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Activist? Time to take K-test by Muzaffar Raina

Kashmir, which India considers as the core of its unity in diversity, is turning out to be the Great Divider of the activists.

Medha Patkar, one of the flag-bearers of the activist armada in the country, today termed Kashmir an integral part of India, leaving a section of her supporters embarrassed and fuming.

Patkar, who is also associated with Team Anna whose key member Prashant Bhushan was last week roughed up for apparently backing a plebiscite in Kashmir, was launching a campaign in support of Irom Sharmila, who has been on a marathon fast in Manipur to get a draconian law repealed.

The 10-day Save Irom Sharmila Jan Karwan Yatra from Srinagar to Imphal is aimed at mobilising people against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The march will cover Bengal also and reach the Manipur capital on October 27.

The act is blamed for the disappearance of many people in Kashmir and the opposition to it has drawn some separatists also to Patkar’s campaign.

Kicking off the campaign, Patkar, who acquired a national profile after her campaign against the Narmada dam, said: “It (Kashmir) is an integral part of the Indian democratic state as of today. That is why elections are held and voting takes place.”

The articulation touched a raw nerve. Woman separatist leader Zamrooda Habib said Patkar’s remarks were regrettable. “Medha Patkar was an invitee like us and I personally had gone there to express my solidarity with Irom Sharmila, and not Patkar. If she (Patkar) subscribes to such views, she had better not spoken about the issue to avoid a controversy,” Habib said.

Habib referred to a larger issue that appears to have driven a wedge through Team Anna and prompted Hazare to distance himself from Bhushan’s purported statement on Kashmir.

“India’s civil society claims to be apolitical but when it comes to Kashmir, they toe the line of their political parties,” Habib said.

Fissures were evident among the organisers of the campaign themselves, suggesting that the divisions are not confined to Team Anna alone but have spread to the wider activist firmament.

Sandeep Pandey, a Magsaysay award winner who launched the yatra along with Patkar, slammed Team Anna members. “Anna has been in the military. If you serve in the government and especially in the armed forces, obviously it will be difficult to overcome the feeling of nationalism,” he said.

“People like us who believe in Gandhian philosophy feel that nationalism, caste, region or religion have divided people. The entire problem is about the concept of the nation state. We have to get rid of this concept and have a world where there are no national boundaries,” he added.

Hazare himself was not available for a response, having launched a “maun vrat” under a banyan tree near a temple in his village in Maharashtra. The vow of silence has come after a week of roller-coaster comments that suggested divisions among his supporters, especially on Kashmir.

Diverse opinions on Kashmir once used to be part of the national discourse but writer Arundhati Roy had run into howls of protest over comments on the Valley that were termed seditious by critics and some television commentators. A case is pending against her.

Since then, Kashmir appears to have become some kind of a Tebbit test for activists, the one-time patriotism yardstick for cricket fans in England.

Those associated with NGOs and analysing issues in Kashmir said two fears might be driving activists like Patkar to endorse the Indian state’s position on Kashmir.

One, widespread disapproval in the mainland, and, more important, the apprehension that another reshaping of the India map on communal lines may entail a terrible price for secular India. These analysts, who did not want to be named, apprehend that Kashmir’s severance from India — another Partition — will unleash a backlash in India and minorities across the country will be made to pay a price for a division they have neither sought nor have any stake in.

Another school of liberals, driven more by the press of undying Kashmiri sentiment, and perhaps less by the possible consequences of its secession, feels that “insecurity” is driving people like Patkar. “Medha’s pro-India sentiments are a result of nervousness,” sociologist Ashis Nandy said. “They are not willing to remember that at one point India had agreed to a plebiscite in Kashmir.”

Asked what provoked such nervousness, Nandy added: “Basically, it is their realisation that what has been happening in Kashmir (what the Indian government is doing there) is morally and ethically wrong. The more they know and realise this, the more nervous they become about accepting the reality.”

In Srinagar today, Patkar did not pull any punches on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which she termed a “symbol of vulgar and brutal violence in India”.

“Irom Sharmila has been fighting against this act which is applicable in northeastern states and J&K. People are fed up with army rule. They (the army) are involved in unlawful activities whether it is disappearances or killing without reason or rationale,” she said.