that are immune to rational and scientific inquiry just because the belief gives you solace, why can’t you believe in witchcraft? There is no intelligent distinction between religion and witchcraft. If someone believes that some kind of supernatural force exists, it is a matter for scientific inquiry. But believers always insulate their belief from rationality mainly because their belief is basically an irrational conviction they have acquired through childhood indoctrination and not through any rational inquiry.

FOUR

Religion is inculcated in children through chilling images of eternal damnation invoked by priests in their hell-fire sermons and religious classes. The notion of god is always formed in infancy. Some people say that secular humanism is itself a religion without god. The argument is that principles of secularism have to be cultivated through disciplines of mind and heart. This is far from true. Secular humanism or atheism cannot be likened to a religion primarily because it is not a dogmatic creed, much less an ideology. To be a secular humanist or atheist, one requires no greater disciplining of mind and heart than what a person who does not believe in astrology or witchcraft requires. Faith in astrology or sorcery demands no less mental and emotional discipline than what one’s belief in god equipped with supernatural powers to intervene in human affairs calls for. Secular humanism or atheism is not a dogma but a stance against all dogmas.
Karen Armstrong, British author on religions, seeks to differentiate belief in god from dogmatism or fundamentalism as if the idea of god has always existed independent of religions. Her book A History of God (London: Vintage, 1999) tells the story of the idea and experience of god, the way men and women have perceived god from Abraham to the present day. Former nun, she examines the idea of god in three monotheistic religions and finds that there is not an objective view of god as each generation has created its own image of god.

“…there is not one unchanging idea contained in the word ‘God’ but the word contains a whole spectrum of meanings, some of which are contradictory or even mutually exclusive. Had the notion of God not had this flexibility, it would not have survived to become one of the great human ideas. When one conception of God has ceased to have meaning or relevance, it has been quietly discarded and replaced by a new theology. A fundamentalist would deny this, since fundamentalism is anti-historical: it believes that Abraham, Moses and the later prophets all experienced their God in exactly the same way as people do today.” (p.5)

It is a good idea that the idea of god has undergone Darwinian evolution over the centuries. Of course, history is also a burial ground of discarded and fossilised gods such as the ancient pagan gods mentioned above. But the concept of Abrahamic god who takes keen interest in human affairs and punishes human beings for their deviations remains fundamentally unchanged though that conception of god has lost its meaning and relevance today as it is incompatible with the spirit of modern democracy and humanism. Yahweh of the Old Testament may be crueller than the god of the New Testament and the god of Islam may be a blend of both the Old and New Testament notions of god. And all these three religions carry the influence of monotheistic Zoroastrian religion. But basically the character of the monotheistic god remains the same.

FIVE

Religion has so far escaped the scrutiny of science because of the privilege it has enjoyed owing to its unfounded claims to morality and virtue, even as human history is replete with blood-curdling stories of violence perpetrated in the name of god. Abrahamic god is a jealous god. For religions worshipping this demanding god, life is a daily moral battleground between good and evil. The self-indulgent god tells Abraham that "I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless." We cannot expect love of life in these religions in which the purpose of life is preparation for death and the Day of Judgment. Religion has no respect for life. Moses under instruction from god ordered the killing of 3000 Israelites, his own people, for no other crime than worshipping the golden calf. It was believed to be monotheism's first massacre. Islam has its share of cruelties. Muhammad ordered the butchering of 700 to 900 men of the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza in Medina. Monotheism creates a false impression in its practitioners that they are the god’s chosen people. The battle for Jerusalem, which is still going on, shows the scars of the belief that god is on your side in the battle against your enemy. Pagans for their part are also not free from their share of brutalities. The Aztecs of Mexico carried out human sacrifices on an industrial scale and they built their pyramids over bodies of human beings sacrificially killed to propitiate their deity. The cruelty of Hinduism is most explicit in its caste system, the effects of which are visible even today in India.
We have no quarrel with people who believe in god as long as it is their private affair. But religion and its god business have entered the public arena and are posing grave threat to people who mind their own businesses. Its supposedly sacred messages often inspire some of its followers to carry out violent attacks. Images of two planes hitting the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001 and countless other images of bloodletting violence in the name of god call for fresh look at religion. We should identify the problem for what it really is. 'The problem's name', as Salman Rushdie wrote in his 2002 article on Gujarat violence, 'is God.'

Valley on the boil

I

In the mythical past, the valley was once a beautiful lake inhabited by Nagas, the snake people, living in fear of the demon Jaladeo. Their guardian Nila Naga beseeched his father, the sage Kashyap, for the deliverance of the Nagas from the demon. Lord Shiva left his abode on Mount Kailash and hurled his trident into the mountains to rip open a hole for draining the lake of its water. Then Lakshmi, assuming the form of a myna bird, dropped a pebble on Jaladeo from a great height. The pebble embedded in the demon’s flesh grew to a hill known as Hari Parbat. The valley was named Kashyapamar in gratitude to the sage. It is easy for the word Kashyapamar to gradually get abridged into Kashmir in a couple of mythical epochs, the span of which we are not supposed to know.
The reality of recent turmoil in the land that is bogged down by the baggage of history is a far cry from the simplicity of the myth. There is no shortage of myth-makers, however, who will have us believe that the destinies of the people of our sub-continent are linked with that baggage which we are bound to carry we do not know how long. In fact, India needs no Kashmir to prove that Muhammad Ali Jinnah has been wrong in advocating his crazy idea that Muslims and Hindus in the sub-continent are two separate nations. History of the sub-continent over the past six decades has rubbished that idea. Bangladesh would not have broken away from Pakistan if the two-nation theory had not been a crazy proposal. The question is whether India needs Kashmir to prove to ourselves the validity of the great ideas of secularism it has been founded upon.
The latest turbulence in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) over the Amarnath shrine board land issue has as much to do with communal polarisation that has been building up there over the years, as with the whole gamut of issues that have been left unresolved by history because of political exigencies and strategic compulsions. Political follies, intentional and unintentional, have only added up to the confusion and havoc where a sense of imagined and real alienation of the people is easily exploited by divisive forces on either side of the psychological divide. Use of force is often sought to be the only option of the government to quell recurrent outbursts. Are there other options and which is the most viable option?
These question have been asked time and again and will continue to be asked till J&K remains a thorn in India’s side. The baggage of history may perhaps also help us understand the problem and provide some clues that offer a starting point for resolving what now seems to be an irresolvable issue. As long as it is allowed to be a chip on our shoulder, we cannot open-mindedly talk about it and express our views without risking the hazard of being dubbed anti-national and unpatriotic. Writers like Arundhati Roy, Vir Sanghvi and Swaminathan S.A. Aiyer have already come out to face the risk.

II

Jammu and Kashmir was priced Rs. 75 lakh after the Sikhs suffered defeat at the hands of the East India Company in the first Sikh War. The territories were not on sale, nor were there more buyers. The British wanted to transfer the area to Gulab Singh, a Dogra chief and loyalist, and make him its independent ruler under a treaty signed in Amritsar on March 16, 1846.
Buddhist and Hindu dynasties had ruled Kashmir till 14 th century, when a Muslim dynasty started ruling it until it was invaded by Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1587. After two hundred years of Mughal rule, Kashmir had come under the control of Pathans loyal to Kabul in 1752 till Maharajah Ranjit Singh, the great Sikh ruler, conquered it. Ranjit Singh had bestowed the estate of Jammu with the hereditary title of `Rajah’ on Gulab Singh as a reward for his services. After the death of Ranjit Singh, the Dogra chief had switched his loyalty to the British who fought the Sikhs.
The Treaty of Amritsar was the East India’s Company’s reward to him for his shifting of loyalty. But it also marked the beginning of J&K as a political entity. Hari Singh, who ascended the throne in 1925, was Gulab Singh’s fourth and last descendant. The All-Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference (later renamed National Conference) was formed in 1932, with Sheikh Abdullah as its leader, to fight for the rights of the Muslim community as there were complaints of discrimination against Muslims under the Dogra rule.
The Quit Kashmir campaign launched by the Conference in 1946 sought an end to the feudal rule of Hari Singh. After Lord Mountbatten announced on June 3, 1947 the British plan to relinquish power to two domains - India and Pakistan - Hari Singh was evasive about accession to either, despite Mountbatten’s suggestion to him that Kashmir could accede to Pakistan considering the composition of the population. V.P. Menon, secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of States who worked in close association with Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel and was privy to the developments during the days before and after Independence, gives a sympathetic description of the Maharajah’s procrastination: “…situated as he was, it was not easy for him to come to a decision. If he acceded to Pakistan, the non-Muslims of Jammu and Ladakh as well as considerable sections of Muslims led by the National Conference would definitely have resented such action.” (Integration of Indian States, Orient Longman, 1956, p. 452).
Despite the Standstill Agreement Hari Singh signed with Pakistan, frontier tribesmen backed by Pakistan army started their incursion into Kashmir on October 22, 1947. Two days later, they captured Mahura Power Station and cut off power to Srinagar. Menon flew to Srinagar the next day. He recounts his advice to Hari Singh to leave for Jammu for safety and his hectic parleys in Srinagar and Delhi:

“We left Srinagar in the first light of the morning of 26 October and immediately on my arrival in Delhi I went straight to a meeting of the Defence Committee…Lord Mountbatten said that it would be improper to move Indian troops into what was at the moment an independent country as Kashmir had not yet decided to accede to either India or Pakistan…This [accession of J & K] was the only basis on which Indian troops could be sent to the rescue of the State from further pillaging by the aggressors. He further expressed the strong opinion that, in view of the composition of the population, accession should be conditional on the will of the people being ascertained by a plebiscite after the raiders had been driven out of the State and law and order had been restored. This was readily agreed to by Nehru and other ministers.” (Integration of Indian States pp. 457-458).

The same day Menon flew to Jammu to get the Instrument of Accession signed by the Maharaja. The proviso of a future plebiscite was acceptable to Sheikh Abdullah who believed that accession should be on the basis of the will of the people. Jinnah was against the idea of plebiscite because he knew that with the Sheikh at the helm as their leader, the people would accept the accession to India.
The signing of the accession agreement was followed by a massive operation of airlifting of Indian troops to Srinagar. As per the terms of the accession, Sheikh Abdullah was sworn in as Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir on October 31. The Indian troops pushed back the raiders and re-captured Baramulla, Uri and other areas. When the cease-fire was signed between India and Pakistan 14 months later, the latter was left with a portion of the State.

III

In a famous speech on May 15, 1946 at the height of the Quit Kashmir agitation, Sheikh Abdullah said that the `time has come to tear up the Treaty of Amritsar…Sovereignty is not the birthright of Maharaja Hari Singh.’ When he was arrested by Hari Singh’s government citing this speech, Nehru announced that he would personally head a team of lawyers to defend the Sheikh. Nehru left for Srinagar on June 15 but he was stopped by Hari Singh’s forces before he reached the capital the next day. Nehru was adamant that he would leave Kashmir only after meeting the Sheikh in jail. However, under pressure from the Congress Party, Nehru left Kashmir only to visit again to watch the trial proceedings against the Sheikh later.
The Sheikh was sentenced to imprisonment for three years. Gandhiji himself left for Kashmir on July 30 and met Begum Abdullah to convey the Congress’ support to the jailed leader. By the end of September, the Kashmiri leader was released under pressure from the government of independent India. In his first speech on October 4 after the release, he repudiated the two-nation theory: “We want people’s raj in Kashmir. It will not be a government of any particular community but of all – Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.”
Prime Minister Nehru was vocally committed to his promise that the people of Kashmir would be given the chance to decide their future under the supervision of the U.N. The Indian Constitution awarded J&K a `special status’ through Article 370. The 1951 election to the Constituent Assembly of the State left no one in doubt about the popularity of Sheikh Abdullah and the cause he espoused. The results showed the people’s rejection of Pakistan’s claim to Kashmir. The National Conference (NC) was opposed in only two out of 45 constituencies in the Valley and Ladakh. Nehru himself went to Srinagar to celebrate the victory. It is alleged that the Sheikh had ensured the rejection of nomination of rival candidates and that Nehru himself was complicit in this unethical act.
The Kashmiri leader, however, started showing some ambivalence and toying with the idea of independence or some sort of confederation of India, Pakistan and Kashmir. Predictably, his ambivalence was made best use of by Hindu organisations such as Jana Sangh formed by Shyma Prasad Mookerjee, the Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS and the Jammu Praja Parishad as well as the Akali Dal. Journalist and author M.J. Akbar sums up the Sheikh’s ambivalence in his brilliant book India Under Siege (Lotus Rolli, 2003):

“Part of the reason for the Sheikh’s worry was that India might not always be ruled by a Nehru – indeed, the signs of Hindu bigotry were already visible in the government; partly it was the old ambition to remain independent; and party such thoughts were helped along by the Americans and the British who could recognize the strategic importance of the extraordinary geographical situation of Kashmir, in the centre of five ambitious, substantial powers. The Sheikh now began to talk about a withdrawal of Pakistani troops from Kashmir, Indian demilitarization and then the promised plebiscite conducted by the U N.” (p. 243)

Akbar is among the authors who try to absolve Nehru of any involvement in shaping the plot to remove the Sheikh from power and install Bakshi Gulam Mohammad. But there are disclosures proving that the Prime Minister was not completely oblivious to the moves to dismiss Sheikh Abdullah. A.G. Noorani in his essay, `The Legacy of 1953’, refuses to give a clean chit to Nehru. The Sheikh turned a Thomas Becket to Nehru’s Henry II, he says and shows how Nehru himself had changed:

“The change came, not in the Sheikh, but in his friend, Prime Minister Jawaharlar Nehru, who personally gave the orders for his friend’s dismissal to [Intelligence Bureau Director B.N.] Mullik and his own secretary M.O. Mathai, both on July 31.”

Noorani says that there was a reversal in Nehru’s stand on the question of the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly’s intention to ratify the accession. While Sheikh Abdullah preferred it to plebiscite in October 1951, Nehru opposed it because it would be an embarrassment for the country before the UN. A few months later, Nehru reversed his stand and wanted Kashmir to `finalise’ its relationship to India. Years later, in his speech at the second session of the J&K State People’s Convention on June 8, 1970, Sheikh Abdullah said:

“The final break in our relations came in 1953 when Pandit Jawaharlal suggested that I should get the accession ratified by the Kashmir Constituent Assembly. This change in his attitude baffled me for he had himself opposed it in the past…I strongly advised him against such a step. This led to my removal from the premiership of the State and long imprisonment without trial.” (quoted in A.G. Noorani’s essay `Brought to Heel’)

IV

The plot was thickening against the Sheikh and the efforts of his enemies to unseat him gathered momentum following the death of Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. The Jana Sangh leader had gone to Jammu in June 1953 to lead the agitation against the Sheikh Abdullah’s government. He had been placed under arrest and he died of heart attack in jail. The Sheikh also was vitriolic while attacking his enemies. On August 9, 1953, he was dismissed and arrested along with his colleagues. A new government headed by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad was sworn in. The authorities planted a story that he had been arrested just before crossing over to Pakistan. He was in jail till his release on January 8, 1958. During his term in jail, the J&K Constituent Assembly had ratified the accession.
Sheikh Abdullah’s take was that the accession should not be considered final just because it was confirmed by the Assembly which had lost its democratic character. He called for a fresh election demanding that Kashmiris should be given the right to determine their future. Again charged with treason, he was re-arrested on April 30, 1958. By then, the question of plebiscite was no longer in India’s agenda because the Government realised that after the dismissal and arrest of the Sheikh, the Muslims of Kashmir would rebuff the idea of joining India.
After his release six years later, the Sheikh again seriously proposed his idea of confederation. Nehru’s death on May 27, 1964 marked the beginning of a new era of relationship between Indian establishment and Kashmir. The G.M. Sadiq government then in power changed the special nomenclatures of designations Sadr-i-Riyasat (or President) and Prime Minister of Kashmir into Governor and Chief Minister respectively. Some of the Sheikh’s activities helped the establishment demonise him. His meeting with the Chinese Prime Minister Chou En-lai in Algiers in March 1965 was the trigger. He was arrested when he came back and kept in house arrest in Ootty and Kodaikanal for another 30 months. Jayaprakash Narayan’s letter to Mrs. Indira Gandhi on June 23, 1966 shows the outrage some of the prominent national leaders felt at the Kashmiri leader’s continued detention. “The problem exists not because Pakistan wants to grab Kashmir, but because there is deep and widespread political discontent among the people”, JP wrote.
The discontent among the people in the Valley erupts whenever there is a spark, imaginary or real. The transfer of land to the Amarnath shrine board for setting up facilities for pilgrims to the shrine was just that spark. Pro-Pakistan outbursts of protests by Kashmiri Muslims following an economic blockade by Sangh Parivar-backed groups in Jammu protesting against the revocation of the transfer of land showed the seriousness of that discontent.
Three years after his release from jail, a war broke out between India and Pakistan. The 1971 war crashed all remaining hopes of a solution to the Kashmir issue. India pulled off a decisive victory in December 1971. Kashmir was for all intents and purposes partitioned by the Shimla Agreement signed between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistani leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The cease-fire Line of Control has been the de facto border that divides the two parts of the State since then.
Prolonged negotiations that followed led to what is known as the Kashmir Accord of February 1975 between Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah. The accord gave finality to the accession and the question of any kind of independent status to the State was out of the table. The Sheikh was sworn in as Chief Minister under the accord and fresh elections were held in July 1977. Earlier in March, the Congress, which lost Delhi to Janata Party, had withdrawn support to the Sheikh. The Kashmiri leader proved his mass popularity in the State once again and the Congress won not a single seat in the State election. The State saw stability for the next five years when Sheikh Abdullah remained on the gaddi till his death on September 8, 1982.

V

The recent protest marches in Kashmir, clamping of curfew and police firing to quell the pro-azadi protest were a throwback to the turmoil that the Valley had witnessed in 1984 after the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi dismissed the NC government in the State headed by Dr. Farooq Abdullah, who came to power with a landslide victory in the election held in 1983. The protestors had waved green flags of Pakistan then as they did recently when Kashmir was on the boil. It was true that Dr. Abdullah who had been groomed by his father as his political heir was sworn in as Chief Minister with the Centre’s approval in 1982. In the election, the NC secured 38 per cent of votes in Jammu where Indira Gandhi launched an aggressive campaign against the former. She was accused of appealing to Hindu majoritarianism in Jammu during the poll campaign. And her mobilisation of Hindu sentiments worked in Jammu where the Congress pocketed 23 of 32 Assembly seats, while its performance in the Valley was dismal as it won only two seats. Pro-Pakistan Jamat-e-Islami, which fielded 35 candidates, was completely routed.
But the Congress leadership at the Centre had an axe to grind. The Congress orchestrated defection in the NC to remove Dr. Abdullah and install his arch-rival and brother-in-law G.M. Shah on July 2, 1984. All democratic niceties were thrown to the winds that day. The coup de grace evoked memories the 1953 dismissal of the Sheikh. Special forces were flown to Srinagar surreptitiously the night before the coup to repress any protests. The dismissal of the Farooq Abdullah government was a huge blow to democracy and sparked nation-wide protests by opposition parties. There was a widespread feeling that the dismissal was in retaliation for Dr. Abdullah’s presence at a meeting of opposition leaders convened by N.T. Rama Rao in Vijayavada on May 28, 1982.
The Congress government at the Centre in those years always treated Kashmiri politicians as pawns. After the death of Indira Gandhi, on October 31, 1984, Dr. Abdullah chose a reconciliatory path. The G.M. Shah government, installed undemocratically by Delhi was dismissed by Governor Jagmohan in 1986 citing breakdown of law and order. The Congress this time forged an alliance with Dr. Abdullah who was re-installed ahead of the Assembly elections held in March 1987.
The election saw the emergence of Islamist movement in Kashmir under the umbrella of the Muslim United Front backed by Jamat-e-Islami. The MUF appealed to the resentment of the people and appeared to be a formidable front against the National Conference-Congress alliance. The alliance, however, pulled off a remarkable victory by winning 66 of the total 76 seats. The outcome raised widespread allegations of election rigging and misuse of power. The disillusionment of the people, especially the youth, following that controversial election made Kashmir a fertile ground for secessionist Islamist outfits trained from across the border to start armed militant movements.

VI

“Muslims Awake! Do not barter away your honour and the Kashmir cause by voting. Do not forget the sacrifices of your brothers and sons”, proclaimed a Hizb-ul-Mujahideen poster that appeared in Kashmir during the election campaign in 2002. It warned that “All those who will vote will be shot.” But voters braved the threat and cast their votes. Though the average voter turnout was 44 per cent, the elections were held in a free and fair manner. There were no allegations of rigging and coercion. The National Conference was voted out and the People’s Democratic Party and the Congress joined hands and formed a coalition government.
That election brought new hopes as it brought to an end the government led by Dr. Farooq Abdullah who had already been discredited in the eyes of the people after the controversial 1987 election. He had resigned three years later as the State saw the rise of armed insurgency. The years that followed saw assassinations of pro-accession leaders and government officials, mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, boycott of polls by separatist groups under the umbrella of All Party Hurriyat Conference started in 1993, the army crackdown, the election of Dr. Farooq Abdullah in the 1996 Assembly polls that raised the allegations of soldiers coercing ordinary people into casting their votes and the Vajpayee government’s initiatives to start dialogue with all parties in the State including the separatists.
All those hopes after the 2002 elections have crashed as Jammu and Kashmir regions plunged into turmoil over the Amarnath land transfer issue. The Congress Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned in June 2008 after the PDP withdrew its support in the wake of the mass protests in the Valley over the issue. Pro-azadi slogans were again shouted during massive protest marches in Kashmir and communal passions were stoked by Sangh Parivar outfits in Jammu. Things are now apparently back to the square one.
Perhaps, there will be another spell of lull after the latest outbreak of trouble in the State over the land transfer issue. But it may not be long before there is another issue that comes handy for the people of Kashmir to raise pro-Pakistani or pro-azadi slogans. Plebiscite is no longer seen as a good option today primarily because of the hardening of positions on Kashmir in the rest of the country. An independent Kashmir will give ammunition to the Sangh Parivar to vitiate the situation in the country. The best available option is autonomy. Recommendations of the committee on autonomy constituted by the J&K government in 1996 which envisage the return of Kashmir to pre-1953 status with the Centre’s control over the State limited to defence, foreign affairs and communication may be a good starting point. Of course, there was a vociferous hue and cry when the State Assembly passed a resolution on June 26, 2000 urging the State and Central governments to implement the committee’s report. The resolution adopted with the support of the NC government headed by Dr. Abdullah whipped up passions, with the Sangh Parivar alleging that it was nothing short of treason.
A positive aspect of the whole issue is the refusal of Muslims in the rest of India to express solidarity with separatist demands of Muslim fundamentalist outfits in Kashmir. They know that their interests are best served in secular India and that democracy gives them opportunity to voice their grievances and concerns. In India, Sunnis, Shia Muslims and disparate sects and groups among them are treated with equal respect, something that is unknown in many Islamic countries.
It is time we started a dispassionate and democratic debate on the question of autonomy to Kashmir. A sage-saviour to be approached for deliverance from the demon (Indian state for Kashmiris and Pakistan-aided separatists for us Indians) exists only in the realm of myths.